Saturday, August 16, 2008

Olympic shenanigans

Ara Abrahamian - a modern Olympian

I recall a few Olympics back (way back in the last millenium) a reporter (who scored a 32 on the 'dumb as a sack of hammers' scale) asked one of the athletes if he was disappointed that he had won a bronze medal rather than the gold. The athlete looked at the reporter and asked, (I'm paraphrasing here) 'and when was it that you made it into the Olympics?' Ooooo, burn! And a good point. For true athletes just making it to the Olympics showed that you were one of the best in your sport. Of course it would have been something special to win a medal, but coming in fourth, or sixth or tenth doesn't really matter, you were still one of the best in the world, and an Olympian.

Then came the "dream teams", professional athletes brought in to the Olympic fold just so there could be a "guarantee" of a gold medal win. Yep, screw amateur athletics and bring on the pros. That would be about the time that I lost interest in the Olympics. I don't care about a bunch of millionaires treating the Olympics as some sort of vanity project.

Now we have come to the next logical step in the modern Olympic vision. A greco-roman wrestler named Ara Abrahamian representing Sweden, upon receiving his bronze medal dropped it to the floor declaring, "I don't care about this medal. I wanted gold." (His coach, Leo Myllari, later said that Ara hadn't won the gold because, "It's all politics." Stupid politics.) Well I don't think that buddy deserves the gold, but maybe a king-size baby soother with an extra large nipple might do the trick. Yeah, that'd work.

Anyway... Humouroceros

PS: Of course an honourable mention should go out to the Spanish men's and women's Olympic basketball teams for their tasteful photo where they're all pulling back their eyes in imitation of their Chinese hosts. I don't know where everybody gets off calling that racist. Why fiddle-de-de, that's hardly racist at all!


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