My love/hate affair with the Olympics
August 26th, 2008The Olympics are over, so I can stop caring about boring sporting events, such as swimming. Michael Phelps won eight gold medals. That’s impressive, but they were all for swimming. Not one of those medals was for something other than swimming. Imagine if the beach volleyball players had the chance to win 8 medals, depending on various factors. Such events might include fire volleyball, beach volleyball with finer beach sand, barefoot volleyball, only 2 hits per side volleyball, slightly taller net volleyball, hot sand volleyball, quick change of clothes volleyball and relay volleyball. There were so many opportunities for Phelps to win gold, and he didn’t even swim in the other 762 swimming events.
My uncle thinks synchronized events should not be in the Olympics. I would argue that only synchronized events should be in the Olympics. If it can’t be synchronized, then it’s usually not worth watching. I had the pleasure of viewing a few synchronized swimming events on prime time. Not only do they swim upside-down, they do crazy tricks and smile the entire time. Try that, Michael Phelps.
Was I the only American rooting for Hungary to beat the Americans in water polo? Was I the only American watching water polo? It’s Hungary’s national sport, according the the announcer. Let them have the gold. I thought it was just a game kids played in the community pool. I was surprised to see water polo a legitimate Olympic sport. Is Marco Polo an Olympic sport, too? I imagine the water polo team to be the guys who didn’t quite make the cut for football, so they collectively said, “let’s put on ear muffs and speedos and play soccer in the pool, but use our hands.”
I somehow missed the event where they throw up a ribbon, do a few break dance moves, and catch the ribbon. That might be my all time favorite Olympic event. Make that a synchronized event and the International Olympics Committee would win the gold…in my heart. Now that I think of it, what happened to the other 4,000 events? During prime time, NBC just showed beach volleyball, swimming, running and swimming.
Now please excuse me while I become a facebook fan of Phelps.


