fling93 loves fishies

An Olympic Rant

Well, I haven’t been watching the Olympics at all. I’m not even sure if they’re still going or not, that’s how much I haven’t been paying attention. With my luck (and my tendency to procrastinate), they’re long since over, and this rant’s way too late to stop anybody from watching them (not that any of you should ever listen to me tell you what to do anyway), but I want to get it off my chest now. I can always link to this every four years anyway.

And unlike my other so-called rant, this will actually be a real rant, and just so that you can tell, I will use the f-word very frequently. So if that offends you — well, duh! That’s the whole point! That’s why they call it a rant and not a frickin’ lullaby.

Part of the reason I’m fucking ignoring them (see, I told you!) is that I’m trying to limit the amount of time I spend on sports, since it’s not really the most productive use of my time. But the main reason is cuz I just don’t believe in the fucking Olympics, which is all about politics and money. And it’s been that way for as long as I can remember. What is supposed to be a celebration of amateur athletics has become a win-at-all-costs competition between countries for the most fucking medals. Why the fuck is it about the countries? It’s supposed to be about the athletes, but instead, it’s become another excuse for governments to blatantly stoke the flames of nationalism. Oh, what a fucking worthy goal.

This leads to utter ridiculousness. Why should an athlete be forced to qualify for their country’s Olympic team? This penalizes athletes in countries who already have a lot of other good athletes in that sport. And of course, athletes in that situation will just move to other countries where the competition isn’t as fierce, so this is such a fucking artificial distinction (and you thought Hilary Clinton and Alan Keyes were fuckin’ carpetbaggers — but at least voters can take that into account and penalize them accordingly).

And when it’s the countries that are competing, you inevitably get a lot of fucking politics. It was worse during the Cold War, when countries would often boycott the entire Olympics just because they were being hosted by a country they didn’t like. The obvious result of this would be to punish their own athletes, whereas rewarding the athletes of the hated country, who then had an easier time winning medals. How fucked up is that? But it hasn’t stopped with the Cold War. Surely you remember in 2002, in the “sport” known as figure skating where the Canadian team of Sale and Pelletier wiped the floor (or should I say ice?) with everyone else, but the judges gave the gold to a Russian team that made several glaring mistakes. There was such an uproar that officials were forced to investigate, and to nobody’s surprise, they uncovered a vote-swapping scheme between the French and Russian judges.

Do you honestly think this was the first time that’s happened? Right, and Sammy Sosa used a corked bat for just that one fucking time. Puh-lease! The only reason this one came out was because it was so fucking obviously blatant. In fact, many have suspected for a while that ice-dancing scores are pre-determined. Usually, it’s just a difference of a point here or there, so nobody notices. Or if they do, concerns are just brushed aside, so everybody suspects but nobody knows for sure. And this happens in other judged sports as well.

Like when Oksana Baiul beat Nancy Kerrigan in 1994. Certainly it was close, and Baiul might have deserved the medal — but the five judges that voted for Baiul were all from countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain, and the four that voted for Kerrigan were all from the West. What the fuck!? And there are more blatant examples. In 1988, American Roy Jones thoroughly dominated a South Korean boxer, only to have the judges award the gold medal to the Korean — and this was in Seoul. Even the Korean boxer admitted he shouldn’t have won! Indeed, I’ve read that some of the judges fucking admitted to accepting bribes from Korean officials. The tables were turned quite similarly (although much less publicized here, obviously) back in 1984, when Canadian Shawn O’Sullivan outboxed his American competitor but the judges thought otherwise (near the bottom of the page) — and this was in Los Angeles. Un-fucking-believable! Even the American crowd booed that biased decision.

Of course, the typical male response from guys like Josh Elliott and Dan Drezner is to whine about how judged sports aren’t real sports and then call for them to be dumped from the Olympics. Not to get into that whole debate, but even if you buy the “not a real sport” argument, there are two problems. First of all, this is addressing a symptom, not the root cause. The real problem is that the countries want to win, and countries (unlike amateur athletes) wield tremendous leverage over judges. Getting rid of judged sports just means the cheating and politicking will have to find a way around it (much like soft money found their way around McCain-Feingold to the 527s, an improvement, but not a solution). After all, if you’ve ever watched basketball, you know that the referees routinely and blatantly botch charging, blocking, and goaltending calls all the time (not to mention deciding how much time is left on the clock). And countries could cheat in other ways, like manipulating the steroid testing so that their own athletes get away with it more often.

Oh, fuck! That was a whole fucking paragraph without a single “fuck”! Lemme catch the fuck up. Fuckingly fuck the fucking fuck the fuckity fucky fuck fuckhead, the fuck that fucky shit (look, diversification!) fuck.

Where was I? Oh yeah, judged events. Secondly, and more importantly, there’s no fucking chance in hell that the Olympics will ever dump them. They get way too much television ratings (and the scandals might even help). And if there’s one thing that the Olympics are about (besides blatant nationalism and politics and steroids), it’s money! This is so fucking obvious, I don’t know why Laura McKenna or Echidne even wonder about women’s beach volleyball. I mean, yes it’s a real sport (try playing it sometime), but of course the bikinis are for the television ratings.

And as you know, there’s nothing more in the spirit of amateur athletics than corporate and government sponsorships that allow athletes to do nothing but train, day and night. This way, they kick ass, the country wins a ton of medals, the athletes gets rich and famous, the corporate sponsors get the exposure they want, the media gets plenty of ratings, the taxpayers get bragging rights, and there’s money all around. How fucked up is that? Isn’t the whole point of amateur athletics is that the athlete isn’t getting any money to play the sport, thus proving that they’re doing all their training in their spare time for the love of the sport? But noooo, because less taxpayer money towards training means fewer American medalists, which means less ratings, and we can’t have that, now, can we?

And to top it all off, the Olympics website has an outrageously idiotic and ignorant linking policy with strict restrictions on the link text and requiring that you send them a fucking letter to request permission. Shyeah, right! Fuck that. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the IOC barred all athletes and coaches from starting personal blogs until after the Olympics were over. Why? “To protect lucrative broadcast contracts” and because “the interests of broadcast rightsholders and accredited media come first” (if it’s not already obvious, mainstream media is deathly afraid of bloggers).

The only good thing about the Olympics is the John Williams theme music. It’s so catchy, that I can’t help whistling it. But argh, no! That’s just free advertising for them! Curse you, John Williams! CURSE YOU!!

Er, I mean FUCK YOU!! Man, this ranting thing is harder than I thought.