Because You Never Asked

Essays by Post Consumer Man

Jerome Grapel
Phone: (305) 766-9576
Email: JerryG@postcman.info

 

WHY I HATE THE OLYMPICS 

     Although I've devoted a good deal of material to the Olympics in this ongoing glacier of philosophical slush, not since Atlanta '96 has the topic appeared in these pages. My previous forays dwelled upon the self-centered xenophobia which, for this pundit, has made the Olympic Movement a patently negative experience for the human race. The Olympics promote peace, harmony and goodwill amongst men in much the same way Spring Break promotes sobriety.

     The 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City only served to reinforce these feelings. Its personality was so adolescent aggressive that it came close to resurrecting the Cold War. What we have here is war without bullets. The Olympics not only do nothing to lessen our tendencies to engage in real war, they seem to pave the road in that direction. Salt Lake City, excluding the boycotted Games of the 1980's, was probably the worst example of this in my lifetime. (Berlin '36, the Nazi Olympics, might still be King.) Giving oxygen to this fire is that the Olympic Games have become a purely commercial enterprise . and war sells.

     Given the unctuous patriotic goulash America is still wallowing in since 9/11, I tried my best to flee the Games, but its presence was so omnipotent that total escape proved impossible. But let's also fess up: most of the events are wonderful spectacles performed by gifted athletes. I can't remember the last time I actually watched a hockey match, but the style of play at the Olympics is such an artistic triumph compared to the goony mayhem played in the NHL, that watch I did. Most of the other rarely seen forms of skating, skiing and sliding can also make for interesting viewing. It's not the athletic competition I object to, but the emotional climate it is forced to operate in.

     The Games ran for 17 days, with NBC providing the television coverage. But this is just one star in a far-flung galaxy of news and information sources. For 17 days, countless news blurbs dealing with the subject, from an exaggerated number of sources, slid through our consciousness. In all that time, I cannot remember one instance where the performance of our American athletes was not the focus of any news item having to do with the Olympics. Did we win? Did we lose? Period. On numerous occasions, an American bronze or silver medallist would be mentioned without telling who won the gold! (I can repeat that if you don't think you heard right). This tunnel vision obsession with our own athletes will come into sharper focus a bit further on, when I discuss the athlete who, without a doubt, was the most extraordinary performer at Salt Lake City 2002.

     Being that the United States did better than it ever had at the Winter Games, local coverage had an almost neurotic fixation on the medal count amongst warring nations. One trying to mitigate this success could point to the mother lode of medals carted away by the Yanks in many of the newly invented generation X sports (moguls, flugles, aerial doodlies, ring dings and such), many of which have been created in the United States and still have a limited pool of international participation. Back in the days when the Soviets used to dominate both the Winter and Summer Games, I can remember how we used to scoff at many of the kinky sports they excelled in (bear wrestling, vodka chugging, caviar diving, whatever). Notice how the worm has turned.

     This self-centered nationalism is certainly not the exclusive property of the happiest nation ever there was, but there does seem to be a morbid devotion to being #1 in America that seems less relevant elsewhere. It is an integral part of America's identity. Such behavior seems to find its lowest expression at the Olympics and, with the help of America's unchallenged media clout, everyone else begins to resent it. So much for peace, harmony and blah, blah.

     If an American "anti-propagandist" (see essay "The Olympic Games") might add some objectivity to this medal count fixation, the following becomes more relevant: Norway, a country with roughly half the population of New York City, won more gold medals than the United States in Salt Lake City.

     One day during the Olympics, I was listening to the radio when the five-minute news blurb at the top of the hour came on. ("News" these days seems to be delivered only in blurbs.) The newscaster, with the usual full-bodied, baritone resonance, gravely explained how Dick Cheney was asserting his right to say nothing about anything, something he does with unparalleled talent. Having completed this "blurb", he then went on to explain, with the exact same gravity he had used in the Cheney story, that there had been "great disappointment for the Americans at Salt Lake City." It seems that the woman's curling team had barely been eliminated from medal contention by some frostbitten, yodeling nation of little import. I'm not sure I should admit this, but try as I might, I could not summon up the most minimal smidgen of disappointment necessary for a loyal American. Please don't hate me. I'm not a Taliban. I feel so alienated, so alone amongst so many disappointed Americans.

     I sometimes wonder if Cheney would have been bumped into the second slot on the newscast if the curling team had won.

     As promised above, I will now discuss the most outstanding athletic performance rendered at Salt Lake City 2002. This athlete performed in an event where the Americans did not medal and, for the most part, did not contend. As a result, anyone who may have experienced these Games in the Disney States of America knows almost nothing of this athlete and what was accomplished. Even more astounding is the fact that this athlete militates in one of the traditional glamour events of the Winter Olympics. We are not talking about moguls, flugles, flips, blips, and new fangled somersaults and circus tricks performed by a limited group of pioneering "dudes" in sports we've never seen before. The sport in question has been around since the first snowfall and has produced famous athletes whose names are well known --- with the exception of Botswana --- everywhere. Even as I write, I can only blush with embarrassment in admitting that I still don't know the name of this athlete. I'll have to do some research.

