Olympiado
Every four years, billions of people gather in sports venues and in front of television sets hoping to see the world's ultimate sports spectacle, where the strongest, fastest, most able physical specimens the human race has to offer face each other in fierce competition to determine the greatest athletes in the world, in some cases, the greatest athletes who have ever lived. But instead, they watch the Olympics. Barnum and Bailey present The Olympic Games! Hey, there's five rings! Ribbon twirlers, hula-hoopers, they have animal acts! Where else can you see people dancing upside down, under water! Look! They even have clowns! It's the IOC! Now, I want to make one thing perfectly clear before I continue, and that is my wholehearted support for an abundant variety of physical activities with the widest possible participation. I'm also enthusiastically in support of healthy competition at every level from local to international, I just think the recognition that accompanies it should be commensurate with the actual magnitude of the achievement. The Olympic Games should be a showcase for the best athletes in the World, but when a guy who warms the bench on the winning Team Handball team gets the same medal as the guy who wins the 100 Meter Final, something is wrong. Here's the way I see it. There are some activities that are fundamental in that we all do them to one degree or another. We have a natural inclination to want to know who does it best, whatever it is. So the questions arise, who is the fastest? Who is the strongest? See where I'm going with this? These are fundamental qualities, I'm going to call them Primary, and contests can measure them very simply. Primary Qualities are the foundation of strength and speed that are expressed in the more complex, coordinated movements, Secondary Qualities, in which measurement of individual ability is more involved and subjective and often includes an aesthetic component. Ideally, the first aim is to measure Primary Qualities and this is easily accomplished using units of time or distance or force. With this in mind, I have customized the Games as they currently exist to produce an alternative sports spectacle, the Danolympic Games! First, I need to do a little pruning. The following are perfectly good activities that are too complex, too specialized, do not involve the best athletes, or are just too stupid to share a stage with those that do. Keep in mind, just because something is physically demanding, doesn't mean it belongs in the Danolympic Games. Ballet is grueling and requires extraordinary athletic ability, but it shouldn't be an Olympic event. Say goodbye, these are gone: Archery I understand that the precision placement of an arrow holds a time honored and formerly vital place in the survival of humans everwhere, whether that placement was in a game animal or an enemy, in which case the survival I mentioned is not inclusive. But now nobody is interested except the people who do it, all nine of them, and their families. It's like the discus, which was a last line of defense invented when ancient Greeks ran out of real weapons and had to hurl dinner plates at the enemy. It's time to move on, I mean, the Games don't include flint tool making or root vegetable finding or spear chucking or . . . wait, it does include spear chucking. Well, I guess somebody else is going to get bad news. Fencing See Archery. But don't let them see you coming because sharp pointy things you have to hold in your hand are no match for sharp pointy things that come flying at you through the air. Badminton According to USA Badminton, "The flight characteristics of the shuttlecock and the pace created by constant volleying combine to make badminton one of the most exciting sports to play and watch." Umm hmm. Exciting? Try blindfolded lawn darts. But not in the Olympics. Table Tennis I went to the USA Table Tennis website, and unlike USA Badminton, there was nothing there to tell me how "the pace created by constant volleying . . . make[s table tennis] one of the most exciting sports to play and watch." If they can't get excited about it, neither can I. No miniature golf or foosball either. Or even John Madden football on Xbox. This is in no way related to the fact that I have never, in my entire life, ever beaten anyone in a game of Table Tennis. Tennis Full court ping pong is a great sport, even though it's a home run hitting contest these days, even for the women. Maybe they could bring back the smaller rackets so that "the pace created by constant volleying . . . [could] make [tennis] one of the most exciting sports to play and watch." Right, like there's one top player willing to give up the rocket launcher he uses. Someplace else, of course. Canoe/Kayak Hunting in the Arctic, substantially top-heavy in a tiny, miniature pontoon that keeps trying to kill you by turning upside down and drowning you in water that was recently, and will soon again be ice, warrants my hats off, full bow respect. Doing it for fun is probably a lot of fun too, but not in the Olympic games. No Olympic mountaineering or freeform rockclimbing either. Diving This contest to see who can do the best tricks while jumping in the pool is a very graceful and beautiful activity and is very popular among women and virtual women alike. The divers all seem to have graceful and beautiful bodies, and are graceful and beautiful and even athletic in the air even if they couldn't make the gymnastics or the swim team. All this grace and beauty and athleticism seems something of a waste since the judges apparently never take their eyes off the entry point. Robots could determine the winner by measuring fluid volume projected from the pool surface, least total volume wins. By the way, how come high divers aren't in the Olympics? We're supposed to be testing the limits of human ability, where's the 50m platform? Anyway, I encourage you to watch diving as often as you like, except during the Olympics. Rhythmic Gymnastics Oh, please. This is for the people who can't make the diving team, let alone a real gymnastics team. Ribbons and beach balls, right. And why does