This year, break dancing and team break dancing have become Olympic “sports” events. They join a host of “sports” that must be juried, like gymnastics and synchronized diving where relative performance can’t be objectively timed or measured, as it can be with the hammer throw, for instance, or foot races.
Opening the Olympics to more people seems a generous and progressive
move. Most certainly, we’re not bound by the illusion that they should remain
true to the ancient Greek competitions at Mt. Olympus. There were no Olympics
for most of the time between their inception in 776 BCE and 1894 when Pierre de
Coubertin organized their revival.
What the modern Olympics retain from their ancient namesake
is that they’re primarily physical tests of strength and speed, and are keenly
competitive. What they’ve unfortunately added, though, is the nationalism
element: posted results generally report medal winners by nation. As I write this
(August 03, 2024), Canada is tenth when total medal winnings are reported. Even
as an armchair Canadian, I should be very proud.
(Wealthy nations win all the medals. Most nations (153 this
morning) are winning zero medals. Canada with a population of 40 million has a
GDP around $45,000 per person. Yemen, also with 40 million citizens has an annual GDP per
persons around $975. Canada: 12 medals; Yemen: 0 medals. Win a gold for Canada
and you get a check for $20,000 Cdn. $15,000 for silver, $10,000 for bronze. In
Turkey, a gold will win you $500,000 U.S. Just sayin’.)
Swimmers competing, I’ve read, shave off all body hair.
Occasionally, coaches fly drones over competitors’ practices to see if they can
find an edge. Performance enhancing drugs are perennially at issue. Sometimes the
need to win overwhelms impulses for camaraderie and “sportsmanship.” The
politics of the Olympics sometimes goes down dark rabbit holes. Very unfortunate.
For the Olympics to become inclusive enough to embrace me
would take some imagination. I propose Dentaracing. It involves eating a
sticky bun, removing, brushing and rinsing an upper denture, reinserting it, then
eating 15 cherries and spitting the pits into a wastebasket six feet away. A
kind of mini triathlon. First finished wins gold, of course, unless he/she
fails to deposit at least 12 pits in the basket, which would mean
disqualification, as would dropping the denture into the sink.
I could use $30,000 right now.
