COLUMN: Olympics’ Massive Chock Hold on Itself

Maybe it was during badminton. Perhaps it was the extensive coverage of handball. It could’ve been the 4x100 potato sack relay.

Somewhere during NBC and Telemundo’s seemingly endless coverage of the recent 27th Olympiad, I got to thinking: When did the Olympics become so open, so accessible, so … promiscuous?

Appearing to divert from its quest to find the top athletes of our time, the International Olympics Committee welcomes any sport that petitions for admittance, with all the discrimination of a docked sailor.

The key ingredients to the Olympics – swimming, track and field, gymnastics, basketball – are still there, But now they’re surrounded by tedious grizzle – handball, taekwondo, kayaking, team horse jumping, to name a few.

These sports are a tasteless buffet around an otherwise succulent spread, regardless of whether they’re draped in the stars-and-stripes.

Ratings for the Olympics remain absurdly high. The first four nights of coverage averaged 30.4 million viewers, according to broadcastingcable.com. But those numbers appear to reflect the public’s interest in swimming and Michael Phelps, running and Usain Bolt – not kayaking and Carrie Johnson. 

Thanks to technology, however, it’s possible to gauge the popularity of individual Olympic performances and events.

Within days of the achievement, Michael Phelps’ historic capture of an eighth gold medal had garnered 132,221 views on YouTube. At the same time, the American equestrian team’s pursuit of gold amassed 8,167 views – just 4,316 behind a clip entitled, “Ping Pong Cat.”

OK, so maybe that’s not the most scientific assessment. After all, the Olympics are a showcase piece, right?

But does that justify the cost of these obese athletic farces?

When the Olympiad was resurrected in 1896, the games featured 10 events and 241 athletes. This year, more than 10,000 athletes are competing in 302 events.

Beijing’s Olympic Village is so crammed with participants, trainers and coaches that the food shipped into the commune everyday has depleted the city’s own supply of quality grub.

According to the BBC, Montreal residents are still paying off the debt for the Games held three decades ago.

The New York Times reported that Barcelona went into debt to the tune of $1.4 billion when it played host to the games. Atlanta broke even with a $1.7-billion budget.

When it comes to bloating the Olympics, the IOC is following the lead of its founder, Pierre de Coubertin, who said, “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part.”

Coubertin was a baron and even had a planet named after him in 1976. And, according to W. J. Murray, a professor of history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia,
Coubertin praised Hitler and the Nazis during the 1936 Games in return for some financial considerations and a chance at the Nobel Prize.

Knowing that, maybe it’s better to look elsewhere for Olympic rhetoric.

There’s the often maligned but always honest, Charles Barkley, who once mused: “Curling is not a sport. I called my grandmother and told her she could win a gold medal because they have dusting in the Olympics now.”

And then there’s the biblical Paul, the anchor on Jesus’ relay team, who offered this pearl of wisdom concerning the five-ring circus: “When men run in the stadium, they all run but only one receives the crown. Run in such a way that you receive it.”

In short, be a winner and don’t make up events so that everyone can share the stage.

When the Olympics become the equivalent of a Midway game – in which everyone’s a winner – we lose the exclusivity that makes it so compelling.

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