Well, no, not really. I know I’m late on this, but if you missed it, like me, Bryant Gumbel had this to say recently on HBO’s Real Sports:
Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t care about them and won’t watch them. In fact, I figure that when Thomas Paine said that “these are the times that try men’s souls,” he must’ve been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics. Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing.
So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the winter games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won. And try to blot out all logic when announcers and sportswriters pretend to care about the luge, the skeleton, the biathlon and all those other events they don’t understand and totally ignore for all but three weeks every four years.
Face it — these Olympics are little more than a marketing plan to fill space and sell time during the dreary days of February. So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin.
Well… yeah. I agree in the sense that these are not the “best athletes in the world,” and I never thought for a second that they were. They’re just guys who happen to be good at some winter sport. What Bryant Gumbel said was fine, and that the Winter Olympics exist is fine. As I’ve said, if it’s competitive, and there’s a medal on the line, I can enjoy damn near anything, if it’s just once every four years. If NASCAR only existed for about a week, once every four years, I’d probably a buy a damn Dale Rusty Junior sticker for my car.
But people are apparently pretty upset with Gumby. I just can’t believe people are making a big deal about what he said about the lack of black athletes. It’s not an insult to white athletes, but it’s a fact that just about the entire continent of Africa is all but excluded from the Winter Olympics, because of economic and climate reasons. That’s the way things are. If you exclude half the people in the world from participating, then no, you can’t claim to have the best athletes in the world. You may have the best skiiers, you might have the best bobsledders, you might have the best curlers… but best athletes? Sorry. They just aren’t.
And he’s right when he says that the Winter Olympics are a marketing plan to fill space and sell time. But… you know, that’s pretty much the definition of big-time sports in America. It’s all about marketing, it’s all about TV time, and it’s all about ad revenue. No matter how entertaining or meaningful you find it to be, at the end of the day, it exists for television and ad revenue. Period. For every sport.
Bouj Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 1:43 am
Yeha, but I’ve never ever heard anyone sell “these are the World’s Best Athletes” about Winter Olympians. Maybe “World’s Best Skier” or “World’s Best Skater”, but that it. And isn’t that the whole point? To crown the best in the individual sport?
I always thought the title of “World’s Best Athlete” belonged to the Olympic Decathalon Champion (traditionally). Or maybe, in the realm of team sports, to basketball or soccer players.
It just seems like Gumbel is trying to start something for no reason. It’s gotten to be the chic thing to do to slam the Olympics. You’re not hip and cutting edge if you don’t bag on the Winter Games. I’m sick of it. It’s once every four years. Just take it for what it is and suck it up for 2 weeks, Bryant/Skip/all the other haters.
telly Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 10:44 pm
I can’t make any sense out of what he said frankly. Climate is obviously the biggest factor limiting the number of athletes in the Winter Games from the middle and southern hemisphere. Don’t see too many Australians out there winning a whole lot of medals do you? Economics is second… and that goes for the summer games too. Tough for those young Malaysian athletes to train when they’re working the graveyard shift at the local sweatshop for 15 cents a fucking hour. But, hey, someone has to make those Nikes. The lack of diversity at the winter games might be a symptom of the problems facing the world, but it isn’t really the Olympics fault is it? If he wants to bitch, perhaps he can donate some of his generous salary to build some hockey rinks in America’s inner-cities. I’m tired of hearing rich people whinge about shit and then do absolutely nothing to help the situation. But hey, thanks for the bile there Bryant, the world just didn’t have enough.
As for watching the “best athletes”… well, then… that means the only sports I ever want to hear Bryant Gumble commenting on are swimming, running (all distances), cycling, weight lifting, maybe cross-country skiing… shit like that.
BigBoi Says:
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:25 am
Weight lifters are the farthest thing from athletes as you can get, cyclers and cc skiers too. As far as Cycling and skiing, if you need an apparatus to move you then it’s not athletic, that includes Iceskates(Hockey, ice dancing, ice skating…), snowboards, skis, skateboards, snowmobiles motorcycles, race cars, etc. It is competition not athletics. Clear???
telly Says:
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:42 pm
not clear.
what I was driving at, and for which I made a rather poor analogy, is that “athletics” is purely subjective. Michael Jordan was, undeniably, a great athlete. He was exceptional… a guy that comes along once in a generation… on the basketball court. Put him in a baseball uniform, and he was a minor league player. To say that the Olympians taking part in the Winter games aren’t “great athletes” is idiocy, pure and simple. There might be more able people out there somewhere on the planet earth, given a level playing field, that would dust these people, but, for now, the best athletes, at their particular sports, are competing right now.
btw,
I don’t know how you can lump a sport like cycling with race car driving. True, both require a large degree of hand-eye coordination, but the likeness ends there. The difference is that one involves using human energy to move the aparatus, and one uses a fossil fuel.