Why I Detest the Olympics
Medical cytologists were called in to determine the sex of female athletes suspected in reality to be men. The careers of the infamous Press sisters of the Soviet Union, so successful at the Rome Olympics, came to a mysterious end when such tests became routine.
Physicians have questioned the safety of excessive training for more than eighty years. Early studies suggested that athletes who trained too hard could end up with dangerously hypertrophied hearts, and the question is still not fully resolved. What seems certain even on casual inspection is that athletes in particular sports may have strangely deformed bodies, for example cyclists with preternaturally huge thigh muscles.
Whether such deformations do any lasting damage is unknown, but doctors acted as advisers to the sporting authorities in the communist countries when they were determined that their young female gymnasts should dominate the sport. The activities of those doctors were ethically little better than medical participation in torture.
My own objection, however, to these deformities is different: that to devote one’s life to, say, throwing a javelin a fraction of an inch further than anyone else has ever thrown it before is a deformation of the soul. But that, of course, cannot be measured by any instrument, and not everyone will agree.
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Thumbnail and image courtesy Maxisport / Shutterstock.com
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Jeez, dude, get a life.
Bravo, sir! Once again, bravo!
I have detested the Olympics since that long-ago Saturday when I got up early and raced into the living room, ready to watch the cartoons that constituted the high point of my week-only to discover that there was nothing on but Olympics coverage, and that was on all THREE channels, ABC, CBS, and NBC!
There was an East German woman who was subjected to so much gender bending drugging that, after her Olympics career was over, she felt she had no choice but to be surgically altered into a man, permanently. I *think* she was intersexed before the East German officials got their hands on her, but good grief!
Whatever the original intent of reviving the Olympics, it has been hopelessly corrupted, same as with the creation of the UN IMO.
I’m not particularly a fan of the original Olympics, either.
Now please share with us your opinions on ballroom dancing.
I am sharing mine on ballroom dancing. Ballroom dancing is a skill. Humans appreciate the skill for its own sake. There is an evolutionary advantage in being somebody easily skilled and re-skilled. In many archeological sites they have found spearheads big like a watermelon. They were so majestically crafted. There was no question that they were never used, they couldn’t. The reason to produce such artifacts tens of thousands of years ago was to show off skill. Same thing with piano today. There is no rational reason for the pianist profession to exist today. Computers can do it far better than the best conceivable pianist. Or chess players. Computers can beat the best of them. And what’s the productive point of the chess players anyway? It is about skill, and brain explosion in the process. I have been an early chess player, and many people notice that I approach problems multistep.
Ballroom dancing is about grace of movement, musical skill, social skill, and getting the attention of the best and the most mates possible.
Can I get a link to an MP3 file of a computer playing Beethoven better than Artur Schnabel?
No, you can’t. But that’s very easy to do, and nobody cares to do. Just costs some money, and is worthless. Leave it to the humans. And do have a spare handclap for the less-than-genial piano player or gymnast or ballroom dancer or chess player.
BTW, not 100% of olympic sports are stupid, but most are.
I second K’s comment and take issue with your blithe conclusion that a computer could play a Beethoven sonata “better” than Schnabel. If you really believe that you have never heard–and I mean HEARD–Schnabel and you have no idea what the word “music” means….
I don’t think you are correct about Chess. I once worked with someone who was on a competitive Ballroom Dancing team (BYU). His wife wrote a thesis, a book on Lifts.
Perchance, are you inferring that doing back flips on a raised, 4 inch wide beam is not a skill? Or doing a successful driving layup against a 7 foot tall man who does not have your best interests at heart?
btw, I love ballroom dancing!
Some sports are OK. I am not going to analyze them one after the other after the other, also because I am not that skilled at it. Nearly every sport is OK, if you don’t boost (tilt) your chemicals and don’t stretch yourself to death. Then, at an olympic competition level not every sport is OK. Some are very destructive.
Hee hee, this year the dictatorship didn’t win more medals proportionally or otherwise.
You raise good points about drug use.
I’ve been wondering if it might not be better to allow athletes to compete in clean vs. enhanced categories, with the onus being on the competitor to bend over backwards to prove himself clean.
In the 2008 Dictator Game, the dictatorship won more gold medals than anyone else. Turned out the Dictator Game offered 15 gold for Badminton, and they won all 15. This year, there were only 5, they won all 5. 10 less faux gold medals. They won a total of 51 gold in the Dictator Game, 38 in the Imperial Game.
The Imperalists were heavy on Equestrian competitions this year, and they won most gold in those, and more gold since 1908.
…to devote one’s life to, say, throwing a javelin a fraction of an inch further than anyone else has ever thrown it before is a deformation of the soul…
I agree, though the key word is “devote.” Having a goal of throwing a javelin farther than anyone else ever has is not objectionable, but it needs to be a part of a well-rounded life. Sport should be recreation, not a job. The fiction of the Olympics, ruined no doubt by the apsiration of national supremacy, was that they were amateurs gathered for the joy of sport and honorable competition. Excellent sentiments, but the story about the 1912 medal haul shows those sentiments lasted a generation at most after the modern games began.
“The fiction of the Olympics, ruined no doubt by the apsiration of national supremacy, was that they were amateurs gathered for the joy of sport and honorable competition.”
