Like a car crash on the other side of the highway, I can’t help but gawk at the Winter Olympics. I really don’t need the distraction, but those drones opening night were awesome, and the Slopeside Snowboarding is kinda badass. Yet there are some stupid, loathsome things about this event we need to talk about.
Let’s start with the obvious:
Curling Is Not A Sport
It’s shuffleboard with brooms but without Pina Coladas. It’s stupid. No one breaks a sweat. No one risks injury. This is a loathsome excuse for a sport.
It’s as lame as “Rhythmic Gymnastics” was back in the 80’s, where they gave medals to young girls prancing around with a ribbon on a stick. It does not qualify as Olympic material. For one, simple reason:
If I am fit enough to do it, it cannot possibly be an Olympic sport.
Hell, Homer Simpson won a gold medal in Curling. I rest my case.
Yet these people keep trying to sucker me into watching it, and I refuse. Our women’s team is in a distant 8th place, without much hope, and that match between Italy and the USA men’s team was not “thrilling” as they said. I’ve seen more “thrilling conclusions” on the Lido deck of a blue-hair cruise.
Suddenly I’m A Fashion Critic
I’m probably one of the least fashionable people you know, but all of a sudden, when the Olympics are on, I’m some kind of fashion expert. And boy can I be critical.
I can tell you everything that’s wrong with the national outfits in the opening ceremony. I can pontificate on why that greased-up, bare-chested Tongan guy needs to knock it off and put a shirt on. Because even I know that what’s cool in the summer games is totally creepy in the winter.
I seem to have the gift of knowing everything that should be fixed with each team’s uniforms. And I’m not shy or kind with my opinions.
Like how horrible our women’s speedskating outfits look. Have you seen them? They are a solid blackish color throughout, except, for some strange reason, they have an eye-catching pattern throughout the groinal region. This makes for an unfortunate visual.
When our gals finish a race and bend over to catch their breath, the effect is most unseemly. No other team uniform has this feature and for a darn good reason. It’s a horrible look and impossible to ignore.
The Loathsome Announcers
Don’t get me wrong, there are some real pros broadcasting in the Olympics. But there are some loathsome clowns working it too.
Like the guy working the Men’s 1500 meter speed skating event. American Shani Davis was slightly ahead of his opponent at the start of their heat. The announcer began lavishing Davis with praise and called him a transcendent skater.
Then he threw him under the bus for questioning how the American flag bearer was chosen. That seemed uncool. Why cause me to think less of the guy while you’re rampaging on how awesome he is?
But it got worse. As the announcer rambled on, Shani fell behind his opponent, had his ass handed to him at the finish line, and ended up in 19th place for the event.
But the announcer was oblivious to all of this. Shani got blown away on the ice as this guy was going on and on about how dominant a skater he was. It was embarrassing.
Had the announcer paid attention to the race and not his script, we could have appreciated Shani’s Olympic swan song. He was the first African American to ever win Winter Olympic individual medal and he held 9 World Records. We could have appreciated Shani’s past greatness and acknowledged his opponent’s greater performance that day. But not with this loathsome guy on the mic…
There are a lot of other things that set me off about this event. Like the subjective judging of figure skating, and the arcane winter events that only Northern Europeans have a chance to win. Like lying flat on top of someone and hurtling down a trough of ice without brakes. How do Egyptians, Jamaicans, or Texans train for Doubles Luge competition? Seems pretty exclusionary to me.
But The Most Stupid, Loathsome Thing…
Is the amount of time I waste watching this stuff. That’s right, I watch as much or more loathsome Winter Olympics as anyone. It sucks me in every time, from watching for the Armenian team in the opening ceremony, to shouting USA! USA! USA! whenever we strike gold.
I’m as bad as anyone with my nationalistic pride, and my desire for the USA to get more medals than Russia or China. But it does not serve me. It keeps me from my creative work. Hell, it keeps me from my work work. My career work, my workout work, and even my housework.
I’m distracted enough as a Manic Impressive. I don’t need this. The Winter Olympics is bad for my productivity, my health, and my happiness. So I will have to work at turning off these damn games so I can get back to work.
And if I stop watching TV and spend more time in the gym, I too may have a chest worth oiling up and showing off to the world. I’ll just need to do a ton of ab work and a lot of shaving…
