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Next
week we start the Olympics in Greece. Not that 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These games might be too out of date for our modern athletic, so why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.
© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com |
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