That was always a fiction. The ancient Olympics awarded no cash prizes, but the elite athletes were professionals who trained under the patronage of politicians, merchants, and other wealthy jock-sniffers. Winners at the Games were lavishly rewarded by their home cities.
Amateurism was fetishized after the revival of the modern Olympics because it was an artifact of the Victorian age. Social class stratification was strictly maintained, and at the top of the heap were the aristocrats and idle rich who regarded working for wages as far beneath them. They instituted the amateurism rules to ensure that they would not ever have to compete against the tough working men whom they paid for sparring with them or training their horses.
Yes. Those who don’t know history don’t know their own times. I wish more people understood this. The world would be a much better place and we would be doomed to do a lot less repeating……
And though the Olympics has banished that rule in reaction to the Communist military athletes (who were really professional athletes with few, if any, military duties), the NCAA retains this absurdity. Let the athletes make their money.
A little-known fact about amateurism and social class stratification shows that the opposite, i.e. the working man, was well able to beat the ‘aristocratic’ rich: in the game of rugby, which was strictly non-professional until the 1990s, the Welsh, with their tiny population of 3.4 million, kept beating the English (pop. well over 50 million) as a matter of course.
The reason: the Welsh players were in their majority coal miners, who worked in the collieries for 5 1/2 days a week, and went from their work to play against the English on Saturday afternoons.
IAW, hard working men (amateurs) beat public school, upper-class amateurs.
Very satisfactory, that …
When we talk about the ancient Olympics we are talking about an institution that lasted more than 1100 years. I’m sure the athletes became professonal over time; but I think they really were aristocratic amateurs early on.
(The fact that an athlete received a lavish reward from his home town, doesn’t preclude him from being an amateur. Not unless he went from local festival to local festival and made his living that way.)
In any event where do you think the Victorians got their amateur ideal from to begin with? Yes, their classical readings –from the Greeks and Romans.
The gentleman athlete was participating in order to pursue an old ideal of what a heroic man ought to be: a liberally educated man who was accomplished in sports (which enhanced the martial skills and virility he needed to defend his nation as well as his own honor) and was socially graceful, etc. The ideal was not someone who was accomplished in only one thing (such as swimming fast) at the expense of every other skill and capacity that a free and healthy gentleman-citizen needed. Any slave could be taught a narrowly specialized skill (and often could acquire it at the expense of his long-term health and a good, liberal education). For this reason slaves could not be entered into ancient Olympic competition.
This ideal was often encapsulated in one Greek term, “arete” (pronounced ah-ruh-tay), which means kind of an all-around excellence. Later this ideal would be encapsulated in the expression, “the Renaissance man”.
Okay, the Olympic athlete is just performing physically at the games; but it isn’t supposed to be at the expense of the other capacities of a well-rounded gentleman or lady. For this reason Olympic organizers, early on, resisted the inclusion of professionals (who made a living performing one set of narrow skills) and should have banned totalitarian regimes from sending teams of essentially slave-athletes (who are trained at the expense of their health and broad human potential [a good education]).
I guess Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog eating contest is way out on the list of things you detest then.
I think for a physician the best motto was summed up by thr Latin playwright Terrence:
“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”
I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.
I remain solidly convinced that many Olympic athletes use some form of chemical assistance and masking agent. “Beating the Urine Test” should itself be an Olympic event with the gold medal going to the athlete who has been able to use the most pharmaceuticals without getting caught. (I suppose this would have to be an event held on the final day.)
All of this reminds me of the famous “Saturday Night Live” skit where the world stages the “Steroid Olypic Games” where all of the competitors are allowed to use all of the performance-enhancing drugs that they want. It ends with Phil Hartman’s Eastern Bloc powerlifter trying to clean and jerk a three ton weight and tearing his arms off in the process.
Pedant On. Powerlifters don’t Clean and Jerk in competition. Weightlifters Clean and Jerk. Powerlifters Squat, Benchpress and Deadlift. Pedant off.
Point humbly taken.
Thank you for your indulgence.
Just a quick nerd moment–the SNL piece is even older than Hartman. It was John Belushi who ripped his arms off. The other Belushi sketch based on the ’76 games was him mocking Bruce Jenner (pre-Kardashian-and-botox) by endorsing “Little Chocolate Donuts: breakfast of champions.”
I would counter the deformation of soul argument with the point that someone must lead the way in any skill. If you are trying to learn to do something, it is far harder to ever do it well without some sort of example on how to do it right, and the better the example, and the fewer flaws in their technique, the more you can learn from it.
For my example, I’m learning how to shoot. I’m terrible at it, and haven’t been making much progress in improving my accuracy. Then I saw an interview with one of the members of the US pistol team. It was a revelation. When he shot, nothing moved, at all. He shoots like a human bench mount. I knew that bench mounts were what you used to test the native accuracy of the gun, but it had never occurred to me that that was the ideal you were supposed to strive for. Moreover, he showed that large parts of the training can be done with just plain dry-firing, so you can do it in a little five minute routine every evening.
If you have the eyes to see, and the will to learn, that is what you can get out of things like the Olympics. That is what they were there for to begin with.
