My Olympics Rant -- The 30 Somethings *Look-A-Like* Forum

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Date Posted: 23:42:14 02/22/02 Fri
Author: DeepFriedCat
Subject: My Olympics Rant

Is it just me, or should the name of the Olympics be changed to the "Whine-a-lympics"? Or maybe the "Waaaaaah-lympics"?

Cases in point:

1. Pairs Figure Skating - After the short program, the Russian pair was in first place and the Canadian pair was in second place. In the long program, the Canadians clearly skated a better program than the Russians, but the Russians won the gold medal anyway. The way I understand the judging (which is about as easy to figure out as U.S. tax law), if one of the top three pairs wins the long program, that pair automatically wins the gold. But maybe the Russians were rewarded for skating a more difficult program than the Canadians or something. Anyway, the protests of the outcome were fierce (I thought Scott Hamilton was going to blow out his remaining testicle over it), and NBC launched an all-out media blitz for the Canadians. All this could have been seen as just sour grapes, when lo and behold, there were allegations of vote-swapping among some of the judges. So the Canadians got duplicate gold medals, the Russians got to keep their original gold medals, and everyone went back to their sandboxes, happy and content. Then came the...

2. Men's 1500-Meter Short Track Speed Skating - The American skater makes a bold move from fifth to second near the end of the race and then tries to take the lead from the Korean skater; he is unsuccessful, and the Korean skater wins the race. Moments after the boos from the crowd begin (very poor taste, IMHO), the announcer announces that the Korean skater has been disqualified and the American skater will win the gold medal, after all. Now, the Korean skater is way upset (justifiably so, IMHO) but, according to the NBC talking head, there is no appeal process in short track, so that's just the way it is. The same talking head said that it appeared the Korean skater was guilty of what is called "cross-tracking"; apparently, skaters must "stay in their lane" on the straightaway, much like in track & field; they can only change positions on turns, or something like that (see the tax law comment above). So NBC's American media darling wins the gold, the Korean skater gets screwed out of the gold (IMHO), and the world goes on. Now we have...

3. Women's Figure Skating - In a wild competition, American Sarah Hughes skates the performance of her life and the two favorites, American Michelle Kwan and Russian Irina Slutskaya (I love and, at the same time, hate that last name, btw), have less that stellar programs, resulting in Sarah leap-frogging all the way from fourth place after the short program to the gold medal, with Irina winning the silver and Michelle the bronze. Apparently, Sarah won the gold by winning an artistic-marks tie-breaker over Irina (which anyone watching could see was justified, IMHO). So now, the Russian team has filed a protest with the IOC and the ISU, claiming that Irina should get the gold since the Russian pair was screwed out of their shining moment. The Russians are even threatening to leave the Games, boycott the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, and hold their own big sporting event for nations that aren't "appreciated" by the judges and the IOC.

Am I the only one that sees these kinds of temper tantrums as possibly the beginning of the end of the Olympics? Maybe the IOC can add the first-ever event to be held in both the Winter and Summer Games... the Litigation Relays!

I mean, come on, people... GROW UP!!! GIVE ME A FREAKIN' BREAK!!!

There.... I feel better now....

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[> I laughed, I cried...great recap:) -- Googie, 21:47:50 02/23/02 Sat

They need some cheese to go with their whine.

Unfortunately, as long as politics and big money are part of the Olympics, there will always be whiners with an angle.

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