morning lineup firegeezer on 09 Aug 2008 07:44 am
Morning Lineup - August 9
It’s time to hunker down for the quadrennial Olympic onslaught. Two weeks worth of hype and hollering by the TV people who try to convince us that there’s nothing in the world more exciting that watching a bunch of people in their skivvies run as fast as they can for 10.4 seconds. Excuse me if I don’t miss a meal because of it.
The Olympic “ideal” is nice in itself, that of providing a venue for the best athletes of each country to gather and compete for the ultimate prize and to chase the elusive record times for their event. It’s great that they can do that. But the Ideal was bespoiled long ago when the Olympics dumped the purism of amateur participation to allow professional athletes to compete.
Sometime about 30 years ago the self-appointed leaders of the Olympic committee realized that they were sitting on a money machine and decided to make the most of it. First, they trademarked the name and symbols, effectively locking up the generic terms and making them proprietary. Then they established a hierarchy of nation-level committees filled with their cohorts in exploiting the program.
Along with eliminating the amateur benchmark, they expended great sums of money and effort to convince a guillable public that their traveling roadshow is the greatest experience you could ever witness. By requiring participants along with the host nations to pay for everything themselves, the Olympic Committee have enriched themselves beyond description. And in many cases the national committees have followed their lead and created a lot of personal wealth with their monopoly on the running and jumping business.
Personally, I enjoy watching some of the Winter Games. They provide some genuine excitement, like the ski jumps, slaloms, and hockey games. But I fail to see the thrill in watching somebody hurl a spear or a cannonball across the yard. If you’ll watch the television you will see an endless promotion for upcoming programs, interviews with people you don’t particularly want to know about anyway, and large gaps filled with commercials. If you stick around long enough, you’ll see a pause for 40 seconds while a few people run a lap and maybe jump over something along the way.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t share the excitement of watching somebody else play volleyball or shoot their pistols at a distant target. For me, the only thing that’s more boring than track is field.
But let’s take a break from boredom and get this equipment checked out. I’ll make some exciting coffee (Watch it drip!!).
p.s. The only summer athletic event, the only one, that has never been tainted with professional participation is rowing.
