Sycophantic Laughter: Olympic Screams... See What I Did There?

I declare that it has been far too long since I've gone on a rant or bitched to a great extent about something. To remedy this I'll speak about the 2012 Olympics that are currently going on in London. When watching the Olympics I can't help but think about how many athletes will have their medals stripped years from now for testing positive for banned substances. The Olympics used to seem like such a big deal to me, but now that I'm older I honestly could care less about the overwhelming majority of the events that make up the Olympics. I'm biased, but I only care about the track events. While I like soccer, Olympic soccer is not allowed to be great because all the players have to be under 23, with 3 exceptions. That rule definitely doesn't exist just to keep the spotlight on the World Cup. Think about it, if all the players from a country were allowed to participate in the Olympics then how would that competition be any different from the World Cup? Not to sound like a total ass clown, but I belittle the Olympics with the exception of the track portion.

Another thing I think should not be used in Olympic competition are sports that are judged. I like competition that's straight forward. You know if a team or competitor won if they got to the finish line first or scored more points than the opponent. I don't like the subjective scoring of events like gymnastics. I'm not claiming that the judged sports aren't incredibly difficult, because they are, but who is to say if one person is better than someone else? I think there's far too much grey area here. One set of judges might determine three people to take gold, silver, and bronze while a different set of judges could possibly choose three other athletes. I just think it's way too subjective. And the point deductions, how the hell do they come up with those? There's probably some method that I don't care enough to look up, but no two people are going to screw up in the exact same way, there are unlimited possibilities.

I've also been very annoyed about all the talk surrounding "Blade Runner," or Oscar Pistorius. There has been great debate about him using prosthetic legs to compete in the Olympics. I side with the people who thinks he should NOT be allowed to complete. Mostly because I'm an asshole, but more because he IS getting an unfair advantage. Some moron on the radio said he wasn't getting an advantage because he didn't win anything, he only made it to the semifinal. So does that mean it's ok to use performance enhancing drugs as long as you don't actually win anything? I call bullshit, he does get an unfair advantage. You want to know why? Take those prosthetic legs away from him and then let's see if he can qualify for the Olympics. I'm not an expert in anything, but I'm rather certain he would not make it. If you don't have legs, then you can't run. It's as simple as that. I have nothing against the guy, I'm glad he makes the effort to be an incredible athlete, but it's just not fair. Why not just use science to make the best athletes possible then? And by the way, Blade Runner is not a complement. However, Pistorius should be nicknamed "Replicant," not Blade Runner. Blade Runners are normal people, to the best of my knowledge, and in the movie Blade Runner they are hunting down Replicants, which are bio engineered or biorobitic beings. Meaning that these replicants are not all human, a people enhanced by science. If that's fair, then anyone competing in the Olympics should be allowed to use steroids or HGH.

Also, can I point out how poorly NBC has planned to broadcast some interesting events? As a track runner I'm very interested in the running events, but unless I watch them live on the computer, because apparently I can't watch them live on t.v., then I have to wait until nearly midnight to watch some great races. I wouldn't mind this so much if they were on near midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, but NBC is using this scheduling program on Sundays and Mondays. Hell they'll probably do it all week. What they do is start coverage at about 7 or 8 p.m. and show an interview with Michael Phelps that had already been aired. Speaking of Phelps, my Joe do they like to stroke his dong. I'm not done with Phelps, he's the subject of my next paragraph. So they start coverage at about 7 or 8 and have interviews and stories I could care less about. Then they show like diving or some event that I could also care less about. I want to see the men's 100m final! Oh wait, I can't because I want to go to bed so I can get a decent amount of sleep. Joe damn it NBC, you should have let Jack Donaghey do the television scheduling for the Olympics.

It's because I'm a replicant isn't it?

So back to Phelps now. Like Pistorius, I have nothing against Phelps. He is a tremendous athlete competing within the limits of his sport, swimming. I'm not going to argue that he isn't the greatest swimmer of all time, but I don't like when he's referred to as the greatest Olympian of all time. Yes, he does have a tremendous amount of medals, I think 18 gold, which is absolutely absurd. However, I think you have to be a swimmer to garner that many medals. I can't think of any other sport where an athlete would be able to get so many medals. Then you look at sports like soccer and basketball. These sports have a tournament system in the Olympics and there are only 3 medals for the entire tournament! I also would not include track and field as a sport where you can win that many medals. The only way I think that would be possible is if they made more events, like having the 100m sprint as normal, the 100m sprint backwards, the 100m wheelbarrow race, the 100m skip, and so on. Only then would a runner have a chance to capture so many medals. I think the nature of the swimming sport allows there to be far more medals that are reachable by the same athlete. Not to take anything away from what Phelps, or any other swimmer has accomplished, because they are great athletes, especially Phelps.

Writing this post was incredibly fun. There's something about ranting and/or writing posts in an angry fashion, they just come out so smoothly. There you have it, some of my views on the Olympics, take them or leave them, I'm apathetic so it doesn't bother me.