How China Shanghaied the Olympics and other 5 ringed thoughts

I’ve been mildly interested in the Olympics this year. I’ll be the first to admit that they don’t quite have the cachet that they did during my “cold war” youth. Even though the Medal Tracker is still closely followed as a proxy war between fiercely nationalistic countries it still isn’t as compelling as when we actually had miles of missiles pointed at each other. Some thoughts….

• As expected China’s efforts to anoint itself as the world’s leader have been met with justified skepticism. Despite a security force the size of Bangladesh there are still stories of protests being quashed and insanely basic liberties being curtailed. China wants to appear open only as long as it doesn’t interfere with its government’s carefully crafted agenda.


• Evidently China has sort of cheated in making its Olympic presentation. The stories of lip synching and fake fireworks during the opening ceremonies are already old news. China has also done a number of other things to gloss its issues. This hilarious take from Rick Reilly dives deeper into this matter. Don’t get me wrong, China has done a great job of effectively hosting the Olympics. Just a word of advice, however. Don’t try too hard to be something that you're not (A country with acceptable human rights) and don’t overly embellish an already impressive city. (Creating fake facades to cover up blighted parts of town or displacing citizens.


• The fact that baseball and softball are being dropped from the Olympics leaves one with a puzzled stare. It’s darn right baffling when you consider all of the other stupid events that they are feverishly adding such as trampoline jumping, badminton, or competitive walking. The games are already full of enough stupid events, why pull out a couple of legitimate ones? The response for their departure was that they were too U.S. dominated. What the….? Baseball has a very global following and if they were following that same stupid logic then why not get rid of table tennis or badminton. Those are both sports that no one other then China gives a damn about.


• Here’s an interesting observation. If you subtract all of the events that are dependent on subjective judging then the medal count gap between the U.S. and China becomes three times wider then it currently is. Does anyone smell any hometown cooking? Keep in mind that it is the year of the rat.


• I sure hope that there is a team of scientists down in Jamaica trying to figure out what they are putting in their Kool-Aid. This is insane. How can one small nation full of ganja and dreadlocks be this fast? Is it the training program? I don’t know. I heard something about Jamaican people having extra fast twitch muscles or something. I don’t know what that means and I don’t know how that could be isolated to just that little island. Regardless I’ll be the first to admit that they’ve got the best celebrations of any victors. It’s good to see them so happy. They haven’t had much to cheer about ever since they lost Bob Marley.


• The whole Spanish/Argentina team photos smacks of hypocrisy. They received virtually no condemnation for their racist poses. The hyper sensitive U.S. press would have demanded that the U.S. team withdraw from the tournament should they have done anything remotely similar. It’s weird how quick our media is to condemn actions within our own country and how easy they justify the boneheaded decisions of people in other places.


• So how long does Michaels Phelps mania last? A year? A month? I give him a Wheaties Box cover, a visit to the White House, and two months before the nation moves on and he is forgotten only to be remembered again years from now when his name pops up as a Trivia Pursuit question. Don't get me wrong. What he accomplished was down right incredible. Its just that our collective attention span is measured in miliseconds and swimming is a sport that will only draw our attention once every four years.