Olympics: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Article.
"And here's a prediction: In the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, Londoners will complain about the traffic; politicians will carp about the cost; critics will call the ceremonies tasteless; no one will use the phrase Olympic triumph. But there won't be arrests or police intimidation; there won't be forced expropriation of property; there won't be stony-faced acrobats marching in formation—and in the end, the whole thing will be a lot less sinister, a lot less damaging, and a lot more fun."
The stone faced people you mention displayed a fantastic demonstration of unity - something the UK won't do. They'll complain that it's all too much work, it's not free, and they can't sip on tea while they're conditioning themselves for the Olympics. In Beijing, the Chinese won the most GOLDS - in London the British will win the LEAST of anything. They're not achievers - they have only 'just ridden along' all throughout history.
ReplyDeleteI didn't write it, I quoted it.
ReplyDeleteIt can certainly be argued like you say.
On the other hand, is winning gold medals really worth never having an hour off?
It can certainly be argued like you say.
ReplyDeleteCan it? Only if you're retarded. Not achievers? Funny. Not achievers lately I guess, but at one time they were, very much so. Not so much the Chinese.
That fantastic demonstration of unity is possible in a Communist country.
The Chinese won the most golds, but let's be
I know you quoted it - it'll be interesting to see. And having watched parts of the Beijing Olympics - I wondered the same thing: Is it all worth it for a Gold Medal - only to have back and joint pain 20 years from now? :-)
ReplyDeleteBy the way - the 'pseudo' KabelYaache is purely a made up, faked Yiddish name that means nothing.
I wonder what those gold medalists do after, when they're off their game. Like, are any of them employed as dishwashers, with the medal hanging over the sink?
ReplyDeleteOK, the last bit is too cynical, but still, what good does it do you, I wonder. There may be factors I'm not aware of.
(I don't watch sports.) Apparently you can't be a pro sportsperson and be in the Olympics?
"I wonder what those gold medalists do after, when they're off their game."
ReplyDeleteIn the Western world, many turn pro after their Olympic career (figure skaters, etc.). Others just go on with their regular lives, doing whatever they studied to be. Smart & lucky ones might profitably exploit their fame for awhile, through advertising & other forms of representation.
In the old communists regimes (I don't know how things are in the "new" China), Olympic medalists were some sort of national treasure, and went on living a privileged life that they never could have dreamed of otherwise. And they teach what they know, to ensure the continued harvest of medals. Considering what they had to gain, it probably was worth a lot more to them than we can imagine.
Eolake philosophized: "I wonder what those gold medalists do after, when they're off their game. Like, are any of them employed as dishwashers, with the medal hanging over the sink?"
ReplyDeleteLike with anything in life it's the process that matters, not the end result (let alone what comes after it).
I can imagine that being at the top in a sport (no matter which country) is a great life. You are constantly challenging yourself and improving both physically and mentally. There's the travel, the camaraderie, the excitement. Many find their mate in sports, etc. The only thing that sucks is doping. But that's connected to some sports more than others.
"I can imagine that being at the top in a sport (no matter which country) is a great life."
ReplyDeleteI suspect at the high top, it gets so fierce that the fun stops.
But admittedly I have never really understood the appeal of sports altogether.
OK, the last bit is too cynical, but still, what good does it do you, I wonder. There may be factors I'm not aware of.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you win eight of them you're probably looking at some pretty lucrative endorsement deals. I wouldn't recommend anyone make that their motivation for taking up a sport, though. Most of us would likely be disappointed.
But admittedly I have never really understood the appeal of sports altogether.
I've never understood the appeal of many organized sports, especially team sports. I especially wonder about people who seem to feel that the outcome of the game is a life-or-death kind of thing, when in reality you're no further ahead or behind, win or lose, than if you hadn't played at all.
I find some of the Olympic sports to be grotesque, like weightlifting. The lower weight classes are all right, but when you get up to the "super heavyweight" you're talking about a bunch of butterballs who probably aren't capable of doing anything but lift weights.
Other Olympic sports are more humorous than anything. Beach volleyball? Ping Pong?!
And then with a great many of them you ask yourself what the real-world application might be. What use is being able to use a really long pole to jump over another pole and land on a big mat?
But you could say that about almost any sport. How often do you need to bicycle 60 Km/h?
ReplyDeleteBut you could say that about almost any sport. How often do you need to bicycle 60 Km/h?
ReplyDeleteHardly ever. But then most people do ride (or have ridden) a bike, but few people have ever vaulted a pole. There was a time when these games were considered to be only for children, and were given up once a person reach adulthood. I remember reading somewhere that the Victorians are credited (or blamed, depending on your perspective) with popularizing the idea of adults playing sports. I'm sure it had something to do with germs and sex. Knowing them.
