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Sunday, February 10, 2002
12:33 - Another Olympic Perspective
http://samizdata.blogspot.com/2002_02_10_samizdata_archive.html#9566729

(top) link
This one is from David Carr on Samizdata:

Short of that I think I'll pass because former footsoldiers of the East German secret police dressed in sequin jumpsuits and doing triple-salkos is the very antithesis of my idea of entertainment and is it just me or is there something disturbingly reminiscent of the Nuremburg Rallies in those torchlit opening ceremonies? For sure the sight of all those glowing hopefuls being paraded around in their humiliating 'national costumes' with a 'Strength-Through-Joy' grin on their faces has a jumper-over-the-head factor of about 50. Those about to die of embarrassment, salute you!

I suppose it would be extravagantly churlish of me not to mention the transformation of Olympic events from taxpayer boondoggle to corporate sponsor-fest which, at least, has put a stop to the bankrupting of cities in which the spandex-circus was unfortunate enough to land. In those days they were not so much athletes as locusts in lycra, devastating a whole landscape before buggering off and leaving behind grand white-elephant stadia like monuments of a long lost race.

But corporatisation has had the unfortunate side-effect of morphing the games from dull and condescending expressions of post-war aspiration to multi-culti clappy-happy jamborees in which we are all supposed to enthusiastically join in North Korean style.

I suppose this one's noteworthy because it takes a about as dim a view of the Olympic ideal as I do of football, though of course this one is better written than my football rant was. Still, I don't find the Olympics quite as objectionable as football, if only because without them, most Americans wouldn't know that other countries existed.

That's another fun point: The only way in which most Americans see other countries as meaningful is when they're treated as sports teams.

"Yeah, man, I'd like to see Russia go up against the Sharks!" Am I the only one who sees just how ridiculous is the concept underlying that statement? And yet we hear it all the time during the Olympics.

Good thing? Bad thing? I'm not prepared to say.

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© Brian Tiemann