Although I’m a USOC contributor, I’ve grown more and more weary of Olympic hype over the years; the Beijing Olympics might just put me off them entirely. The commercialization has become relentless. The widepread drugs and doping are pathetic. The pro/amateur athlete distinction was an important one, and I’m sorry it’s been allowed to fall by the wayside.
China is still, despite its roaring market economy, a one-party police state. The Internet monitoring, huge security presence, crackdown in Tibet and roundup of dissidents surprises me not in the least. China made all sorts of promises about air quality and pollution abatement, as well, and now it looks like those will be broken, too. That said, the Seoul Olympics in 1988 are widely credited with opening South Korean society and leading eventually to democratization; I hope the same will happen in China, but I’m not holding my breath.
I just got back from China yesterday, having gone to see the eclipse. I don’t know what it was like before, but let me tell you that last week it was VERY obvious that the country remains a highly repressive police state.
I hear this a lot but I don’t honestly understand. The whole idea of amateurs competing was to make sure the upper classes were in competition with one another instead of having to rub shoulders with the grimy working class. The only people who can afford to train for the Olympics without getting paid are going to be wealthy people.
Marc
I work for a local television station in my area, and instead of my normal 9-5 duties, during the Olympics I will be working from 10:00 pm to 6 am. Alone. So when most normal folk are enjoying some well deserved sleep, I will be on my third pot of shitty coffee, shaking like a leaf, watching shot-put or something equally lame, and waiting to press a “roll break” button.
Exactly. The original point of “amateurism” was to keep the riff-raff out. It certainly wasn’t part of the Greek olympic movement. They had paid professional athletes, and even appearance fees back then. The Olympics should be about the best athletes competing.
I’ve never particularly been a fan of the Olympics and have become less an less so over the years. I find the opening ceremonies pondorous and unwatchable. The events are mostly sports that no one cares about outside of a two week period every four years, doping has become so widespread that you can’t trust any of the medals or any of the records. American television makes things exponentially worse with its narrow-minded, Americocentric coverage, it’s stupid, insulting tape-delays and its retarded, soapy backstories.
Having said all that, China might actually produce some entertainment value with its pea soup smog, it’s algae infested cesspool of an ocean, its fascist head busting and oppression of speech. There’s even forecasts for thunderstorms and typhoons. Typhoons would be awesome. This could end up being a great spectacle. I couldn’t give less of a fuck who wins anything, but I’ll be watching for car wrecks.
And it is this sort of ridiculous jingoism that makes me hate the Olympics. I’d be a lot more likely to watch any of it if they got rid of the flags and national anthems at the medal ceremonies, and got rid of the medal table.
Also, the air pollution there was so bad that riders were beginning to pull their horses from the Olympics, being unwilling to risk their lungs. When it got to the point where many of the top equestrians were refusing to come, including the entire team of one of the top countries, the Olympics Committee rearranged things and moved the equestrian events to the somewhat more breathable air of Hong Kong.
What are the chances that we see, even subtle, protest from the athletes? During the Opening Ceremonies, how many athletes will also be carrying Tibetan, Burmese, and/or Sudanese flags? What sorts of podium protest might we see as well?
Much like Diogenes I was planning on skipping the whole thing as usual, but with the politics involved in this one I am at least some what interested.
Being perhaps overly cautious is the opposite of the current problem.
From the Times article, it appears that Hong Kong has some of the best equestrian facilities in the world. I think they are still a bit worried about pollution from the Mainland, but the lack of certification of Beijing as being equine disease free seemed to be the major problem.
I couldn’t agree more. The olympics, especially the summer games, are just horribly, horribly boring. I can’t see myself watching even a minute of them this year.
IIRC, one of the driving forces seemed to be a commercially-driven interest in getting Michael Jordan et al. on the court. Boffo ratings.
I would agree with you except that the Eastern Bloc countries had long since made a mockery of “amateurism.” The charade was pretty unsustainable by the time the Berlin Wall fell.
Almost by definition, the Olympics, and any other “event”-type sporting “spectacle,” are going to be geared precisely toward people who don’t especially like sports. (The people who like sports will watch it year-round, regardless, not once every four years). The marginal/incremental viewers you add are going to be the people who are most attracted to spectacle, human interest, anything but actual athletics.
It’s no coincidence the Super Bowl is, likewise, so heavy on halftime shows, gimmicky commercials, and human interest stories.