As long as Olympic shooters use air rifles that are perfectly balanced, I do not value their input to the shooting sports. I’d rather idolize the snipers on Top Shot. That is not to suggest they aren’t skilled or what you say about striving to be a human bench is not incorrect. However, I would just rather watch a more “real world” test of skill using actual combat weapons.
Ever try the Olympic shooting events? I have..and they are NOT easy. It’s a level of difficulty that makes the Tactikool Tommies look puny.
So can someone tell me what the budget for London was, and how much over that budget they spent for 17 days of fun and games.
And from reports, the businesses that expected to benefit from the tourists didn’t as various reports spoke of empty rooms, empty restaurants and empty theaters.
And the UK government conscripted its off-duty military to fill as many empty seats as possible.
In many cases these were tickets members of the general public wanted, but had been instead given to corporate sponsors, who could not be bothered to show up.
The writer confuses two things, sports and ethics. The sole worthwhile characteristic of sports is fair competition to achieve a meaningless result, e.g. move a contested rubber ball to some location. When children do this, it is beneficial to their health, exercise. However, when they devote a major portion of their youth to the concentration on one activity, and sacrifice other development paths, the long term benefits are ill defined, and suspect. However,we can say that conflict, in sports, is infinitely better than conflict in combat. In the original Olympics, the Greeks would allow enemy military to pass through the lines for the purpose of lethal competition. Martial arts were once the sole activities in the games, and often resulted in death. Mankind has advanced to volley ball kill shots, resulting only in sandy bottoms on bikinis, worn by adults who have arguably misspent their youth at the beach.
The medals are won by individuals, not by nations. Humanity advanced in the recent games when a disabled man from South Africa, competed, without feet, against the fastest runners on earth. It advanced when Islamic women came to compete, and wear acceptable garb in Judo. It advanced when the games ended without slaughter.
We have not advanced to the level that evil conduct, e.g. cheating is universally shunned. Exposes of unethical conduct comprise much of the sports section of our news, e.g the PA State child rapist, college athletes who routinely graduate without the ability to read and write, or pro boxers and football players who die young from brain injuries. Money, power and lousy people infest big time sports.
Do not detest the Olympics, detest crooks.
Actually, the first Olympics featured only the 1-stade run (roughly a 200 meter dash). Soon they added the half-stade and double-stade runs, a cross-country race (about 3 miles), discus, javelin throw, races in armor, and a martial arts tournament. In pankration (the martial arts tournament), you didn’t lose until you surrendered, unless you killed your opponent, in which case you forfeit the match to him. So, while casualties did occur, the goal was to make your opponent submit without killing him.
Humanity has undoubtedly advanced when a footless man can run as fast as an Olympian, but I’m not sure the Olympics have advanced. A man with bionic feet won’t have blisters, sprained ankles, shin splits, tons of medical problems of runners with human feet. He arguably has a great advantage.
Anyway, where do you draw the line? What about a javelin thrower with a robotic arm?
Your equivalence is perfectly correct. Graphite legs instead of actual legs means the body uses far less oxygen (no leg muscles to feed, which are hungry buggers when you run), among other things. That would be the same effect as injecting more red blood cells, which is, I think, illegal.
Indeed, he was running on springs! How can they make certain shoes illegal when the man RAN ON SPRINGS? High tech springs, at that.
I haven’t watched the Olympics since the pros started competing. There was something special about our college kids beating their professionals, even with their cheating us, but having our professionals, who are paid MILLIONS, and who are pampered beyond belief every day of their lives, beat up on some plumber from Uganda just ain’t right. We’ve become the scum we derided.
What happened to, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”
There is no honor left in the world. Why should there be any left in the Olympics? Looking for class acts among these twits is a forlorn cause.
Now the British taxpayer can pay all the over-costs, if there are any British taxpayers left. There must be, right?
Pastorius did not have an advantage due to his metal lower legs. Springs to not generate energy; they can only return a fraction of the energy put inot them. His hamstrings and quadricepts had to do all the work that whereas non-handicapped runners have calf muscles to provide additional power. Oxygen use is based on energy expended. He has fewer muscles needing oxygen, but the work required, the the oxygen needed, is the same. The only difference is the mass that has to be moved and the speed. I doubt if his metal legs are enough lighter than normal legs to make up for the lack of calf muscles.
The Olympic Committee examined the prosthetics and determined that they conferred no unfair advantage. The only thing I object to is that he can compete in both the Olympics and the Paralympics. I think you should only be able to compete in one or the other in a single Olympiad. As to the red blood cells, there is no rule against sleeping in a hypobaric oxygen chamber to stimulate red blood cell growth.
I cannot imagine the pain those artificial legs were producing at that level of exertion.
I doubt they were an advantage at all.
Orion
I coach track and one thing I always drill in to my athletes is efficiency of motions. I noticed that when Pistorius runs, part of te energy he expends is tranfered sideways. I also noticed that his hips worked harder that the legged sprinters. I appears to me that his running motion with the legs is not effecient.
I also read that Pistorius and other runner with out legs was treated for more injuries. The fact is that the stump of his leg takes a lot of abuses and Pistorius is prone to ulcers and abrassion as a result of the friction generated where the prothesis attaches to his legs.
It’s occurred to me that it’s possible to build “bionic” legs that can be worn by people who actually have feet – in fact I think I’ve seen videos of people wearing them. If the other competitors had shown up with these things on their feet, would they have been allowed to run ?
