by Channing Kapin, Contributing Writer
Click HERE for my last “Random Thoughts While Watching the Olympics.”
Now that it’s officially over, what did we learn from London 2012?
1. The United States shockingly wins the big Gold Medal Showdown with the rest of the world again. We need to start making it harder for ourselves. We need to set a goal of either winning ALL the gold medals, or we start sending 8 year olds to compete in all the contests. That would be pretty sweet if an 8 year old won a medal. I mean, we’d dominate at ping pong, badminton, trampoline, diving and BB Guns. Oh, and Pokemon. Is that an Olympic event yet?
2. After witnessing pretty much all the events I have to say, there are too many damn events. I could really do without the 800 different swimming and running events. Or is that only because that’s all NBC showed us? I tune into week two hoping for some pole-vaulting, discus and basketball and I’ll be damned if NBC wasn’t jamming some more diving down our throats. Diving, or as I like to call it, Abs, Pecs and Packages, in my house, looks really hard, but does anybody have a clue what the scores mean? The announcers sure don’t. It looks like it all boils down to is making as tiny a splash as possible. That’s pretty weak. I’d say it’s more impressive to make a big, gigantic splash. Anybody can do a small splash. I want to see some Samoan dude rock a double backflip/cannonball combo for a 20 foot tidal wave. Who wouldn’t watch that?
3. I also want to thank NBC because I think it’s a fair tradeoff while watching Womens’ 400 quarterfinals to get 8 minutes of commercials, 20 seconds of a mostly meaningless non-finals race, and then another 15 minutes of commercials. I think that’s fair, don’t you?
4. I also want to thank NBC for the 1500 meter race they showed where there was first a feelgood backstory about the racers, followed by 10 minutes of critical analysis by two random dudes, and THEN the race. The race is ten minutes long, why can’t you show the pre-game analysis in a tiny picture in picture box so we don’t have to suffer through it to get to some damn sports. And wouldn’t you know, one of the dudes in the feelgood backstory documentary thing won the race. What are the ODDS?!?!?
5. I got to see some USA Men’s basketball. I think it’s safe to say whichever team has LeBron wins a gold medal. Especially if Durant is your designated shooter whose entire job is to knockdown wide-open 3′s. Good times. I also enjoyed the second string All-Defense team with Chandler and Iguodala and then Coach K hands the ball to Carmelo and says, “I just want you to go out and shoot it, son. Do nothing else, but shoot the ball.” It’s like Carmelo’s most intense fantasy come true.
And now that that’s settled and America is still the greatest basketball playing country in the history of the universe, can we stop sending over our All-Stars now? We’ve made our point. Let’s send our college studs over. It’s not like we’ll lose to the USSR ever again.
6. So… I watched Equestrian Dressage. I can say with all confidence it is the worst event in the Olympics. It is not a sport. The entire thing is a big ugly dirt square and the horse trots back and forth and sideways while they pipe in classic music greatest hits medleys, like Swan Lake with a disco beat. Horrible. You know it’s time to change the channel when the announcer says, “One of the neat things is to see what music they choose.” No, it’s not. It’s goddamn horse-dancing. The horse doesn’t care what music you play. Stop making the horse do dancing, please.
7. I caught two minutes of Men’s Freestyle Wrestling, one of my personal favorites, and then I hear the most sinister words ever uttered by Bob Costas, “We’ll be right back with the Wrestling Gold Medal match, but first, we take you to Rhythmic Gymnastics.”
I love wrestling probably more than I should, but I’ll be damned if I’m sitting through some chick noodling with a ribbon and dancing with a ball for 20 minutes. With the ubiquitous classical music greatest hits disco medley, of course. Now if the overly-made-up chicks in leotards were hucking the balls at each other while competing… now THAT is a sport.
So in summation, I enjoyed the Olympics. Got to see a lot of events. Can’t remember 99% of it. Came to the conclusion that Team Handball does indeed suck, and I can’t wait to see if Fox Sports makes another misguided attempt to launch a Professional Wrestling League again, (Real wrestling, not real Fake wrestling.)
Now that there is a 30 hour void in my TV viewing schedule I have to decide what to watch next.