Olympic Events I'd Like to See...

Here we are, two-thirds through the long anticipated Beijing Olympics. It's amazing what a country will do in preparation for the games -- the venues they'll construct - The Birds Nest, The Giant Serta Mattress (the 'Water Cube' as it's being called is a pretty cool building -- but I see it from a distance and I wonder if they have a model with pillow top); and The Rowing Venue (do you realize what it took to build a canal in China, several thousand meters long, filled with clean, non-feces riddled water?). Truly remarkable.

So far I've enjoyed watching the wide variety of Olympic events. Sure, there have been controversies. Much has been made of the Chinese women's gymnastics team and the likely cheating by the Chinese in loading the team with twelve year old 'ringers' who can fly and flip and do all things gymnastics better than the young women who meet the age minimum of 16 years, established by some committee a few decades ago.

But aren't the Olympic games about allowing the absolute very best possible competitors in a particular discipline the chance to compete on a grand stage to win Olympic glory? The age limit was supposedly established to keep competitors safe, allowing children a chance to develop, limiting the pounding their bodies take and minimizing the pressures on their young psyches. So how many of these girls on any team do you think wait to start training until they're 14 years old and don't participate in highly pressurized preparations from the time they're 5, 6, or 7; and how many don't travel and compete in meet after meet after national and international meet? They all do this. Their sport requires it. There is no way to keep them safe from world class gymnastics, so I say let them compete, so long as they are good enough to do so.

While most events are exciting and entertaining there are some events that could be introduced or augmented which would spark additional interest. Yesterday, Stephanie Brown Trafton of the United States took the gold medal in Women's Discuss. Fantastic. Unexpected. On her first throw. She even surprised herself. But I think this event, which is skewed toward women of Hurculean stature, would be more interesting if rules included an actual track portion for this Track and Field event.

Like we all had to do when we were kids, when we accidentally threw our frisbee too far and it went over the Mitchell's fence-- we had to go get it. Frankly, these Big Bertha women have grown lazy, with half a dozen uniformed officials and gophers that collect their discs. Since we're so concerned about the health of the gymnastics girls, why shouldn't we care about these women, who as presently stands, are heart attacks in stretch pants waiting to happen? The new, health conscious discuss throw, would consist of a combination 'disc and dash' where they get points for distance, and also points for how quickly they can run and fetch the disc before throwing it again. There. We care about our athletes.

The Javelin throw could also use an enhancement. While presently there is little intrigue while the javelin is in flight, and when all is said and done, it most often ends with the Javelin hitting nothing of interest after its glorious flight. The new Javelin throw will have giant balloons covering the field, and depending on which balloon gets popped, the contestant will win a prize. Prizes could include: an Olympic Gold Medal! Regardless of how far the toss!; Fifty Thousand Tickets! which can be exchanged for a really cool Cops of Justice plastic handcuff and billy club set, or taffy!; or since we're in China, a Giant Stuffed Panda. For Real! (Okay... perhaps that's gone too far. That prize may set off an international PETA incident.)

And what's with Michael Phelps winning all of those swimming events? We need handicapped swimming. This event in no way is about people with disabilities. I am talking about creating a venue for swimming, where each of the lanes is filled not with water, but with viscous material of different thickness, with the best swimmers doing their strokes in the 'thicker' material. Perhaps Phelps would be swimming with a viscosity lane ranking of 4.7, while a weaker swimmer will be swimming with viscosity ranking 2.4. That might allow for any of us to qualify for the Olympic games with the chance to compete against the world's finest! But where, in China, do we suppose we could get water filled with viscous material?

That may be a bit of a stretch....