Years ago, I did research on advanced robotics and contribute to this side issue. Motion is controlled by an energy source, mass, spring rates and damping. In sports, a good example is the pole vault. The incredible modern records would be impossible without the perfect timing of the athlete, and the stiffness characteristics of the equipment (and the damping characteristics of the cross bar).
What now exists, are robotic prosthesis which adds, or supplants human performance. Walter Reed hospital is a center of excellence in this field. At present, they are illegal in competitive sports, but will, in the future, complicate human performance as enhancing drugs now do.
However, the central issue is ethics. How can I win by cheating? It goes beyond the Olympics, to the Penn State child rapist, to college degrees given to football players who can not read or write, to pro boxers who die young from brain injuries, to medical types who develop undetectable enhancement drugs. The common characteristics are big institutions, money, power, and technology (eg advance weight rooms available to only the rich). At some point, people turn off the TV, will not buy the ticket to view a rigged contest. The Olympics may have passed that point.
Individuals won those medals, not nations. There were no losers in the competitions. Humanity advanced when Islamic women could compete in sports garb. But I doubt the wisdom of spending fortunes on a few days of play.
Allow me, please…
If I have a line of 300 warriors who must stop a 30,000 men Persian army, I want some of them deformed by their training with javelins, some by bows, some by spears and swords. Ideally, all of them should have become monsters in the use of all weapons. And if they are warriors, they want the same.
Let’s not go Bloomberg here.
Let’s stop “protecting” people from themselves. Let them fly.
to devote one’s life to, say, throwing a javelin a fraction of an inch further than anyone else has ever thrown it before is a deformation of the soul.
Highly debatable. What makes anyone want to be number one in the world at anything? Something related to the thing that drives all human achievement, surely? And single-minded devotion to any such goal always means that certain things are sacrificed — a well-proportioned physique, a healthy bank account, cultural literacy, time spent in nature, other hobbies.
I want to do things that the world’s best javelin thrower would think are crazy, and I’ve sacrificed a little muscle tone here and there to do them.
(in other words, I agree with you, SZ)
In the SF novel ‘Inferno’ the protagonist is shocked to find a Health-Nut
friend face down in the mud in the circle of Hell reserved for gluttons,
because in life the man was too concerned with ‘the things of this earth’.
Those Olympic competitors who are legally and morally children may escape
judgement,but their coaches, their parents, and their governments – no.
So would you endorse taking male children from their parents at age seven and putting them into a brutal training remigine that involved regular fatalities, and cainings for public spectacle, in order to train up the next generation of soldiers?
Wasn’t that the former East German training system that created their own gold rush?
That’s pretty much how all skaters and gymnasts in all countries work.
Far from me to support any statism in any form.
I was just trying to give another point of view about the problem: some of us will always go to crazy lengths to excel in something and this is part of human nature and of history. Sure, it can become a nightmare like East Germany under the commies. That is bad.
But still, were you to face the Persian army, you would want to be with monstrous javelin throwers…
And there are always lots and lots of “persian armies” in the society, and in history…
The metaphor is debatable and controversial, and so is the point of view expressed by the Author I was commenting.
Here’s another example from history: Agincourt, and Henry V’s archers.
These archers were using the longbow, and were trained in that use from early on. Archaeologists have found massive changes to the skeletons of those longbow archers.
Unlike beach volleyball, most of the track and field disciplines have their roots in military training, going back to the ancient Greeks.
The extremes of the ancient world – and its manner of warfare – justified the Spartan training methods in that time, that place. The original commenter was making the point that in a previous, something as trivial to us as devoting one’s life to tossing a javelin a foot further ensured the survival of one’s civilization. What are you trying to say here?
The Olympics have long been to me an almost repellent spectacle, one that is tailor-made for the very worst of dictatorships to proclaim to the world their success and moral superiority.
Triumphalism by proxy.
Chinese are the worst, with the Russians a close second. Pick and groom their athletes from a very young age, not particularly voluntary.
In the original Olympics about 800 BC (excuse me, BCE), foot races were run in the nude.
I’d like to bring that back
We bascially have, except in a reverse of the original, only by women.
In earlier, more naive decades of my life I really liked the Olympics, and was glued to my TV screen for every day and
many hours each day to see each moment of my favorite events.
My disillusionment probably started with the massacre of the Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, which was followed—over the decades—by watching obviously prejudiced judging, payoff scandals, 1980s and 90s corruption under Olympic President Samaranch, and Olympic Presidents living very high off the hog, supposedly female runners who were male or vice versa, the growing commercialization of every aspect of the Olympics, doping scandals, and now this year, the opening Socialist Walpurgusnacht, the one poor Muslim woman in a black Burka, allowed to compete for Saudi Arabia—Huzzah!, increasingly, emphasis on the “back-story” about U.S. athletes instead of on their athletic ability—do I really care if U.S. athlete X grew up poor, or has a granny with Alzheimer’s and a one-eyed dog?–the Japanese gymnast who fell off the pommel horse during his routine handing a paper clipped wad of U.S. hundred dollar bills to the judges (its a fee, yeah, right)asking for a reconsideration and the raising of his score—and getting it, the 8 badminton contestants from several countries who threw earlier games so that they could draw weaker competitors in the next round, and thus improve their chances to win overall, etc. meant that I really didn’t watch more than hour or two, and will probably watch even less in succeeding years.