watching it make me think of Peter Pan? Synchronized Swimming/Dancing This is for those who can't make the rhythmic gymnastics team or the diving team, let alone the the swim team or the real gymnastics team. The skill being tested is basically holding your breath. These people are dancing upside down, under water. I repeat, they are dancing upside down, under water. One more time, think about this very carefully as if you never heard it before, these people are DANCING UPSIDE DOWN UNDER WATER. Equestrian English aristocrats can have any competition they like. I don't give DOlympic medals to horses, or to people wearing a coat and tie who sit on them, and don't even try to make the case there is anything athletic about riding jumping horses, I've seen bull riding. Try that a few times and then tell me who deserves a medal. Not an Olympic medal, of course. Judo If you've never watched Judo, I suggest you check it out, even though this is the martial art that no one ever actually uses in a real fight. I'm not admitting any sport where it's OK to strangle someone. Taekwondo Sorry. But while we're here, who would win between Taekwondo and, say . . . oh, never mind. Shooting This is a contest to see who can remain the most absolutely motionless, it's not like those targets are shooting back. The same skillset applies to watching TV. Nothing personal guys, I know you're armed. Modern Pentathlon OK, it's time for a quiz. Name the five events. Come on, come on, you can name one can't you? No? Don't feel bad, not even the people related to pentathletes can name all five. I apologize to anyone with a time machine who is headed back to act as a courier in a Napoleonic war. Sailing Sailing? What more do I have to say? It's a sailboat. It has a keel and sails and the wind is pushing the boat. I say throw everybody in the water with a rope and let 'em tow the damn thing. Jack LaLanne could do it all by himself, and he's 275 years old. Rowing I'll spare you any nursery rhymes about rowing your boat. Too late! It's already in your head isn't it? Sorry. Well, at least these guys aren't waiting for the air to push them along, they're moving the boat themselves, and it's a real test of endurance. I decided against it but you can make a strong case for single sculls. Cycling I had a hard time taking this one out. Since it avoids the pounding that accompanies running, it creates an opportunity to test the limits of the human engine without having to worry about the suspension breaking down. It's really a primary activity, and I'd leave it in if I could get over the fact that it's a contest about operating machinery. Still, it's fun to watch a great rider crack a hundred other guys by attacking on ten miles of eight percent grade after being in the saddle for six hours. Tune in every Summer, but not to the Olympics. All team sports I have no objections to team sports per se. Team sports are great . My personal favorite is college football, especially when my son is on the field. Most of the world's best athletes participate in team sports. But they don't have a place in a competition where the object is to determine the one guy who is the best in the entire world at some primary activity.
MY COMPROMISE If people are invested in a huge orgiastic quadrannual sports festival, I think it would be OK to have some of the sports that are not Olympic events stage championships alongside the Games themselves, provided the center stage is occupied by the core events. There could be joint TV coverage, although Olympic coverage, in a radical departure from current broadcast practices, will often show the actual events themselves, as opposed to profiles of the villages where the athletes grandmothers live.
THE OLYMPICS All Events are individual. No weight classes, no relays, just one winner in each event. The same events for women as for men. The winner in each event gets a solid gold medal. Second place gets a solid silver medal. Third gets a bronze, and the next five places all get a medal, in stainless steel. Eight medals awarded in each event, all eight are awarded on the stand. I have a related rant, you may as well hear it now. It has to do with only one of the many dimensions to the grotesque disproportion of reward to achievement in professional sports, especially in this country where it's the worst. Athletes in a handful of team sports often receive obscene, grotesque amounts of money, we all know that. At the same time, other athletes training just as hard or harder and risking or suffering the same injuries or worse, aren't compensated at all. There is no professional gymnastics per se, but I have more respect for the talent, the dedication, the work ethic and the achievement of any member of the US Olympic Women's Gymnastics Team than I do for any NFL quarterback. Most American sports fans can name hundreds of NFL players, including probably thirty quarterbacks. That means they know the thirtieth best athlete at best, and maybe the thirtieth best QB they know is the fiftieth best athlete at his position, in a sport that's only played in the North America. How many of those fans can name the strongest man in the world? How about the strongest man who ever lived? Some sports fans may know the fastest man in the world, although lots of guys are one or two record holders behind, but who is the second fastest man in the world? Let alone the fifth or the tenth or anybody at all on the current women's gymnastics team. The fiftieth best American QB is a millionaire. The strongest man in America has a job to support himself because all he gets is some training if he can get to Colorado Springs and some travel expenses, unless that guy is a powerlifter who never gets anything because powerlifting isn't an Olympic sport. If a guy can't make the Olympic team, he doesn't get a dime from anyone and has to find a way to feed himself and still have time to train at a world class level. In track and field, maybe a partial college scholarship. The family of that woman gymnast is busy borrowing against their house so she can train six or eight hours a day, and unless she wins a medal, and perhaps even if she does, when her career is over they will all spend the rest of their lives working to get out of debt and dealing with the long term consequences of all the injuries she suffered during a career that was probably over before she was old enough to vote. So when the Olympics rolls around every four years, I want the best athletes in the world to get some freakin' attention. OK, I'm done now, sorry. Thanks for your patience. This is where we find the best athletes in the world:
