| |
The Curmudgeon Bastard: One Hundred Fifty-Three Milliseconds From Glory
Tony Benshoof missed becoming the first American to win an Olympic medal in luge by 153 thousandths of a second. That's how much quicker the guy from Latvia finished ahead of him for the bronze medal.
"It's the blink of an eye," Benshoof reportedly said. Actually one hundred fifty-three thousandths of a second is barely enough time for your brain synapses to fire to allow you to think about blinking your eye, let alone do it.
I have to tip my hat to any guy who has the brass cojones to ride a tiny sled down an ice-coated track at eighty miles an hour, especially when those same cojones are leading the way, but doesn't this story illustrate how silly most of these Olympic competitions are? We're supposed to get all worked up over one hundred fifty-three thousandths of a second?
Plus it's not like this is the only chance these athletes ever have to finish first. If they competed like this once every four years, maybe I'd be able to care even a little bit. But they have world championships a month before the Olympics and they'll have world championships a month after the Olympics. And maybe if Tony gets a two-second wind gust behind him, or misses the sixteenth-of-an-inch bump on the course next time, Mr. Nice-Try-Loser gets instantly transformed into Mr. Gold Medal.
It continues to elude me what's supposed to make the Olympics so special. Is it those "heartwarming" personal stories of an athlete's perseverance the networks inflict on their viewers? Frankly, I could care less that Johnny Colanna overcame a poverty-stricken childhood to represent his country in the giant slalom, or that Johnny has dedicated his quest for the gold to his one-legged, blind little sister who was born with irritable bowel syndrome.
If you want to put together an exciting international sporting competition, try pitting Danish political cartoonists against Pakistani Islamic fundamentalists in a game of extreme paintball. Now that might have a chance of beating American Idol in the TV ratings.
Get DeadBrain delivered to your Inbox! Click here to sign up. Consider the weekly and monthly editions, each of which contain all-new, laugh-out-loud office comedy you won't see on the website!
|
|