I think the equestrian sports are animal abuse, that and inevitably some horses die just from traveling alone. In fact, that is planned for. Humans can chose whether they want to engage in this dumb behavior but horses are forced into competition.
I would say that the relationship of physicians to Olympic athletes is more like that of Lixae, who served the Legions, than that of Auxiliaries, who fought beside them.
Please see:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/romemilitary/g/051811-The-Lixae-of-the-Roman-Legion.htm
The Olympics are pretentious as hell.
Everybody pretends they have some higher meaning, kind of one world overtones. Also it is kind of a body worship festival.
That said it would be interesting to hang around the Olympic Village and check out the fine shapes of all he girls of all those races and nationalities in all those different sports.
I wanted to see an Olympic Nascar event.
Having been a fairly high level athlete at one time in my life, I will ask who are you to say that I should not? It was something I was damn good at and I wanted to fully explore it and see just how good I could make myself. Yes, for those last four years, it meant I was devoting hours of my day to training. I had to buy my jeans at least a size larger to accommodate my calf muscles, and I had a metabolic issue for a time where I ate like a horse and still lost weight because my body’s metabolism didn’t adjust properly to the amount of training stress I was putting it through.
But the point is that it was my choice. I wanted to do it because I wanted to see how good I could be. Haven’t you ever had something you were good at and wanted to see just how good you could get at it if you ever really applied yourself?
Well said. The writer of this nonsense and many whom responded all seem to one thing in common and that is They Can’t Do what you and Olympic athletes can. They either and never had an athlete skills or they are lazy. The current health care issue is only an issue because of so many fat and lazy people who think a doctor care and pills will fix their health failures. What they won’t admit is their current condition is self inflicted. I am not a competitive athlete, but I do exercise and try to live a healthy life. I can run 5 miles, bench press 200 lbs, and do 30 chin ups.m I am 64 years old and I don’t take any medication for anything. I do take some vitamins for diet balance. My son is on his college track team as a pole vaulter. We saw the vaulting competition together on the internet. The best scene to me was when the French vaulter Renaud Lavillenie just set an new Olympic record of 5.97 meters. His face was pure joy. the writer of this article and many of those who responded may sneer at his happiness and achievement, but not me. I was happy for him. So you libertarians, liberals and so called conservatives who hate athlete achievement, go see you doctor for more happy pills. Just get out of my way when I run by you.
These physical competitions are entertainment, and entertainment provides a monetary incentive. The monetary incentive has provided a tremendous boost to medicinal knowledge. One of the reasons we have such a high survival rate of wounded soldiers is because of what we have learned in sports medicine. This is also true of physical rehab knowledge. Doctor, do not bite the hand which feeds you.
Btw, have you ever noticed the massive deformity of the legs of ballerinas? I mean, ugh! And ballet has not even caused much contribution to medical science. Will you now decry ballet? I bet not.
I think you have it backwards. It has been the battlefield that has pushed more medical discoveries to the benifit of the athlete, not the other way around.
I can understand why someone would detest certain things about the olympics. But I wonder if that person likes althetics? If you have an aversion to physical exertion and feeling good about performing well in a physical activity (or a sport), then you would certainly be biased, and hardly qualified to comment on this; sort of like childless adults holding court on how people with kids should really be raising them.
I do like sports, and exercise everyday pretty much. I am not obsessed, but certainly understand how athletes can be, and are; and I also understand how the author of this piece could see a ‘deformity of the soul’ for some of the seemingly insane althetes who sacrifice all else in life for the pursuit of something that for the vast majority is simply an impossibility. The author likens this to the physical deformities some athletes seem to have, like bike riders with their huge legs and concentration camp upper torsos and arms. Other than having what appear to be really fragile arms and torsos, there most likely isn’t any real harm done, other than wearing out joints and breaking bones when they crash.
There is enormous spiritual benefit to engaging in physical activity that you are good at, that fatigues you, and that allows you to experience yourself as being efficacious physically. Perhaps the olympians don’t represent this, since they are so burdened with the obsessed pursuit of winning, rather than experiencing. That’s the downside, for sure. Also, your fullfillment is measured by wins against harsh odds, when you are all but the best olympians. I personally like being physically active for whatever momentary lift it gives me; losing isn’t part of that equation.
I thought I was alone, I too think the whole deal is overblown and out of proportion. The gimmickry and doping is disgusting, but why spend your life to maybe compete for less than a minute.
I didn’t watch the games and never will, but those women hurdlers, they are beautiful. I watch them on you tube; if they have deformities, I think all women should be so fortunate to be graced with such deformities.
The rest of us should do our own sport instead of worshipping other athletes from the sofa.
Let’s remember that two American Athletes, George Patton, who was robbed of his rightful first place in the pistol shoot at the 1912 Pentathlon, and thus his gold (or silver) medal. And Jim Thorpe, who was stripped of his gold medal for earning $2 playing football and thus deemed not an amateur athlete. It would have been a 1 – 2 American finish in the Pentathlon, instead of a Swedish 1 – 2- 3.