TRACK AND FIELD 100 meters I consider this to be the premier event in sports, even though it only takes ten seconds. It determines the fastest human being in the entire world. I don't know what else to say. 400 meters The 400 requires 100 meter speed but supreme anaerobic conditioning, running when muscles won't contract any more and sprinting and relaxing at the same time. I have omitted the 200 as well as several other races because I want tests that measure skills unique enough that athletes can't win more than one event at this level. 1600 meters This is closer in distance to a metric mile than the traditional 1500. If you want to know what it takes, go run 100 meters in 14.2 seconds. Now imagine sixteen of 'em back to back. Marathon Now go run a mile in five minutes. Come on, you can to it! No? Too bad, you need twenty-six back to back to compete. I'm OK with the traditional distance although I'm not married to it. It's not metric and I don't see it as any more sacred than the mile, which we already gave up. In fact, we could change 'em all to other no less arbitrary multiples of 100 meters. How about 100m, 500m, 5k, 50k? Or 100m, 1000m, 10k 100k? I think part of the allure or glamour of the mile and the marathon is that they are single units: one mile, one marathon. Metric distances are all multiples of a meter, and I don't see much future for the 1m race. But most of these distances have other names, I think we should use them. 100 meters is one hectometer, 10K is one myriameter. 100K probably had a name once too, but until it does again we'd have to settle for the Hecto, the Kilo, the Myria, and the 10 Myria. Hey, we could even go to all non-metric non-multiples of one another: the Chain, the Furlong, the Mile, the League, the Marathon, and the Degree. Or, maybe not. Anyway, you may have noticed some other omissions from the track, namely events requiring athletes to jump over obstacles while running, blindly pass aluminum tubing back and forth while running, or try not to get caught running while running. But they're not alone, I've whacked some field events too. See? No spear chucking, cannonball tossing or dinner plate slinging, let alone bending a plastic spring so it will shoot you into the air. Also no skipping, hopscotch, sack races, or anything else that doesn't look silly only because world class athletes take it seriously. What's left? High Jump In the average room in the average suburban home, the average ceiling meets the average wall about eight average feet from the average floor. Imagine an average bar that high. These guys jump completely over that. Long Jump It turns out, in keeping with my housing metaphor, many single family homes are about thirty feet wide. These guys jump almost all the way across. I am going to change the manner in which this event is currently measured. As it stands now, fair jumps are measured from the take-off board, even though the jumpers take off behind it. Every fair jump gets robbed of at least a few inches, and the jumpers are constantly in danger of fouling, to the degree that it affects performance. I see no reason to make this a contest to see who can best hit an arbitrary spot on the runway, I want to know who can jump the farthest, take-off to landing. The Olympics will have a take-off board two meters long with a non-slip coating that leaves an impression of the jumper's foot. Let 'em jump with abandon and measure every jump from where they go up to where they come down.
WEIGHTLIFTING Deadlift How much pig iron can you pick up off the ground? The guy that wins is the strongest man in the world. Clean and Jerk How much pig iron can you pick up and lift all the way over your head?
OVERALL Sextathlon That means six events, there is no sex, even though it would send the ratings through the roof. 100m 400m High Jump Long Jump Deadlift Clean and Jerk That basically covers primary qualities and answers the most fundamental questions about who is the fastest, strongest, highest, and farthest in the world. I consider these to be the core events. They are measured objectively, nearly always without ambiguity. Beyond this core are some contests that measure primary qualities in different ways, and secondary qualities in a fundamental way. I'll include them in the Games, awarded similar medals, slightly smaller.
COMBAT The problem here is that both of these contests involve judging, always subjective or biased at best. At worst, well, we won't go there, especially in boxing. Occasionally decisions occur in spite of it. But as much as this planet needs to put an end to most violence these contests address a primal as well as primary competitive instinct in a voluntary, controlled environment. Boxing Freestyle Wrestling
GYMNASTICS Judges again, but I'll live with them. The horses and parallel bars are just silly, the uneven bars for women has become a thick high bar with an obstacle, and the men should have to have some balance too, although I'd widen the beam to five inches for everyone. That leaves, for both sexes: High Bar Balance Beam Floor exercise
SWIMMING The swimming is all freestyle. We don't have track events where people run backwards, or sideways, or hop with both feet together, no reason to swim any way but the fastest way they can. 50m 200m 1600m
That's it! Once again, I will welcome other activites be contested attendant to the Games, preferably leading up to the core events, including weight classes in fully Olympic events. I'd probably hold the competition in reverse order of the sequence as I've presented it. Let the Games begin!
copyright © 2002 Dan Manthos
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