WSe must demand changes to Olympics sports

As the Olympics wind down, one wonders what one will do with one’s time after the closing ceremonies.

How will we get along without the nauseating arrogance of NBC’s “America is so grand” coverage, or the apologetic responses from CTV and CBC to the failure of so many Canadians to win expected medals?

Could anything be more offensive than the refereeing of the women’s soccer semi-final? Ah, yes, it could — FIFA’s threat to punish our team for having the nerve to talk about just how crappy the refereeing was.

If the USS Ronald Reagan sailed into Esquimalt Harbour and lobbed a rocket onto the lawns of the Legislature, our outrage would be no greater than it was when a U.S. soccer player had the nerve to say her team won because it was “stronger and fitter.”

The good news is that no longer will Canada play the skinny kid on the beach having sand kicked in his face by Charles Atlas and saying, “thank you.” We’re learning to whine and complain with the best of them and it’s about time.

So how about we stand up and shout, “No!” to golf being made an Olympic sport? If golf is allowed back in, why not tug of war, chess, camel wrestling (it’s very popular in the Middle East), shin kicking (ask your British friends to explain the rules), or wife carrying (they actually do this in Finland, and there are now competitions in a couple of the United States).

In Wife Carrying, by the way, the hubby “slings his wife across his back and runs through dirt, sand and brackish pools of water as fast as possible.” Its origins are said to go back to times when men would sneak into a neighboring house and steal somebody else’s wife. I’m not sure what year the practice ended.

But back to the point. Golf, and tennis, for that matter, are on TV 52 weeks of the year. It’s not as though multi-millionaire golfers and tennis plays train hard for four years in hopes of getting a medal — the Olympics are just another tournament in a busy schedule.

The Olympics should be reserved for sports nobody would otherwise watch. Badminton, for example. A game in which the strategy is to be better at losing than your opponent deserves to be watched at least once every four years.

If the Summer Olympics got rid of a few other marginal sports, like water polo, kayaking, and weightlifting, there’d be room for more coverage of truly inspirational sports like beach volleyball (NBC currently devotes only about 87 per cent of its Olympics coverage to Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings and to explaining why their bikinis are “equipment”).

And maybe Basque pelota could finally make it past the “demonstration sport” phase.

What I’m saying is this — Canada hasn’t had a great Olympics, overall. Christina Sinclair scores three goals in one soccer game and all she gets for it is a threat of suspension. Alexander Despatie comes back after cracking his head on a diving board and finishes out of the top 10. Simon Whitfield trains his 37-year-old body into top physical condition and keisters on a speed bump in the men’s triathlon, and on and on.

Maybe we should use our newfound voice to demand that the Olympics Committee bring in some sports we’re good at, or at least ones with better referees.