What you say about drugs dove-tails with the reason I hate the Olympics. Many of the sports involve the following process. 1000 parents decide their child will compete in a particular sport and the tender age of 2. In the next 10 years 999 of them will discover their child’s desire or ability don’t meet their expectations. How many strained family relationships are left in the wake of vicarious Olympic dreams? Most of these athletes didn’t choose this path, they just happen to like it as much as their parents wanted them too.
The Olympic spectacle provides a benign venue for a relatively few nascissistic obsessive compulsive contestants to burn off excessive nervous energy while engaging in basicaaly purposeless highly regimented behaviour. It’s certainly preferable to carjacking or participating in a flash mob. And the best of the best then have the opportunity to make a few bucks pimping for some cereal manufacturer or purveyoy of athletic equipment. Fine and dandy. Some of the events, however, strike me as inane and downright silly. I know, this is a personal prejudice. Nevertheless, whoever dreamt up synchronized swimming and synchronized diving as meaningful ‘olympic competitions’ should be congratulated for their wit. I would only suggest the inclusion of a few sharks in the pool to liven up these events.
There is an obvious disdain for sports in many of these posts — that go well beyond the original essay, which wasn’t so laden with psychological absurdities. Whatever compells the best althetes to pursue what seems like insane goals at all costs, with time being totally irrelevant, it’s a subject that should probably be left to forums less biased and by those who at least have had some athletic success. Those who abhor physical activity aren’t really qualified to make any sensible commments on it. s
I call B.S. on this. This is the standard petite-fascist argument: “if you’re not Black (or whatever) you can’t understand and shouldn’t be listened to!” Couch potatoes may have wiser opinions in this matter than those blinded by ambition; or they may not. The idea that they aren’t allowed opinions because they aren’t athletes themselves is plain bigotry, and has no bearing on the argument at hand.
Personally I detest the Olympics, even as I admire some individual athletes. The fiction of amateur competition gave a fig leaf of cover, but now that the fiction is gone, the Olympiads just get ever more specialized to the point of absurdity. I disagree with Dr. Dalrymple that it necessarily contracts the soul, but professional sports are certainly home for many with shrunken souls. Too much specialization does of necessity narrow the outlook, and unless one cultivates equal and opposite interests it certainly may narrow the spirit too.
The Olympics is but another in a long list of distractions, intended to amuse the mob and administrated by its demogagues. It captivates the mob, allowing for a few weeks reprieve from the otherwise agony of boredom.
“The new physics, in the form of the radio, saves him from the appalling boredom of his hours of leisue” HL Mencken ‘Notes on Democracy’
The thing that if deforming about the Olympics is that in some countries success at any cost is the ticket to a life marginally better than that athlete’s fellow ‘citizens.’ If you, of your own free will devote yourself to becoming a gold medal winner in, say, the luge–fine. But, for many, in the old iron curtain countries, luge as the only ticket for a better life in that totalitarian society.
I enjoy watching much of the olympics. Like WWofSports of the past, it is good to see events we do not normally see and there should be more of it.
The aspect of the olympics that really annoys me are the events where winners (whiners) are picked by judges. It is obvious that olympic judging is hugely biased.
I enjoy more the events where the winners are chosen by quantitative means.
I have great respect for the phycial abilities of gymnists. I see no way other than judges to determine the winner.
I really enjoy sports like swimming and track where the rules are simple and it’s easy to know who won.
1. Don’t start early.
2. Stay in your lane and don’t interfere with someone else.
3. First one to the finish line wins.
The original Olympiad was sport. Sometimes it was hard sport. The goal?
Competition, excellence…sport. Wars would pause (and the Greeks, it seems were almost always at war). It really was a state of mind, that pause.
Winning at all costs was reserved for war. After all, Greek Fire pretty much sums up the attitude of the day. War has always been hell. Always.
The Olympic mind set is important for westerners. Along with our Judeo-Christian heritage, it is one of our defining characteristics. We don’t avoid competition, we seek it out. Those whose highest value is freedom want to play the game right and fair. To maintain our western style humanity we must reserve “winning at all costs” for our survival, not so unlike our forbears 2500 years passed.
“The Olympics” as broadcast is a hodgepodge of the legitimate and the absurd.
Why anyone has an interest in watching professional basketball players take on, say, Nigeria escapes me until I consider what such a match up means to a Nigerian. He is on the floor with the best in the world in probably the only venue where such a thing is possible. The game clock allows Nigeria the full prescribed time. The playoff cannot be meaningful in the sense of wondering who will win, at least not in this decade, but I can’t help but feel that the Nigerian player sees himself as an historic player on that day.
The absurd side of olympic progressivism rears its head when gymnasts are picked to compete not on the basis of their skill set, but because they are the recipients of a largesse which requires equal numbers of representatives from respective countries. Gut churningly wrong. But that does not diminish the competetive mind set of the participants who are left. They compete under the unhappy circumstance anyway. They are not the source of systemic illegitimacy and so, in the main, our western persuasion gives them their due.
To be meaningful, things and people must be imbued with meaning. We create that thing, which the Olympiad is supposed to be, within ourselves.
