If you are like me, you watch the Olympics with mixed feelings. On one hand, I am attracted to the drama of the world’s best athletes competing for the gold. On the other hand, I am revolted by the politicization, corruption and commercialization of the Olympics.
If you are watching the Olympics, you owe it to yourself to read this NYT op-ed by the author of “Friday Night Lights.”
A sample:
I will keep an eye on the medals table, curious to see how the
Russians perform now that several of their finest athletes have been
suspended for failing drug tests. I will watch women?s beach
volleyball, not because it?s a sport, but because skimpily-clad leggy
women rolling in sand does put me in a state of excitement right up
there with mud wrestling (no doubt the next sanctioned Olympic sport
given NBC?s need for strong television ratings and the correct calculus
that soft-core porn under the guise of sport does have its benefits). I
will watch the short-distance races to see if I can determine by naked
eye alone who is cheating, because history tells us that somebody
inevitably will be.But most of all I will watch the
enormously popular women?s gymnastics competition. The performances are
incredible and fearless, but it isn?t the athleticism that draws me in.
In fact I can?t think of any competition in the Olympics, or all of
SportsWorld, more creepy and disturbing: these largely shapeless girls
in their leotards and flaxen-waxen hair and bouncy-wouncy ponytails.
?They look like girls from the neck up,? I was told by Joan Ryan, whose
1995 book, ?Little Girls in Pretty Boxes,? blew a sky-high lid off the
sadomasochistic training regimens that young female gymnasts were being
subjected to. She continued: ?From the neck down they look like
prepubescent boys.?
