(08/27/04)
I've had enough. I'm sick of hearing about gymnasts and divers. Olympic basketball bores me. I guess it's commendable that the Iraqi soccer team has come as far as it has, but then Olympic soccer isn't exactly world-class.
Paul Hamm and the USOC essentially are refusing to return his gold medal won on a judge's error. Which brings me to the reason why the Olympics really suck: the most popular events are based upon judges' scoring.
Does nobody else see a problem with a system that is so imprecise that they have to drop the high and low scores and average the rest? This is the equivalent of timing race events (like swimming, running, etc.) by stopwatch. Imagine that there are 5 judges for swimming, and a time trial where each swimmer does their thing. The judges each time the swim on their respective stopwatches, and they drop the high and low time, averaging the other three. And imagine that they aren't allowed to review any video either. Sports should be scored on objective criteria, like baskets scored or runs made or time spent or distance thrown. Any sport where "looking good" is one of the primary factors in a scoring will never have my respect. People laugh at trampoline, synchronized diving, rhythmic gymnastics, and synchronized swimming, but I think these are in the same league as figure skating and gymnastics.
Then there's issues with doping and corruption. The Olympics are worth WAY too much money for "fair play" to have a fighting chance. You know almost all the athletes are engaging in borderline activities to boost their performance. I've seen firsthand the corruption in China, and I have no doubt that the corruption culture played the primary role in Beijing getting the Olympics.
And then there's basketball. I like basketball. I like to watch basketball. But I hate Olympic basketball. Why can't they do a tournament like the NCAA does? I don't understand how the U.S. can lose two games and still have a shot at the gold. I also don't understand how they can justify having only 2 referees on the floor for games. Or how they can justify having two inept referees who have never worked with each other, and sometimes don't even speak the same language. These guys are standing around watching the game, and they make the worst calls (and no-calls) I've ever seen in basketball. I put them in the same league as the $10/hr referees in intramural basketball here at UT. I don't watch the other team sports, but I'm going to assume that they're all this bad.
The worst thing about the Olympics, though, is the television coverage. I don't know when or on what channel each event is on, because they're retarded like that. I know they're all owned by the same people, but there's something strange about MSNBC showing water polo while CNBC shows handball and Bravo broadcasts the javelin finals. Not only that, the editing makes certain events feel rushed. I think the people at NBC would benefit from leaving at least a one second space between performances of anorexic girls balancing on a bar. And they don't even show everyone. They just show the people who end up getting the medal and every no-name American. And usually I already know who wins what because the internet is far better than television at real-time coverage.