Ah-HA! I knew KabelYaache was a fake. Thak you for exposing him, um, KabelYaache. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOne of those gold medalists has become such a national star in previous Olympics, that he now has his own --quite successful-- sports shoes brand. He hires the same chinese workers who make Adidas and Nike shoes, except he's not as insanely greedy for profit as Western corporations, so his prices are very competitive! :-)
You may have noticed him, he's the one who made a national apology a few days ago after a terrible tendinitis prevented him from properly competing in some race, and most of the Chinese public left the stadium in disappointment.
I too used to resent the fate of all chinese sportspeople forced to train very hard since a tender age. But since then I've put things into perspective: the average Chinese works very hard regardless, usually for very meager salaries and with no job security whatsoever. In China, becoming an athlete, or a performer in the Circus of Beijing, is a very envied position. A genuine privilege. You don't really work harder, you make a very good living, AND you get great social status.
Before we Westerners criticize the way things work in China, perhaps we should think deep as to exactly WHY things are and still remain that way. How many huge Western corporations do tell China: "We'll sign multi-billion contracts, but we insist that the factory workers get minimum rights and a cut of the profits they are bringing to all of us, let's pay them well with reasonable work hours and an employment contract"?
It's easier to give lectures when you are not the same person encouraging things to remain the same.
It always was tough being a Chinese. They don't have it any tougher than 100 years ago. Mao Zedong was a dictator, but not really worse than any Emperor of Divine Birth Right. At least, he put the Chinese to work, while before him they were only busy smoking opium... including under Western administration. Read Tintin and the Blue Lotus for a refresher...
The average Chinese income is steadily increasing. More and more can now affort meat, which is (in part) precisely why the world price of cereals is skyrocketing. One billion Chinese starting to eat pork, that's a lot of beasts to feed.
Also, from things I heard, the current President of China is definitely engaged in reforms, but it's a very delicate endeavour. I can confirm just from the example of Lebanon! Widespread corruption is very complicated to tackle, especially when it goes very high up. One has to be constantly careful. You think the Syrian President, being his daddy's son, has it all easy and safe? Think again. His hold on power remains uncertain. Originally, his elder brother was to be the trained successor of old Haffez, but he died in a mysterious car accident which might not have been an accident. There are always factions in your own clan ready to stab you in the back. And the corrupt factions are always the most willing to act with a coup.
Even current change isn't simple: now that chinese salaries are rising, China itself is becoming less attractive and competitive as a cheap labor country, outsourcing more and more to the poorest countries, like Vietnam, Bangladesh and Kirghizistan, where people would LOVE to enjoy as much human rights and good living conditions as a Chinese. In Kirghizistan, the State police pulls all the country's children out from school every year for the cotton harvest, and they don't even get fairly paid the meager minimum wage of adults. This you won't see in China. Neither will you see forced unpaid labour as in Burma, pure State slavery. 2008 China is NOT Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
You know, I've come to believe that if the USA hadn't attempted to subdue the whole planet with their notorious brand of imperialism, China might be far less lenient towards the power abuses or their much-needed allies in Burma or North Korea, far less worried about Tibet offering to join NATO like the direct neighbors of Russia are openly planning to.
Not claiming China is anything like perfect, not even that I like the country. But it's not a superpower by accident. And I just want to incite you to look at the global picture. Remember one of my mottos: "Half of the truth is often the worst of lies."
Anybody criticized by the USA today, I immediately want to assess by myself, expecting by definition that if Bush doesn't like them, they can't be all bad.
To take a local expressions, these gold medalists, "they've buried poverty". And they've greatly contributed to national pride. In chinese culture, that's VERY important. It's all about face.
Also, has any of you wondered why the fwazz did Georgia, America's Troyan horse in the Caucase, launch a sudden and brutal full-scale bombing on its separatist region, something even worse that what Milosevic was blamed for in Kosovo, prompting a merciless response from Russia, the VERY SAME DAY another world chessboard opponent, China, had its day of supreme glory by launching the Olympic Games? It's ALL connected.
China and Russia have, at the very least, one great usefulness: they are there, opposing what I perceive as a very worrying trend of un-democratic Orwellian world domination by the new Inquisition in Washington. In more than a way, I have rights in Lebanon which I wouldn't have in "the Land of the Free".
Including the right to take photos in public, as long as they are not photos of security-sensitive buildings. Remember we're never fully sure that the bombing wave in Lebanon is over. And yet harmless grannies with a camera are left the druck alone.
Looks like we under-developed Lebanese have learned to become immune to wild headless chicken paranoia, cluck!
TTL tempered...
"The only thing that sucks is doping."
Shyeah! So far, I haven't heard a single case among this year's chinese champions. Either they're crafty, or they're genuinely clean and relied entirely on their far from shabby talents.
I don't want to sound like a biased American-basher, but "exceptional" and incredible accomplishment always make me dread a nasty revelation. I mean, I see Michael Phelps, who kept collecting gold medals and breaking records. Or that guy who showed insolent ease at the 100 metre dash. And I remember the same atmosphere around former champion Ben Johnson, before the test results came out. Even if they are not caught, there's always the doubt that they were simply crafty enough, had good doping specialists, etc... I sincerely hope there aren't any embarrassing revelations for the two examples I've mentioned, simply because every time it happens I hurt in my sportive spirit, because no matter what country they're from, athletes ARE NOT political decision-makers, for me they're all competing under a flag of neutrality. And honesty, hopefully.
