He didn’t. He lost to Jimmy Vollmer, who was on steroids. Late in the episode is a commentary on steroids and sports. Link to episode.
Yeah; it turns out that the legitimate SO competitors train really hard. (Oddly enough, soon after that episode, a movie with the same plot came out, called, if I recall, The Ringer. Apparently a coincidence.)
I’m going to make some enemies here but what the hell.
I’m only here for a month.
The Special Olympics diminishes the real Olympics.
There, I said it.
The Olympics are meant to be the best of humanity competing and training as hard as they can to raise determine the upper limits of mankind. All mankind. Not a subsection that are not naturally inclined to athleticism. Lots of us were never born for speed or strength (I have asthma and I’m kinda fat (European fat, not American fat)) but we don’t get our own Olympics. And that’s a good thing. The instant that you start chopping pieces off the definition of humanity that the Olympics covers, you irrevocably damage the Olympics.
Feel Good Liberalism is bad? What is the converse of that? Feel Bad Conservatism? i would rather feel good, thank you.
(Replying to Laudenum)
I think that argument only makes sense if the “different group” is one that doesn’t have some big disadvantage preventing them from competing in the regular Olympics to begin with. For example if there was a “Left-Handed Olympics” it’d be a bit silly. Being fat and having asthma may make it harder to get to the Olympics but people can and do overcome those conditions.
But if people with mental disabilities are, as you say, less inclined to be athletes to begin with, what do you care if all those folks get together for a big athletic competition where they are pushing to the limits of their abilities? It’s not like there’s a ton of those athletes pulling themselves out of Beijing so they can go to the SO, so what’s being lost or harmed? I see a lot of good in it, personally.
How about physically handicapped athletes? Does the Paralympics irrevocably damage the Olympics because the highest-jumping one legged women on the planet get together to see who’s the best given that disability? A guy born with two non-functional legs is certainly much less inclined to be athletic than somebody with Downs Syndrome, so when they tried to keep Oscar Pistorius out of the Olympics by saying that his artificial legs gave him an advantage over people with two regular fleshy limbs who was doing the damage? Was it Pistorius because he’s got an advantage over other people or the IAAF for refusing to allow him to compete with everybody else, despite the fact that he overcame far greater obstacles than someone like you or I would?
(For the record, Pistorius got that one ruling overturned, then came in at 0.7s too slow in the South African 400m quals. His time of 46.25 is still faster than many runners turned in at the 2004 Olympics)
Or is this specifically about the use of the term “Olympics”? Obviously the IOC (who owns the word) is fine with it since they’ve given their blessing to the Special Olympics (which has been around since 1968 - 40 years and the Olympics doesn’t seem to have suffered due to the SO). If it was called the “Mentally Handicapped World Athletic Games” would that make a difference in your opinion? Does the Little League World Series damage the MLB World Series, what with all those kids who aren’t as athletic as A-Rod & company?
Personally I think that doping, cheating, poor sportsmanship and John Tesh’s commentating in Atlanta have done more harm to the Olympics than anything else.
What irks me about some of the attitudes towards the SO is the feeling I get that some folks want mentally disabled people to just sit down and shut up and don’t make a big deal out of themselves.
Clearly you have never heard of ‘retard strength’.
I kind of figured that was going to be the case. I got side tracked watching the Ninja’s vs the Rabbits one so didn’t see it until I noticed LOUNE’s link (and thanks btw :)).
-XT
It has been said that winning a debate on the internet is like winning at the Special Olympics.
So far you appear to be losing badly. Does that make sense?
The Special Olympics is not about us alleged “normal” people.
Its about the athletes themselves. It helps to develop more healthy people among those where physical body problems are impacted by their mental limitations. It builds self-worth. It build self-respect. It’s a return on the investment in the human condition.
For those who can only think of themselves and their wallets, would there not be a reduction in the burden to greater society if those who don’t share your “normal” abilities can deal with the world at large on their own just that much better?
The Olympics are just a big dick waving contest and that’s what they’ve always been. Back in ancient Greece a bunch of punch of pricks from various city-states got together every four years to engage in athletic competition in honor of the biggest prick of them all, Zeus. Fast forward to the beginnings of the modern Olympics and we’ve got a bunch of aristocratic pricks waving their dicks at one another because they’re to good to wave their dicks at the working pricks who can’t afford to train because they have to feed their families. In the 30’s it was about Aryan pricks waving their dicks at the rest of the world until America found a big black prick to beat them into submission. Following the 2nd World War it was all about the eagle and the bear waving their pricks at each other and now that the bear has croaked the eagle gets to wave his prick at the dragon. I don’t really think anything can cheapen the Olympics more than the IOC or the athletes themselves have done over the years.
I really got to stop watching Youporn…
Marc
No, “Feelgood Libralism Gone Wild” was a completely different venture: a video series which featured candid shots of people of all races, ages, body types and genders baring their breasts to the camera.
Unfortunately my videotape copy eventually broke due to excessive fast-forwarding.
Another purpose for the Special Olympics, not often mentioned, is to set up health screening programs for the competing athletes. At many events, medical, dental, podiatry and optometry students, and the various practitioners of those fields, volunteer their time to screen athletes.
“Feel good liberalism gone wild” - is this how conservatives actually think? A private charity putting together a competition is “feel good liberalism”?
Just when I think the world cannot surprise me with any futher inanity, along comes something else. I’ll be looking for the thread bashing the March of Dimes as a communist plot.
It’s all about a level playing field. If it ends up that all conservatives feel good and all liberals feel bad, that’s a direct result of the choices they made. I don’t want the government telling me I have to feel good.
Conservatism is about freedom and personal responsibility, whereas liberalism is about control and overconsumption of soy products. Nowhere in the Constitution is enumerated the right to “have a nice day.”
I have seen no evidence of that beyond platitudes since Barry Goldwater shuffled off his mortal coil. Conservative economics is all about running up big deficits while lowering taxes; where is the personal responsibility in eating your grandchildren’s lunch, and leaving the check on the table?
Does it require an IQ of 140 to run in a straight line or jump into a sand pit?
Is it even remotely possible for Special Olympics to diminish the meaning of human achievement worse than, say, giving the Olympics to a totalitarian state, much less letting them serve as a platform to advance Nazi racial mythmaking? That’s a rhetorical question of course – we all know that the regular Olympics has already debased itself far beyond the ability of any competition focused on a couple of mentally challenged kids hugging each other.
If you feel threatened by that, the problem lies not with the “retards”.
Sailboat
Writing is your calling.
maybe i’m stupid, but how does a raped ape run?
Away, fast and far.
The ape shoulda run away first. See, that’s why they’re apes and . . . . um . . . we’re not.
As far as the SO, how on earth could anything so innocuous and “feel good” do harm to a competition that features: bikini clad models playing “beach volleyball”, synchronized diving, and so many swimming contests that one (admittedly remarkable) young man could win 8 gold medals?