Boski on the Olympics (Pt. 2) Controversies

I touched on a few in my first post but now that the games have progressed I figured I could do a full post on all that has transpired over the past few days. Lets start with one that happened even before the torch was ignited. China hosting the Olympics. Man people (including several high profile Hollywood celebs who really know nothing about this topic) protested against China hosting the Olympics for many reasons, but the main one being China's control over Tibet. This is still being protested today during the games. Signs are everywhere showing the Olympic rings made of handcuffs talking about China's rule over Tibet. Now granted i'm talking from afar living in the US but China's has been in control over Tibet for like 50 years now. If Tibet couldn't fend them off then oh well, thats the way shit goes. I'm not saying they don't have a right to fight, but China is allied with so many countries, including the US. We are "encouraging" China to loosen its grip on Tibet, but truth be told I don't think Tibet really wants to be its own separate entity, and why would they be, they are part of the dominant country in the world. Anyway no reason why the games should not be held there. Hell if this is the case half of the world would protest the games if they were held here with our presence all over the place (see boon's post).

So now lets talk about the games, and first up is swimming. With Phelps going for a ungodly amount of golds and world records being shattered left and right one has to question the new suits. Laser cut, designed by NASA, mimicking a shark's skin, these things can take 15+ minutes to put on and are used to dice through the water. This suit, created by Speedo, is unstoppable. So much so that other country's who were sponsored by the likes of Mizuno said that they had to wear the Speedo suit to be competitive against the other swimmers. This upset their sponsors but they allowed it to be done. They are calling this "technological doping". My thoughts, everyone should just swim naked. It would make more of an even playing field.

Next Olympics Baseball and Softball will be eliminated form the games. Some say for scheduling problems. Others say that in the case of Softball it is because the US women are so dominant. My thoughts are, and while i'm not too big of a fan of baseball in the olympics, it is far better than equestrian. Why is this in the olympics? As Term and I were talking it is more horse than human. And this games there is BMX? This sport should be reserved for the X-games, not the olympics. Term said we might as well add Formula 1 into the olympics. Maybe a form of motor racing should be incorporated. All using identical cars. Also thought up, and hes made this pitch before, lethal lefty Phil Mickelson says golf should be included in the olympics, i'll let the debate begin.

Now on to some more serious issues. First up there has been serious complaints about the China boxers getting favorable scores. Many athletes have shown frustration in the ring. I'm not sure how much anyone has watched of this, I've actually seen a lot of this action and can say it does look fishy. But the whole scoring system for boxing in the olympics is shit. The points are awarded for the most random shit. This part of the sport needs some help and fast.

We've had 3 cases of athlets being D.Q. for drug testing. The latest one is in a sport I would never think would have such a thing. Shooting. Kim Jong Su tested positive for Propanolol which is prevents shaking, obviously giving a huge advantage where steadiness is everything. Pretty interesting.

In wrestling in one of the lighter weight categories we had the Bronze winner from Sweden throw his bronze medal on the ground and walk of the podium because he was upset at some of the calls and said he wanted to win the gold and nothing else but the gold. I understand you are upset but you are acting like a 10yo. Have enough respect and dignity to make it through the medal ceremony and then pitch your bitch.

And now the two that are getting the most attention. The Spanish basketball team has come under fire for a photo they did for one of their sponsors. It shows the entire team pulling the corners of their eyes to make "slant eyes" in an effort to look like the Chinese. This add, for a company similar to UPS here in the states, has run in several newspapers. Spain thinks they did nothing wrong, this is also the country who high power people throw around N-bombs and whos soccer fans make monkey noises whenever a black person touches the ball. Jason Kidd has stated if the US would have done that they would have been kicked out of the games, all of them would have been fined by the NBA and would have made to have done major PR work. I agree. Its a double standard the US has to be PC all the time while others are not. There is talk that the 3 NBA players on the Spain team may get some form of punishment but more than likely nothing will happen.

I touched on this in my first post but more info regarding the Chinese gymnastic team has come out. Several newspapers and other media outlets reported a year or two ago about several members on the team who were only 13 at the time. Making them ineligible. Several of the competitors birthdays were listed making them only 14 now. The gymnastic boards are really saying nothing, only that they go by the athletes passport and that those of the Chinese checked out. My thoughts are i'm pretty sure some of them are under the age of 16. But regardless we lost to them. Did they have an advantage by being younger? Maybe, but we still could have won the team event had we not made so many mistakes. I do not think anything will change this games, nobody will ever do an "official" investigation. But I think next olympics we will see much tighter and more in depth background checks and documentation to verify ages so that this does not happen again.