But remember my post on extreme sports: not only is there the irrevokable loss of innocence and trust because of doping, there's also the negative result of pushing your body to its furthest limits. Only in DragonBallZ can people constantly push themselves further, always getting stronger and tougher with no virtual limit. One day, with or without doping, real-life sprinters will reach the medically established limit of biomechanics, and every race will be a game of russian roulette with the risk of bones and tendons just snapping. What for?
I think I've already mentioned it once: Tetanus is a muscle spasm disease where the very spine can be broken in half by ordinary people's muscles stimulated to the extreme.
There's only one "best" in a given competition. Humankind was never about being THE best. The finest thing about our species is that we can be the best TOGETHER. The more together the better. To me, fantastically ordinary Ben Underwood is more admiration-worthy than one who can swim "just a fraction of a second faster", as only machines can witness. That's just overkill.
Sports are good. Challenging oneself and competing with others has many good effects. But obsession of perfection, of ultimate supremacy? That ego trip's not for me, thanks.
Eolake aptly guessed...
"I suspect at the high top, it gets so fierce that the fun stops."
No to brag, but I kept excelling at educational competitions all my life. At seven, I was one year younger than the rest of my class (1st grade, I think, in US equivalent?), and I got the second best grades of the entire school. (Would probably have made it first, but I had to learn arabic practically from scratch that year.) Boy, were my aunties kvelling! They almost plotzed with pride. And always, always, there was this social pressure all around me to keep excelling, to do better, or to do more of the best. One day, in what was by all likelihood an unfair competition and after I got my diploma, not only did I not excell, but I did not even pass. I heard it all that day. Including that I didn't want to suceed. Entirely false, but I'll tell you this: at that moment, I decided that the only desiderata of success I'd follow from now on, would be my own.
And honestly, I'm not too fond of being "the best". Never was. Being gifted for French and Maths greatly helped me, I knew it all along, and I resented all the buzz around my "accomplishments" as clearly overdone. My "glory" was hyped by others for their own gloating. Even at seven, I felt aware of that.
"Anybody can cook." - Chef Auguste Gusteau.
To me, anybody who does the sincere effort and succeeds deserves praise. And anybody who improve themselves are champions. True worth is its own reward, doesn't need medals or front page titles.
Besides, since we're in the topic of running in costly shoes, I'm reminded of that joke:
Two guys are lost in the African savana, when they spot a lion. The lion spots them. Starts walking towards them. One of the guys hastily sits down, pulls a pair of Excelsio® running shoes from his backpack and puts then on his feet. His companion snickers (pun intended): "You really think by wearing these shoes you'll be able to run faster than the lion?
- Don't need to. I just have to run faster than YOU."
Brian noticed...
"you're talking about a bunch of butterballs who probably aren't capable of doing anything but lift weights."
Have you ever seen the competition, I forget on which channel, called "World's Strongest Man"? They perform many challenges, and typically they may not look like bodybuilders but they're far slimmer than said butterballs. And THESE guys are genuinely strong. They can do far more than a one single powerful move, and usually have to demonstrate stamina as well as strength. They are also amateurs who do it for the fun.
Heck, carrying several lovely young ladies in a sedan-chair with your teammate along a set course doen't sound gloomy to me!
Brian further giggled...
"Other Olympic sports are more humorous than anything. Beach volleyball? Ping Pong?!"
I think there are Olympic Chess championships. They're called "cerebral sport"...
further denigrating in total unfairness...
"What use is being able to use a really long pole to jump over another pole and land on a big mat?"
What, you mean jumping over real-life brick walls with no mattress on the other side isn't exactly identical? Getouttahere!
Besides, it's all about whose pole reaches higher, everybody knows THAT, d'uh!
Eolake joined aginst the downfallen...
"How often do you need to bicycle 60 Km/h?"
Well, using a purely biological, no-fuel-no-animal transportation means in a very effective way can have its uses. Many a birthing mother of yon owed it to a brave cyclist that the doctor arrived on time to help her before the days of telephones. For example. I can definitely see how smimming and riding a bicycle are useful skills that ought to be universal. It would be a good thing if everybody could manage in them, even without necessarily being good. At least to save yourself if you happen to fall in calm waters!
Brian shamelessly slandered... (actually, that's libelled)
"I'm sure it had something to do with germs and sex. Knowing them."
Okay, so I'll grant you that the Sex Olympics --which genuinely exist somewhere at some yearly date-- were probably NOT invented by Victorians.
AND that I've always heard that "to get rid of excess sexual energy (or just to manage complete abstinence and stop oiling your own pole), play some sports".
But I'm sure you're jumping to conclusions, mister.