August 25, 2008 - PPM - The Olympic Lames

This week’s PET PEEVE MONDAY has been brewing for the last 17 days. It has to do with the Beijing Olympics.

It’s not about the overt Nationalism and the all-important country medal counts.

It’s not about the child abuse exhibited by China in their exploitation of their women’s (girls’) gymnastic team.

It’s not about the events happening at inconvenient times for my TV watching. China actually utilizes a single time zone for the entire country. It just isn’t my time zone.

My PEEVE concerns how the Olympics are supposed to celebrate world-class athletes. You have to wonder how some activities can be considered Olympics Sports.

Archery, Canoeing, and Fencing are Olympic Medals sports. They used be activities reserved for summer camp.

China received 16% of their overall medals from Badminton and Table Tennis. I last played Badminton, OK, Never. If I did I would have to turn in my “Dude Card”. As for Table Tennis, we call it Ping Pong or in some cases “Beer Pong”.

Men’s Field Hockey – Do they wear pink? Really, Men’s Field Hockey?

Rhythmic Gymnastics - This is where very flexible women use hula-hoops, streamers, or balls during a dance routine. Sounds eerily like what I saw in a seedy Bangkok establishment 10 years ago. What’s next, Slinkys on escalators?

Sailing had 11 events, with 9 different boat types, resulting in 33 medals. Kayaking had three levels of competition. Shooting had seven different gun types and positions. Multiple weapons and skill levels sounds more like Halo 3 than the Olympics.

The Modern Pentathlon combines fencing, swimming, shooting, show horse riding, and cross country running. I think I saw this amalgamation before the opening credits on the last James Bond movie.

I think the Olympics should be limited to Gymnastics, Track and Field, Swimming and Diving.

Baseball and Softball have been eliminated as Olympic Sports for 2012. You could argue that Basketball, Tennis, and Soccer already have World Championships that rate above the Olympic stage. I think the IOC should look at some of the other so-called Sports.

After eliminating the redundancy and non-sports, the IOC should re-work other categories.

This year, the US track relays teams dropped the baton twice. I bet if you replaced the baton with rolled-up paper drafts of their Endorsement Deals, they wouldn’t have dropped them.

I think in order to save time; you could merge some sports.

You could combine BMX Racing and Fencing and call it Modern Day Jousting.

If you joined Synchronized Swimming, Shooting, and Canoeing into one event, it could be dramatic. It sounds like Deliverance, only with better choreography.

I think any event with shooting, single elimination, and sudden death would help ratings and move things along.