Tag Archives: curmudgeon

I’m In Rebellion – Sort of…

Yesterday I was supposed to … planned to … write about the Olympics, since that was the prompt that the Daily Post had provided this week. I even wrote some thoughts about the subject, that basically my attitude toward the Olympics was … meh. In fact, that was the title I’d selected: “Olympics… Meh”

Then I more or less ranted about various elements of hypocrisy and political correctness that I observed… like the rule in the all around for the gymnastics competition that says each country can only have two athletes in that competition even if a country has five that would blow most of the athletes from the other countries away. Doesn’t matter. Only the top two from each country can enter the competition.

Which mean’s they’re merely being politically correct, not interested, for all the trumpeting otherwise, in who is actually the best. They just want to give everyone a chance to play.

Which is even weirder when you consider how many athletes from other countries move to the US to train, use US equipment, US coaches, train with US athletes… then go back to represent their own country (which did nothing for them in this regard) and maybe win a medal for their ‘homeland.’

So… what does all that mean anyway?  And when they tally up the medals should they count the athletes that trained in Country X using Country X’s coaches, techniques, food, fellow athletes, living conditions… should they count their medals alongside those of athletes actually representing Country X? Oh, but then countries A-Z minus X would feel bad… They might stop coming. And then where would we be?

So then the Olympics and medal counts aren’t about which country has the better athletes, training, coaches etc, but … really… making everyone feel like a participant. Making everyone feel good.  Making everyone feel like “we are the world.”

The commercials were the worst… but no, I will not go off on a riff about the commercials, and all the worldly, rah-rah viewpoints they were continuously spewing.

Maybe I’ve watched too many Olympics over the years… Maybe I’m getting old and seeing how the young wonders of yesteryear, like Greg Louganis, now stand in the bleachers and watch, gray-haired, far past their prime… poor guy. All that glory and now it’s gone… Which is the way of the world, of course, but you’d never know it from all the hooplah.

The focus for me is just all wrong. Unless you use the general idea of it all — training for the games  — as an analogy for the Christian life… it does take the dedication the athletes demonstrate, in order to eventually finish the race, fight the good fight, run so as to win, win the crown… But as far as the world… it just seems sort of meaningless.

Wait a minute! I started this post intending to write about how I was NOT going to write about the Olympics. How I  just couldn’t bring myself to follow the five posts a week plan any more. How I was too tired, too chafing against the requirements, not interested…

Yet somehow… I ended up writing about them anyway.  🙁

Hmph. I think I liked the clip they played in the opening ceremonies of Chariots of Fire best (minus the nonsense with Rowan Atkinson). I still remember the thrill of seeing that movie on the big screen for the first time, that wonderful running on the beach scene, hearing that now-familiar theme…one of my all time favorites.  Maybe you loved it, too. If so… enjoy…