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I love sports and sports journalism, but that does not make me a fan of the
Olympic Games, which begin on August 8, 2008; Make that 8/8/8.
Here's why.
The national anthems. I think we've got the best national anthem in the world (USA! USA!), but the spirit of the games is not about nationalism, but the crossing of cultures. Yeah, right. Red Sox and Yankee fans are to baseball, what American fans are to the Olympics: obnoxious, self-centered, and excessively entitled.
No nudity. The athletes in the original Olympic Games performed in their birthday suits. So what have we done with some of the best bodies on the planet -- those belonging to Olympic swimmers? We wrapped them up in some
space-age, performance-enhancing swimsuit. Thank, God, at least, for beach volleyball.
Cheating. Even though I kind of miss the East German women with their near beards and bulging Adam's apples,
I'm officially against cheating. Cheating -- taking bribes and taking dives -- goes all the way back to the original Olympics. There are cases in which ancient cheaters, including one wrestler whose nickname was "The Sprinkler," had to pay fines which were used to commission statues to the gods. No matter what precautions are taken, there will be cheating in these games, it will be revealed, medals will be returned, and it will suck.
China. Yeah, I get it, Great Wall, yada yada. I like to watch big sports events live, thank you, but not this go around. There is this little problem called
the time difference created by that damned rotation of the earth. The network will manipulate the timing of events for its own commercial interests, with tedious teases, features and promos.
More China. The modern Olympics are almost always about politics. As often as they bring us together, they tear us apart. Think Jesse Owens, or Munich or Moscow. China is still an authoritarian state with
human rights problems we will be encouraged to ignore.
Up close and personal. NBC has developed ways of attracting a female audience to the games, under the misapprehension that they've got the male, sports-loving audience in the bag. The feminization of the games includes excessive coverage of certain sports, such as gymnastics. It also includes mostly boring efforts to humanize the athletes by showing us soft, time-wasting features.
The sob story. It's not enough for an
athlete these days to train hard to win events. It also seems a requirement now that the athlete should have overcome some personal demon or tragedy: "And just think, Matt, not only did she win a silver medal, but she won it just four months after the death of her favorite aunt Tilley who bought her her first pair of running shoes."
Women's gymnastics. These amazing athletes put on quite a show, but
at what cost? That is the question more and more athletes and journalists have been asking. The violation of normal childhoods, the grinding practice schedules, the starvation diets, none of these can be healthy for the physical or emotional lives of these young women, some of whom will not menstruate for the first time until they are in their 20s.
NBC. They've invested a lot in these games, and want a return on their investment. But I'm already tired of the endless promotions, too many of which pass themselves off as news features on programs like the "Today" show.
The Rays. We are into August, and the
Tampa Bay Rays are the most amazing story in baseball -- in first place, ahead of the Yankees and the Red Sox. Anything sports-related that distracts me from this pennant race is not worth watching.
