Our little ones

 Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker

 Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker

Friday, August 22, 2008

Olympics? What happened to you?

I've been avoiding writing about the Olympics and the whole gymnast age cheating fiasco on purpose.

It's a huge slap in the face to everyone, not just the USA, and I've had enough of the lies it. We don't even know the truth, but tell me that certain girls (keyword "girls" not "women") are 16? Sure they're 16. I'll tell you I'm 16 and see how well I can get away with that. True, I may be 4' 10" and petite. My stature tends to make me look a lot younger than I am, but take a good look at my face and my mannerisms, how I act, walk, and talk. You'll be able to tell in a second that I'm at least 18 or 20. Truth is that in 18 days, 22 hours... I'll be 30. I'm not complaining by any means, I'm just trying to state a point.

True, people can look younger than they really are I know that first hand, but some of those athletes do not. Especially when compared standing. right. next. to. another 16 year old athlete. It discernible that the actual 16 year olds are exactly that. Sixteen.

To me the rule stating that the gymnasts need to be sixteen to compete in the Olympics is a good one. It's not that a 14 or 12 year old can not preform well. It's obvious they can. Sometimes better than a 16 or 20 year old. That's because they are smaller, more agile, and many times inexperienced. They don't have the fear of falling or getting hurt, so they are more apt to try a difficult stunt to get a better score. The troubling thing is that the coaches and other adults are taking advantage of and exploiting these younger athletes and probably pushing them too hard, possibly even hurting them because they haven't even finished growing. There are probably many things that factor into the age restriction, not just age, experience and development.

It's time to take a stand and find the truth. From what I've been hearing and reading, the IOC finally decided that they couldn't sweep it under the rug anymore. I'm glad. (When will they start backpedaling?) Maybe they'll look into more accurate scoring and whether some of the judges felt pressured to score certain gymnasts higher. I'm not actually saying that they were pressured or bribed, but they need to take a look at it.

Some of those scores were waaaaay off. One vault in particular where the gymnast landed on her knees... yet she still placed first "earning" a gold when another gymnast truly preformed better.

Honestly, I don't really care what country or which athletes this involves. It could have been Romania and Australia, or England and Vietnam, and I would still feel the same way. It's about values and the spirit of the Olympics. Things like, honesty, sportsmanship and good clean fun. What happened to all of that?

In my opinion cheating in an event is just. as. bad. as. doping. End of story. Yes it is embarrassing for the USA that a swimmer was in question for using a banned substance, and that Marion Jones is currently in prison because she lied about using steroids from 2000 to 2003.

We aren't the only ones.

Don't even get me started on the host country trying to pull the wool over every one's eyes. Recording real fireworks "footprints" and then enhancing them digitally to play them back? That doesn't bother me as much as the following things do.

A "pretty" little girl lip syncing to a song that another little girl (who may have chubby cheeks and baby teeth) is actually singing backstage. Ugh! Maybe she's young enough to "forget" about that and not require any therapy in the years to come.

Then walls the host country had built to "hide" the poorer, dirty areas of the city. It's all about appearances to them. Sure, okay, yeah. Let's hide all the homeless and less fortunate members of society, INSTEAD of providing assistance and trying to help them find a job or get back on their feet. That's just sickening. "Hide" the problem and maybe it will go away. *Notice I didn't say support them so they never have to lift a finger or find any work.

Then there's the beatings/killings of Tibetan monks and supporters. I realize our nation has more freedoms than others, which I am ever grateful for, and I also realize that we can not force others to follow our way of life. That's just it. Life. Why don't others value it? They can't see past their own noses. They just see everyone's faults but their own. If you're not like them, then you're wrong, and bad, and must be punished or silenced.

J and I have had many discussions about it all and we both feel similarly. Even though I didn't really ever compete in gymnastics as a child, or even in college when I was in The Flying Cats, it still bothers me to see such disregard for talent and an art, not to mention taking advantage of naive children. That's wrong, no question about it.

There now, see why I didn't want to get into it? I'm not one who enjoys debating, but I feel very strongly about the horrible things that have been taking place.

Rant over. For now.

1 thoughtful comments:

Anonymous said...

hey sis. i saw you saved fleet foxes on youtube. how did you find them? i saw them at the doug fir a few months ago. incredible.

Link Within

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin