Next
week we start the Olympics in Greece. Not there is
anything wrong with that.
I’d like
to suggest that we make a few minor changes to their
routine so that the whole thing wouldn’t be quite as
boring. Oh, not that all of it is, but you know what I
mean. It seems to me that we have drifted away from the
true Olympic events and have kind of morphed into a
conglomeration of sports contests, which don’t make a lot
of sense in some areas.
For
example, some of the events have team efforts such as
baseball, softball and basketball. These aren’t supported
by many countries and thus have limited appeal, why have
them when so few watch or care about the outcome? Couldn’t
we have picked the logical winner when Michael Jordan and
the Dream Team played a few years ago? Come on, I thought
this was a contest for amateurs and not professionals
making tons of money.
How did
we get to the point where we have so many water sports
with entrants from countries with little water? This is
like Jamaica having a bobsled team in the winter Olympics.
Kayaking, rowing and sailing need to be discontinued. Same
goes for synchronized swimming. Next thing you know
they’ll be wanting to let the New York City Rocketts enter
into some contest or another.
I always
thought the Olympics were mainly marathons, track and
field events with individuals competing for the gold. How
did we manage to get 298 events on the menu?
Somehow I
don’t think it’s fun to have events in which only one or
two countries are the only participants. Looks to me like
we’d want to open the whole thing up to capitalize on the
maximum number of athletics that we could from as many
countries as possible.
Since
when did the trampoline get to be an event? Where have
these guys been training, in someone’s back yard? I guess
the kid next door I see bouncing up over the fence now and
then could very well be a future gold medal winner.
How about
Olympic jacks? I see kids playing jacks from time to time
and think our neighborhood ought to consider sponsoring
one of our neighborhood girls who could beat anyone in
France with humpties. Marbles, do kids still play marbles?
If so, then no reason why they couldn’t be spotlighted.
We don’t
play stickball in this part of the country, but I’d be
willing to bet a team from New York could bring home the
gold every four years.
These
games might be too out of date for our modern athletic, so
why not open up the competition to our sports playing
computer games? I’d match just about any kid in this
country with a Game boy against some kid in Africa who has
never even seen one, much less played it for any length of
time.
Of
course, we shouldn’t just restrict our new concepts to the
youth of today. What about dominoes or canasta or bridge?
Those could be major events of interest to the rest of the
world. I’d be in favor of combining the senior Olympics
with the summer games. Get some maturity in there. One can
just imagine the 500-meter walker race. Or the pie plate
throw instead of the discus. It boggles the mind to think
of the various possibilities, doesn’t it? Gardening might
be a big winner or synchronized yard mowing. Timed hedge
trimming is something I’d enjoy.
But,
let’s get serious again…. the Olympics were meant to be
games against individuals in a selected group of events.
With the cream of the crop trained athletics competing
against each other. Not a contest with the richest nations
sending top professionals in to compete against entrants
from other countries without any possibility of winning,
or contest that have only four or five entrants in them.
Let’s get
back to being real and what’s important and take the egos
out for good.