I loved the Olympics this year. Loved the sports, the usual (to me) and unusual. I loved watching the athletes. I loved seeing my favorite city, London. I did not love the Botoxed, sliced and diced, staring face of Bob Costas, lit as it was like a silent movie actress’, and spouting smug and faux-intellectual homilies (kind of like this article, actually). But that’s what the fast forward was invented for.
I like the Olympics as a concept, I detest the Olympics as implemented. There is something grand about competition to see who is the world’s best. However, that process is corrupted by a an Olympic Committee that is hopelessly arrogant and venal.
hate the tape delays and commentators
hate the prepackaged “back stories” and the media attempts to manipulate and spin reality to fit into a flimsy narrative (no wonder most lefty commentators start as sportscasters)
show it to me live or dont show it at all
We must accept that humans love sport and competition. And war, for that matter — the ultimate competition and power trip for the guy/king/queen/tyrant ordering men to their death.
What sickens me about the Olympics is 1) the crassness (and overt corruption) of the Olympic Committee and the myriad bureaucrats in their little jackets who parade around like they are important; 2) the idea that the Olympics is a “movement” instead of an international shakedown job akin to the UN; and 3) the phony idea of “equality” that would allow countries like Saudi Arabia to enter a woman who lost her event by a full lap (yeah, that’s Olympic quality!) while turning a blind eye to totalitarian regimes that punish their athletes for failing to win.
I always looked on the Olympics as another excuse for a future Robbie Benson movie. But then, he hasn’t made a movie in years, so I don’t know what the purpose is now.
My TV has an off button and more than 1 channel. Loved the Mexico/Brazil final and the US/Canada semi. Great competition. Didn’t watch 2 minutes of basketball. Saw more of the Olympics this year than I can ever remember. The opening was beyond hideous though.
In contrast with my countryman Dr Dalrymple, I have loved the Olympics. One of the things that I think has been especially impressive have been interviews with normal, down to earth athletes like Jessica Ennis, Victoria Pembleton and Ed McKeever, all of whom have supportive fiancé(e)s in the background, with weddings to plan on the return to normal life. Discipline, pleasure postponed, and the reward of normal life. What’s not to like?
The olympics are nothing but bread and circus for the idiot masses,further debased by corporations for purposes of product placement advertising. Ignore them: play a sport or hit the gym instead.
Mr. Dalrymple seems to be locked into a Cold-War view of the Olympics. I would suggest that he instead focuses on three words: Faster, higher, stronger.
Nothing better encapsulates the Olympic experience, or human endeavor, than that. Not the flags they wear, but the athletes. We apparently were watching different Games.
Better to throw a javelin really, really far than to write an article mocking what you are unable to understand.
And us conservatives still wonder why people thought we have huge chips on our shoulders. I think Bill Whittle and Andrew Klavan really nailed it when it comes to people like the author and many commenters in this article. Relax, don’t devote all your time to politics and serious stuff. Also, wailing about entertainment and bragging about how you’re not one of the sheeple only make you look like a foolish snob.
Spot on. I have a huge amount of admiration for Dr. Daniels and his many insights, but sometimes he seems like a bit of a misanthrope. Witness his repulsion at the Olympic opening ceremonies… well, don’t watch them, then! I didn’t.
Bread and circuses. Distract us from the important issues…
I think I knew Anthony Daniels (pen name Theodore Dalrymple) in elementary school. He was the kid who stayed in the classroom during recess and clutched our teacher’s dress, while we other boys were outside pounding on each other.
Perhaps not.
Finally. Someone besides me who detests this freak show.
Had a good laugh at this Scrooge-like view of the Olympics. Loved the part about the athletes having ‘distorted bodies’. Right. Take 10 Olympic athletes and 10 random regular citizens, who has the distorted bodies? There’s blindness for you.
The Olympics is a metaphor for, the honoring of, and the actual enactment of the great human trait of striving for excellence. Olympians are explorers, and it is interesting and inspiring (not to some) to see what they find — how fast a human can run, swim, even throw something (javelin).
“…to devote one’s life to, say, throwing a javelin a fraction of an inch further than anyone else has ever thrown it before is a deformation of the soul. But that, of course, cannot be measured by any instrument, and not everyone will agree.”
No they won’t, you miserable, pompous old whine.
Many of the comments in this thread are so absurd (just read the first sentence in Carla’s rant above #24) it is hard to know where to begin. Dr. Dalrymple’s assertion is an odd one:
“My own objection, however, to these deformities is different: that to devote one’s life to, say, throwing a javelin a fraction of an inch further than anyone else has ever thrown it before is a deformation of the soul.”
Is this reserved only for elite athletes, or can we apply it as well to the man or woman who wants to eat more hot dogs in X minutes than anyone before them, maybe so. Why not apply this to competition generally? The small business owner who devotes his life to capture the relevant market niche? An incisive indictment of capitalism!
This thread is full of pseudo-intellectual crap.
No. Government Money. For. Sports.
TeaDoc — Gov money a different issue, the good doc who wrote the article is anti-Olympics for different reasons. The good doc here argues that one reason he detests the Olympics is because it is a forum that dictators use to make themselves look good, and at moments, he’s right. But overall, that’s not the case — democracies, on a per capita basis, dominate the Olympics. USA crushed China, the UK and others crushed Russia. In fact, the Olympics in the long run makes dictatorships look shabby. And why? Because democracies are greater wealth creators by orders of magnitude. Why not use some of it to put dictatorships to shame AND explore the limits of human capability? The Olympics ain’t going away, and Thank You. Yeah, OK limit gov expense, force the private sector to step up. But none? No.
