Our Olympic Supermen & Superwomen

By Michael Pape

Hey!  Anybody out there watching the Olympics?  It’s so much better than all those other sporting events.  So. Much. Better.  I don’t know if it’s possible for a sporting event to care about something, but if it is, all those other sporting events would care about is money.  The Olympics, however, cares about America.  And Canada.  And good-looking athletes from around the globe.  They are our heroes, and they do it for the love of the sport.  Also, they do it for the glory and adulation and endorsements and money.

Apollo Anton Ohno.  Think, for a second, about the absurdity of that name.  Then think about the fact that he has won a whopping seven (7) Olympic medals over the course of three (3) Olympiads.  I can’t even remember I time when I didn’t know he existed, and he still looks like a child. He has achieved all this in a sport that was specifically designed so that Americans and Koreans could win medals, but that doesn’t tarnish his accomplishment much.  He’s truly a legendary American athlete, even if he does have a glorified soul patch.

Olympic skiing is both fascinating and nerve-wracking to watch.  Those men and women are hurtling down a hill at 70+ mph on nothing but two strips of plastic!  How they can actually manage to be aggressive and competitive under such circumstances is beyond me.  The US has produced a bunch of medals in skiing, and this lines up nicely with my belief that America is the greatest country in the history of countries.  You don’t think so?  Look at Lindsay Vonn.  Look at Bode Miller.  Look at Julia Mancuso.  They’re all really telegenic, and they all won medals.  Are you really going to argue with that?

(You know, sometimes even I can’t tell if I’m being sarcastic or serious.)

I thought the Olympics were supposed to have hockey in them, but I’ve been watching NBC and I haven’t seen any pucks flying around.  Did they do away with it when they added all those X-Games to the Olympics?

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games are a great example of what happens when an incredibly corrupt international body is allowed to present a fantastic and idealistic competition that can help bring peace to countries of sinful humans.  It’s messy, but ultimately pretty good, despite the best efforts of the dreaded International Olympic Committee and their corporate worldwide partners.  It bothers me that in 2010 I can’t watch a live internet broadcast of every Olympic event because NBC (and Big Cable Companies) paid lots of money to prevent me from doing so.  If I lived in England, I could watch hockey until my brain iced over.  In America, I either have to prove I have cable or pretend that hockey doesn’t exist, a la that last paragraph.

I really do love the Olympics.  I love the passion, the death-defying performances, the feel-good stories, and the way that four years of work can be canceled out by a bad starting position or the lack of a working zamboni.  These athletes aren’t the heroes that NBC and the Olympics want us to think they are, but they are all great at what they do.  In terms of their hard work and dedication, they are to be celebrated and emulated.  But let’s not go overboard in our desire for American Heroes, ok?

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