     One day, near the end of the Games, I came home from work and flipped on the TV. One of the women's alpine skiing events was on. The winner turned out to be a girl from Croatia, which, in itself, is somewhat surprising. Before getting back to her, let's have a word about the amazing athletic accomplishments of this country of only 5 million people: In the last decade or so it has sent numerous basketball players to the NBA, many of whom --- Petrovic, Kukoc, many others --- have become outstanding players. They won the silver medal in this discipline in Barcelona, finishing only behind the original "Dream Team". Their soccer players have gone out in waves of talent that now ripple through the most important leagues of Europe, many of whom are star players. Their National Team actually reached the semi-finals of a recent World Cup, a remarkable showing. They've produced a Wimbledon champion in Goran Ivanisevic and there are a number of world-class Croatian tennis players, both men and women, playing the sport's top professional tours. If you are still not impressed, it should be mentioned that this was all done while recovering from a brutal civil war that devastated the country. And now, perhaps the most remarkable of all, the skier mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. She not only won the race I alluded to above, she won by over a second, which, for a sport calibrated in 1/100ths of a second, could be described as lapping the field. While digesting this fact, the announcers mentioned that this was her third gold medal out of a possible four in Alpine Skiing. She seems to have failed miserably in one of these events, having only won silver. (I'm not quite sure what makes up the alpine events. An educated guess would be slalom, downhill, giant slalom and combined.)

     Just how remarkable was this performance?

     I did some research. Alpine skiers, during their season, race on a weekly basis on a World Cup Tour similar to what golfers and tennis players do. It is not usual to find repeat winners from week to week, and multiple winners during the course of the season are limited. It is difficult to dominate this sport. All the skiers are well-trained professionals competing within a heartbeat of each other's skills in a sport as highly evolved and traditional as soccer or baseball. In skiing's long Olympic history, no female has ever done what this Croatian has done, and only one person, the legendary Jean Claude Killy, skiing at a time when the vast majority of humanity was still not born, has matched it. Considering the magnitude of her accomplishments at one of the world's most high profile events, she should be considered for Athlete of the Year (ESPY's, Sports Illustrated, etc.) and Female Athlete of the Year should be a lock. In American terms, her feats could be compared to winning a Triple Crown in baseball, or rushing for 2000 yards in football. And yet .

     . in the various wrap ups reserved for the few days of post-Olympic glow, I did not see or hear anything about her extraordinary feats. We know about the dudes with their flips and somersaults; we know about the hockey tournament; we know about the American speed skaters who made the transition from Santa Monica skating (a great story); we know about the spoiled brats and whiners in figure skating; we know something about any American who won anything at Salt Lake City . I ask you . do you know the name of the Croatian girl who was the best athlete at these Games?

     Can you imagine the uproar if an American had done this?

     And now I'll tell you why I really hate the Olympics.

     Sometime around the mid point of the war games at Salt Lake City, there was a horrific story out of Egypt. It seems there was a train accident where some 370 or so people died. I am certainly not versed in the history of railroad tragedies, but I cannot remember a train wreck that charged such a heavy price in human life. Adding to the magnitude of the tragedy is the way in which it happened: It seems some cars near the back of the train caught fire. The people at the controls, way up at the front, did not become aware of the problem for quite some time and simply went on with their business. Use your imagination. It must have been an infernal disaster.

     The next day, the headline on the front page (not the sports page) of USA Today read, "American Women Take Gold in Bobsleigh". (I don't know when "Bobsled" turned into "Bobsleigh", though I must admit my less than rudimentary knowledge of the sport. I think gravity plays a big role in it. Could they be two different sports?) Even if this historic railroad disaster had not taken place on the same day as America's feminine triumph in the "Bobsleigh", I find this headline somewhat puzzling. I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle. When did the Bobsleigh begin to claim such an important piece of the American consciousness? Did I miss something? I'll have to get out a bit more.

     Upon explaining these thoughts to a friend, I was told this Bobsleigh thing carried a bit more media weight because one of the riders was a black girl. She was the first woman of her kind to ever win a gold medal in the Winter Games. Forgive me, but I don't see an Afro-American being used like a sack of potatoes on a sleigh ride as a great triumph for the civil rights movement.

     But there is irony here. Although the participation of a person of color made the bobsleigh story more relevant in America, the fact that the hundreds of people who perished in Egypt were also of color, probably made it less newsworthy in America.

     The best idea I've ever heard with regard to the Olympic Games came from an elderly Portuguese gentleman named Jose Saramago. His intellectual brilliance and literary talent were recently rewarded with a Nobel Prize for literature. He feels that no country involved in any war, directly or indirectly, should be allowed to participate in the Olympics.

     Amen.

     P.S.- I have a sorry confession to make. I had a friend of mine look up the name of the Croatian skier. The next day he gave me a print out with all the information on her. Before finishing this essay, I lost it. I'm not going to ask him to do it again. My memory says Kostolic . or Kostolicic? Her first name is completely gone. Considering the coverage given her feats in America, it seems fitting for it to end this way.

 

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info

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