Something I just realized about the Olympics

The reason why I'm usually utterly indifferent to sports (except the FIFA World Cup, for Brazil) is that I've had it driven into my head that the only "sports" that count (i.e. the ones that make big money in the US) are those that take place between one all-male team and another all-male team.

The Olympics are so much more interesting because there's a mix of events that are individual against multiple other individuals, m/f team against m/f team, woman against woman, etcetera.

I don't give a shit who wins the hockey game tonight. That's pretty much the same as all the other random groups of guys against each other that I skim over every night while channel-surfing.

I LOVE the events that are individual/pair-based, though, especially the ones that have both male and female versions.

Maybe because I don't identify with all-male packs? (Or all-female packs, either - women's pro team sports are only marginally more interesting to me than the male ones).

it gives them the opportunity to see other girls as something other than rivals for boys or rivals in sport - such as how women on tennis teams are ultimately competing with one another. Girls that play sports, especially team sports, have reaped huge benefits in self-esteem, etc. Team sports - unlike tennis, gymnastics, figure skating are less likely to be based on beauty, etc.

Peggy Fleming said that if women's ice hockey had existed when she was young, she would much preferred to have played that over being a figure skater. She said being a figure skater was very, very lonely.

I'm just not a "pack" person.

I would also love to see more sports where men and women compete with each other, as equals.

Just run HD video and forget the sappy crappy shit that has turned the Olympics into a quasi religious spectacle in which conformity of the athlete is the most important issue. Wouldn't want to tarnish the 'purity' of sport with any real emotion or any real personality. The iconograpy and fetishistic worship of the medals is too much.

Personally, I want to see more of the athletes from the smaller, lesser-known countries who might not be medal contenders but have obviously put in a huge journey just to be there. I want to see them do their thing and I want to hear their stories; they shouldn't just be faces you only see once in the Opening Ceremonies and never again! The Olympics are a great opportunity for Americans to learn just a little more about the world, and it's completely squandered by the weakass coverage.

That would raise the stakes!

I mean, just because a guy has a decapitation altar and a working blood-gutter in his backyard, there's no reason to question his incarnation history.

Have a little tact, you brute!

I mean, if you've lost a game, it's OBVIOUSLY because the gods want your still-beating heart ripped from your chest, no? Is there anything WRONG with cultures like that?!?!?

I suppose you think the Romans were barbaric too, don't you? PC nanny-state wusses.