Friday, August 22, 2008

Olympic gold lame'

I was sympathizing with Canada's low medal count over at The Saipan SCUBA Diving Blog. Well, not so much maybe: I wondered why the horses didn't get to stand on the podium.

That brought back familiar Deep Thoughts. Every four years I gnash my teeth about events like ribbon twirling, Busby Berkeley swimming, badminton... you get the idea; it's out of control.

What does a medal count mean when you can get one for walking like you've got hemorrhoids? Swimming? Sure. Track and Field, though I'm not sure about pole-vaulting-- okay, I almost impaled myself several times trying it out. The decathlon should be the premier event.

Where do we stop with the martial sports? Sumo? Wrestling is fine; it's hard to think of a sport that's more Greek. But Judo, Taekwondo and boxing?

Skeet shooting? Come on, is that before or after the fox hunting? All of the shooting is lame, unless the host country gets to pick the weapon. Kalashnikovs at 100 meters-- yeah! Maybe the modern pentathlon is all right, but there are those horses again.

Trampoline? Right, with Jimmy Kimmel as a commentator. What kind of sport has judges?

Enough, I don't want to wade through every event. (Or watch a lot of them either.) Besides, that's already been done on the Real Man's Olympics website. It ranks countries' medal totals by the manliness of the sports. You can change each sport's weight to suit your own taste. Fair warning, this is a MISOGYNY ALERT, so don't rag on me if you follow the link. Hard to believe, he left the horses out.

I'll relent a little: I'm not against a lot of the sports that don't belong, I just think the meaning of the Olympics got watered down over the years. Also, it would be a little disheartening to spend most of your life training only to have some stuffed-shirt Olympic Committee say "Nevermind."

4 comments:

bigsoxfan said...

That dude (an assumption, but I'll bank it) has way too much time on his hands. I do too, since I read all the way down the list. Very Un-Pc. The Mongolian judge gives him a seven. He would have scored higher if he gave women credit for shooting a gun well. And what is up with air pistols? If it smells like cordite, it's allright. Smells like O2, leave it alone.

KAP said...

Another thing about those horses: They cheat and the riders get suspended too.

Anonymous said...

you're not watching enough tube, dude:

waht about
BMX

KAP said...

That's arrested development. Are they testing the bikes, too? Covering up non-approved logos?

Do they umm, collect fluids from the horses?

So many questions.