If I understand this article correctly, the two main gripes he seems to have are 1) the Olympics give despotic regimes a venue for legitimacy, and 2) the Olympics are a physically and emotionally quixotic endeavor. Where both of these problems are fueled by abuse, obsession, and an all-consuming lust for personal glory (either on the part of the athletes or the tyrant) irrespective of cost.
Tack on the biased and/or corrupted officiating, and the entire Olympic movement comes across like a bastard child of the United Nations. I generally enjoy the Olympics, so I’m troubled with how much this article resonates with me.
I stopped watching the Olympics long ago when it became obvious NBC slanted its coverage based on gender and AA crtieria.
Volleyball, gymnastics, swimming, track, beach volleyball, and boxing dominated the prime time viewing. Go figure.
Weightlifters, judo, wrestlers and the field event participants train as hard as the other sports but rarely get shown. Also the only athletes to receive hard cash and sponsorships are those once again dominated by women, blacks and swimmers.
I would likewise rather watch the sports you have mentioned here – it’s a crying shame that we flood the airwaves with every little detail of gymnastics, and ignore the martial arts and the complex events like the decathalon, etc. If I had a daughter, I’d much rather her watch women’s fencing than beach volleyball…
Feels like someone has issues with sports and fitness in general. I’ve loved Olympics since I was a child, however growing up in Europe we were spared the commercialization of the Olympics and the point of the TV coverage was the actual competition, showing EVERYONE not just the athletes from one country. And we were spared the tape delays and tearjerker stories about the difficulties that competitor overcame, etc. Looking at American coverage of the Olympics I miss the old days.
ttk/blotto — your take is in a sense an old song, and in fact a helpful one I’d argue, given this truth: the core of our wealth creation comes from market forces and NBC is just doing what is logical. Beach volleyball has a larger audience than beach volleyball. But here’s the upside of the voice of the unhappy customer: it makes you into one of maybe three good things — (1) by way of frustration, a forceful, opinionated, involved parent in guiding your son/daughter to a thing you want to impart, and/or (2) you become part of a movement, and/or (3) you become that rare business person who is in a position and makes it their life goal to put women’s fencing on T.V. the next time round. It all comes from the upside of everybody complaining actually, which requires a political system where people with different takes on things can speak their minds. Real tragedy is when disagreeing and complaining is intimidated and it disappears.
“My own objection, however, to these deformities is different: that to devote one’s life to, say, throwing a javelin a fraction of an inch further than anyone else has ever thrown it before is a deformation of the soul.”
That’s a pretty strong statement – does that mean you object to all organized sports entirely as something that should not exist? (I have a feeling Mr. Dalrymple will not read these comments, but perhaps others who have strong feelings can weigh in if they desire.)
I completely ignore the political games known as the Olympics. I do not care about any of it … It is a huge waste of time and money. I mean who cares if a human can mimic physically what most of the animal world can do before breakfast with their young riding on their backs.
it is our brains that we should be developing so we can get off this planet some day and start up on new ones.
Starting up a new planet might require some level of physical exertion.
What a curmudgeon!
First of all, a “hytrophied heart,” is like saying “preternaturally oversized calves or thigh muscles.”
The heart is a muscle. “Overuse” causes better developed muscles.
And, secondly, a single look at a picture of Gov. Arnold Schwartzennagger in a then-and-now, will show that the long term effects are rapid fading of the increased muscle tone.
Lastly, if you wish to descry the “politicization” of th Olympics, you have a point.
BUT,
As far as the games themselves are concerned, Ask the Athletes.
The era of the Olympics has passed. The athletes are often professionals, drugs are rampant, and who really cares anyway.
Even back in the ancient games, Olympic athletes have been professionals. The “amateur ideal” is a misguided idea that only gives advantage to rich upper class people and later the communist countries who basically cheated the system. I say professionalization of the Olympics is probably the best thing (and most just) thing the IOC has ever done. And who cares? Apparently many people do given all the tourists to London and the high ratings NBC got despite their idiotic coverage.
And it’s filled with beauty contests masquerading as sports.
Any even which requires a panel of judges to watch the performance and render their subjective judgements is a beauty contest, NOT a sport.
Sports have measurable, objective scoring. A certain activity is completed more often than the other contestants, or in a faster time, or at a greater weight, etc.
Beauty contests are not sports, no matter how many muscles are involved.
I tend to agree with what you say but — isn’t it possible that athletics are like meditation.
You don’t get anything done by paying attention to your breathing but you do gain control of your mind.
Likewise, these athletes show us how to train the body and mind even if few people are going to go to their extremes.
Ah Gaius,
Santayana is rolling in his grave.
How about Spirograph in the Olympics? I used to be quite good at that sort of thing. It’s all about centrifugal force, you see.
I have left two comments here in the last 48 hours and neither has posted. Why?
They were in full compliance with the posted rules.
Or a sign of a deformed society that places such importance on such unimportant things.
So the good doctor was no good at sport. And because of that he resents anyone who excels at it. Pitiful. Quite pitiful.