Monday, August 18, 2008

The Olympic Post

I love the Olympics, especially team sports. With those sports there's so much happening: performance of individual players, the team's strategy, the other team's strategy....etc. Even with one-on-one games, like Tennis, you get to watch the athlete's talent and how he/she reacts to the other player he/she is competing with.

But you know what I don't get? Single-player games. If you, an Olympic athlete, can't run the 100 meter in +/- 5% of the Olympic record, tell me again why are you here? Seriously? Okay, true story. I watched weightlifting the otherday and I believe the Olympic record was 185kg, which is really impressive seeing that the weightlifters where like 60kg. The dude who got the Gold medal (a little feisty Chinese dude) tried to lift 186kg and failed in his last attempt. That, makes sense. But when you look at the bottom half of the "Olympic athletes" who competed with him, you see that most of them failed to even lift 160kg in their last attempt?! Can someone explain this to me? With team or one-on-one games you can always say that the other team/athlete was better. But if you can't even come close to the Olympic record be it in running, swimming or weightlifting... what the hell are you doing here?

6 comments:

Munqy said...

Dude, that's like saying it's pointless competing in the Olympics unless you stand a good chance of winning. It's not about that, it's about taking part in the greatest sporting event in the world, about being part of one of the biggest, most waited for spectacles that exist. The vast majority of these athletes know that they don't stand a chance of winning, but participate so that they can be part of something great and tell their kids "I was an Olympian". That's a big deal man, if people didn't participte if they didn't think they stood a chance of winning Phelps would be swimming alone in most of his races.

Plus, there's always the chance that a compelete unknown comes from behind, breaks all his/her personal records and becomes a champion. It's happened before, it's happening this time around, it'll happen again. You never know if you don't try.

*Munqy spanks FeshFesh for being nasty.

Fesh said...

yes! YES! YEESSS!!!

*ahm*

I was agreeing with your point and not screaming in ecstasy due to the spanking.

But yeah, you have a point. Many should compete just for the honour of participating, since either way only a few will win. But don't you think that there should be a minimum deviation from the Olympic record that should be kind of a cut-off to even be at the Olympics?

And I believe this is applicable only in single-player sports, since in team sports or in one-one-one sports you can have this 'surprise' player/team that will have a new winning strategy that can beat even better teams/player. That could happen. But if you, a weightlifter, can't lift 170kg in training, I'd be REALLY surprised if you would lift 190kg at the Olympics.

Now.

Pls continue the spanking.

Munqy said...

*Munqy continues to spank Fesh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlifting_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympics_-_Qualification

All Olympic Sports have qualifying rounds.

Fesh said...

Damn you Munqy...

Can you pls stop ruining my perfectly inaccurate posts?

Munqy said...

The WikiFairy strikes again. Like an invisible cyber storm, I wash across your virtual world, ripping apart falsities and misdirections. I am the light in your life, biatch.

Fesh said...

Before the nite is over, your blue army will bleed and my red army shall, once again, rule the known world.


Let's see you wiki your way outta that....


*Fesh mobilizes ze red army.