My attempt at sports writing. Officially.

With the Summer Olympic Games commencing in London this month, I figured now would be a good time to do a topical piece, as opposed to one of my usual personal, arbitrary rants.  Don't worry, I will resume random acts of snark soon enough.

Let's start with a little bit of history, because the Olympiad is seriously one of the oldest, most-revered traditions in the Western World, on par with keeping down brownish people.  Since the days of Classical Antiquity, athletes have come together in a spirit of peace and camaraderie to compete against one another on behalf of their homelands in a way that doesn't involve bloodletting.  Even the bitterest rivals in Ancient Greece could meet on the sacred fields of the Olympiad instead of the battlefield to settle old scores and prove the merits of various ab workouts.  It sure beat the hell out of the United Nations.  Truly, the Greeks were an enlightened, civilized people well ahead of their time.

Pictured: Enlightened civilization.

When they weren't busy kicking messengers into bottomless voids, spewing Samuel L. Jackson-worthy one-liners and generally inventing badassitude, or waging brutal warfare on each other over a region the size of North Carolina, the Greeks took it to the field in honor of Zeus, whom we now know as Liam Neeson.  There, they would show off their mad discus-skills in the buff to rep their hometowns and score some olive-oiled ass, an unsurpassed spectacle until the advent of Jersey Shore.  Then, a whole bunch of shit happened and nobody celebrated the Olympic Games for centuries.

Skip ahead to 1896, when the tradition was officially revived, birthing the modern Olympics, a global competition between freakish specimens of humanity whose time might better be served acting as actual goddamn superheroes, brought to you by McDonald's.  But I think it's safe to say our venerable forebears would laugh their togas off at the sight of certain events . . .

Racewalking

You knew this was coming.  Even when this event (and I use the term in the broadest possible sense) was added to the docket, I have to imagine at least a few skeptics fairly pointed out, "Hey, that's complete bullshit."  Because we already had pedestrian races that employed the more-traditional means of speedy foot-based locomotion called "running." It's kind of been around for a while.

So easy, even a cave- . . . well, you know the rest.
(NOTE: Quota for 3/4 naked, ripped men filled.)

Power-walking is what you do when you are trying not to run, yet get somewhere faster.  There is no reason to pretend you aren't in a hurry at the Olympics - it's called a race for a reason.  I refer you to the Wikipedia description of racewalking:

There are two rules that govern racewalking.  The first dictates that the athlete's back toe cannot leave the ground until the heel of the front foot has touched. Violation of this rule is known as loss of contact. The second rule requires that the supporting leg must straighten from the point of contact with the ground and remain straightened until the body passes directly over it. These rules are judged by the human eye, which creates controversy at today's high speeds. Athletes may sometimes lose contact for a few milliseconds per stride which can be caught on high-speed film, but such a short flight phase is undetectable to the human eye.

The fact that specific rules had to be laid down to define walking, so as to avoid confusion with really slow jogging, should have precluded it receiving serious consideration for Olympic contention.  Bizarrely, women were barred from this glorious event until 1992, and, stranger still, they actively campaigned to be allowed into this ridiculous farce.  Hooray for feminism?

Ping Pong

Because, really, it's fucking ping pong.  End of story.

Synchronized Swimming

You've probably seen it lampooned in parodies of olden musicals, but I'll bet more than half of you didn't even know it was a real thing.  Yes, I have that much faith in my readership.  Swimming in formation with other swimmers is considered not only a legitimate pastime for non-weirdos, but an actual sport.  Even the International Olympics Committee, the shadowy, Illuminati-like cabal governing the Games, agrees.  I hate to say this, but it feels like a half-assed, old-timey attempt at political correctness.  The conversion probably ran something like this:

"Well, women certainly can't participate in any real, manly sports."

"Of course not, old boy!  But we should give them something . . ."

"Competitive dish-washing?  Speed-birthing?"

"Jolly good, but no.  Wait, I've got it!  Swimming together!  To music!"

"Capital!  It's feminine, slightly exploitative, and easily mocked  by other athletes!"

I realize it takes skill and training and endurance, but that does not necessarily make it a sport. If it were, then why isn't, say, marathon hula-hooping a competition?  (Shit, Olympic Committee, don't get any ideas).  Get this, there was once a solo event as well. A solo synchronized swimming contest. Exactly what are the participants synchronizing themselves to? An imaginary friend? Despite the alternate name water ballet, you can only sync so many moves in the water to music before it gets redundant. And, let's be honest, how interesting is it really watching a solo ballerina for any length of time on stage?

Doesn't count.

And that's without splashing water obscuring the finer moves.  Anyway, it's the coordination and pageantry of multiple performers that makes ballet a spectacle.  Same goes for "synchro," as all the hip kids refer to it.  Thankfully, the solo version was discontinued when someone realized they were just watching lone swimmers flailing around in a pool set to music.  For further proof no one outside the sport gives a shit about this event, I refer you to the Wikipedia page, a pathetically short entry with no description, history of the sport, or discussion whatsoever.

Badminton

Nope, I'm not making that up.  Badminton is something you can get a gold medal for.  Isn't badminton just the geriatric form of tennis anyway?  I thought we invented it so seniors could keep swatting objects back and forth across nets with rackets.  If you are among the world's elite badminton prodigies, shouldn't you just be playing tennis?  I suspect there is more money and recognition involved, though I am no sports agent.

Damn, it's getting meta in here.  (If you get this reference, congrats, you're old.)

I half suspect it is included in the Olympics solely to allow the announcers to make repeated use of the word shuttlecock.  (Go ahead, take a moment to giggle to yourself, you pervy child.)  Given my general apathy toward sporting events, I am probably grossly oversimplifying the similarities between tennis and badminton and insulting an entire subset of distinct, respectable athletes in the process.  And I do not, for the record, care.  Deal with it, badmintonistas.

I suppose I should be glad that some past events have been culled from the lineup.  Former Olympic competitions include tug of war, motorized boating, and something called basque pelota, a sport so obscure and obtuse only one match was ever played, between the only two countries to bother fielding a team, and nobody could be troubled to record the final score for history.  Believe it.

Apparently, it's some form of Victorian scoop ball.  Sweet.

KP, out.