/rant on
so i was watching the olympics last night and i've decided:
a) the people who do those giant aerial ski jumps are insane. no, not loony, not a little crazy. i am talking arms bound at the sides, spittle dangling from the lips INSANE. don't these people have mothers that love them?
b) ice dancing (which used to be totally lame-and still sort of is) has tried to become ballroom dancing on ice, complete with the ridiculous costumes. this is supposed to be art, not porn!
b-1) melo-drama apparently doesn't necessarily stop upon college graduation--especially in Italy.
c) i don't understand the bob-sled or the luge events and i don't care too.
d) curling isn't interesting and doesn't look to be particularly challenging.
e) the media curses certain athletes by paying lots of attention to them before the events...extinguishing all hopes said athletes had in competing well in their respective events. Poor poor poor Bode Miller!
f) the olympics start too late and run too late and i hate the way they toggle back and forth between events.
g) the olympics are not as fun when they are not live.
h) athletes will soon be endangered species as the public increasingly pushes them to their physical limits and beyond.
h-1) did you know tara lipinski had to have hip surgery in her teens because of continually pushing herself to do triple jumps? did you see the chinese pair skaters take that nasty spill attempting to do a quad throw? did you see all the skiers wipe out on the downhill courses? the ones who fail get hurt, and the ones who succeed inflict bodily harm upon themselves by trying. you lose, you lose; you win, you lose. yay sports!
i leave with this thought: perhaps the human body was not meant to jump and spin 3 1/2 times in the air or more and land on a thin blade of steel on ice. perhaps we were not meant to fly off giant ski jumps doing quadruple flipping layout twists and land on 2 several inch flats of wood/plastic? on a 37 degree incline facing down. perhaps we need not race down steep hills on those same planks of wood/plastic at speeds in excess of 85 mph.
when the olympics started there were events like shot put & discuss and javelin throws, and by our standards today, would not be anything to watch. but as we push athletes to be bigger, stronger, faster, better...are they really getting so? most athletes are considered old at 30. at 30?!? what a ridiculous standard. not only are the standards becoming unrealistic and dangerously so. the only ones who have a prayer of succeeding are the teens and young 20 somethings. they don't know any better. they don't know that the pressure they're putting on their knees now will require surgery to even stand up when they are 45 (or sooner). they don't know that if they take a big enough risk and a big enough spill, they could incapacitate themselves for the rest of their lives, which at the age of 17 is supposed to be A LONG TIME. it is stupid and silly to expect a 16 year old to deal with the pressures of the olympics, and yet that is a common age for our athletes now, and we're suprised when in the post-event interview they seem immature. of course they're immature, they're children!
ok /rant off
a) the people who do those giant aerial ski jumps are insane. no, not loony, not a little crazy. i am talking arms bound at the sides, spittle dangling from the lips INSANE. don't these people have mothers that love them?
b) ice dancing (which used to be totally lame-and still sort of is) has tried to become ballroom dancing on ice, complete with the ridiculous costumes. this is supposed to be art, not porn!
b-1) melo-drama apparently doesn't necessarily stop upon college graduation--especially in Italy.
c) i don't understand the bob-sled or the luge events and i don't care too.
d) curling isn't interesting and doesn't look to be particularly challenging.
e) the media curses certain athletes by paying lots of attention to them before the events...extinguishing all hopes said athletes had in competing well in their respective events. Poor poor poor Bode Miller!
f) the olympics start too late and run too late and i hate the way they toggle back and forth between events.
g) the olympics are not as fun when they are not live.
h) athletes will soon be endangered species as the public increasingly pushes them to their physical limits and beyond.
h-1) did you know tara lipinski had to have hip surgery in her teens because of continually pushing herself to do triple jumps? did you see the chinese pair skaters take that nasty spill attempting to do a quad throw? did you see all the skiers wipe out on the downhill courses? the ones who fail get hurt, and the ones who succeed inflict bodily harm upon themselves by trying. you lose, you lose; you win, you lose. yay sports!
i leave with this thought: perhaps the human body was not meant to jump and spin 3 1/2 times in the air or more and land on a thin blade of steel on ice. perhaps we were not meant to fly off giant ski jumps doing quadruple flipping layout twists and land on 2 several inch flats of wood/plastic? on a 37 degree incline facing down. perhaps we need not race down steep hills on those same planks of wood/plastic at speeds in excess of 85 mph.
when the olympics started there were events like shot put & discuss and javelin throws, and by our standards today, would not be anything to watch. but as we push athletes to be bigger, stronger, faster, better...are they really getting so? most athletes are considered old at 30. at 30?!? what a ridiculous standard. not only are the standards becoming unrealistic and dangerously so. the only ones who have a prayer of succeeding are the teens and young 20 somethings. they don't know any better. they don't know that the pressure they're putting on their knees now will require surgery to even stand up when they are 45 (or sooner). they don't know that if they take a big enough risk and a big enough spill, they could incapacitate themselves for the rest of their lives, which at the age of 17 is supposed to be A LONG TIME. it is stupid and silly to expect a 16 year old to deal with the pressures of the olympics, and yet that is a common age for our athletes now, and we're suprised when in the post-event interview they seem immature. of course they're immature, they're children!
ok /rant off