Can you really consider it a spot when we have to put so many constraints on how it is done? Yesterday an Austrian swimmer was DQ-ed because he failed to keep his hands apart for the obligatory instant upon making a turn. Really? We place no such restrictions on runners, do we? What I want to see is a 100 meter, 200 meter, and 400 meter swim. I don't care how you do it save for you can't leave before the gun. Ready, steady, go! Okay so you can have a relay version of one or two but that is it!
I mean it is not like we have the 100 meter sprint, the 100 meter backward sprint, the 100 meter sideways shuffle, etc. Maybe it is just that track has missed the boat into pioneering new ways to run...
Which is also why though I am impressed by Michael Phelps' achievement, I am not that impressed. It is pretty much the same skills across different styles and there are so many relay versions that a for a good swimmer, racking up medals is relatively easy.
Now, don't get me started about speed walking....
And since I am on a roll, is fencing the worst spectator sport ever? Yes. I have a big giant HD TV and I cannot see the swordplay for the life of me. Now two people dressed up in knights armor smashing themselves with claymores would be a spectator sport...
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We should also get rid of discus, hammer, and javelin, since how many ways are there to throw things? And do we really need air rifle, pistols, and shotgun? Just get out there and shoot shit, right? :)
I detect sarcasm, but I am with you 100%. Well actually the throwing of different things I can abide, but all of shooting can go away. Arrows are enough.
Patrick, I am SO with you on the swimming thing. In the parade of superlatives that have rained upon Phelps, the most common is "greatest Olympian." It pisses me off. I would buy the argument that he's the greatest Olympic swimmer, but let's leave aside the greatest ever. Of the top ten all-time medal winners, four are swimmers. (Of the top 15, six were gymnasts.) Now, we can either acknowledge that swimmers are the greatest athletes, or we dispense with the farce that medals equal transcendence.
Poor old Bruce Jenner had to compete in ten competitions just to win one medal. Apparently he was a chump and a failure.
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