Olympics - is it worth it?

I really do not know.

I think that we should limit that age to 16 to 25-year olds. That would limit countries who pay their athletes to train. It would, hopefully, allow universities to train athletes, in a spirit of amateur competition. It would eliminate professionals who spend 10 - 15 years as adults learning, living, breathing their sport.

The politics of the whole enterprise defeat the purpose. This has been a topic well-documented.

The negative comments about one thing and another are truly sad. The 'Own the podium' Canadian campaign has resulted in injuries and athletes pushing themselves beyond their limits. Instead of honouring excellence, we are rewarding large populations, with large GNPs, to afford to send athletes to training centres overseas.  Once the USSR changed to Russia, they lost a large pool from which to draw athletes. In 1991 the USSR had a population of 255 million. ('Russians' constituted 50% of the country at the time.)The US, with a population of 308 million, have dominated on this, Day 14 of 17 days. The only anomaly is China, with a HUGE population of 1,136,000,000.

"Winter" countries, in which they dominate, like Norway with only 5 million people, shows such excellence.

The Canadian skiing injuries leading up to the event, and the death of the Georgian athlete, on a track that far exceeds the ability of many amateurs, also makes me wonder.

The controversy regarding the lopsided scores in women's hockey, for example, totally defeat the spirit of the games. You send a team, they learn from playing and the experience, and everyone ought to be happy. The concern about women's events not being included, isn't fair, either.

The issues around competition and bias in figure skating, or DQs of Koreans in oval skating with pushing, are more food for thought.

Then, reading about the fuss being made about the next Winter Olympics in Russia (already!), will be even more fun! This is a good read (below). BUT I THINK I WILL HAVE TO GO INTO TRAINING MUCH SOONER FOR NEXT WINTER OLYMPICS! I can hardly keep up now.

Russia whines about 'cowardly' Canada 
     The next Winter Olympics is shaping up as a Cold War-style battle between Canada and Russia after a blistering editorial in Pravda labeled us as a nation of cowardly, incompetent war criminals.
     The editorial, entitled Vancouver: Mutton Dressed as Lamb, goes straight for the eyes from the outset. “Vancouver is not fit to hold the Winter Olympics,” it declares in the opening paragraph.
     And that was before Canada whipped Russia in the hockey quarter finals. Today, the site was less expansive.
      “The Red Machine Runs into a Maple Tree,” was Pravda’s headline. Other newspaper banners across Russia included “Nightmare in Vancouver” and “Down and Out.”