A Personal Observation – Are the Olympics Relevant?

If you’re like me, you were pissed that the OIC decided to remove wrestling from the Olympics. They’re trying to find spots for two new events; karate and golf. Karate I can understand, but golf? Are you kidding me? I understand them taking out baseball, softball and table-tennis, I mean geez, how hard to you have to train for those, but when one of the reasons they want to remove wrestling is lack of ticket sales and television viewership, who the hell is going to sit through eighteen rounds of golf? IMO, if they’re looking to entice younger viewers, they just blew it.

http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/international-olympic-committee-drops-wrestling-from-2020-olympics-1.71569

The Olympics has become a bloated, incredibly expensive political arena. Don’t kid yourselves, politics plays a BIG part in deciding the winner. Don’t believe me?

http://www.thestar.com/sports/olympics/2012/10/05/speed_skating_scandal_simon_cho_says_american_coach_pressured_him_to_tamper_with_canadian_rivals_skates.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Winter_Olympics_figure_skating_scandal

There are at least twenty-eight categories of events. Some of them are just ridiculous. Water Polo, canoeing/kayaking, volleyball; beach and other, table tennis, badminton, and a couple of those bike ones. Please, BMX is an event?

Check out all the events here:

 http://www.olympic.org/sports

I think the IOC has betrayed the heart of the Olympic Games. Maybe the games themselves have become irrelevant. How many of you watched the last Olympics? Did you watch the Winter Olympics? It’s supposed to be for amateurs, but did you see any amateurs on the hockey teams? Or the basketball teams? Or any team sports? No, because everyone wants to be the winner, and they’ll cheat, lie and bribe to do it. Remember the scandal at the Atlanta games?

I hate to say it, but maybe this tradition should come to an end. There are plenty of other world sports competitions that take place so the athletes won’t stop competing, plus, it’s expensive to host these games. Some cities are in debt for decades afterward. I swear, Montreal JUST got out of debt from the ’76 Summer games.

I think it’s time to put out the torch.