Olympic Madness...

I’m sure that many of you have been watching the Olympics and since it is on several stations you are probably taping those programs as well to view at a later date. I hate to say this, but I have only watched a couple of hours of the London Olympics.

Why you might ask? I used to really enjoy watching the Olympics especially when it was the USA athletes competing against the hated USSR, East German or Cuban competitors.

Remember those days? I know a lot of you don’t. But I remember that many of us complained that the Soviet Union and East Germans were basically professionals whereas the USA athletes were amateurs who were following all the rules.

It was easy for us to see that the East German and USSR women were on some sort of steroid or human growth hormone that made them super human and difficult to beat in track and field. I know the shot putters and disc throwers were not what I would call very feminine and I will leave it at that.

Somewhere along the line it was determined that professional athletes should be allowed to compete in the Olympic games which changed everything and to my way of thinking has taken a lot of the fun out of watching these games.

When the USA basketball team beats Nigeria by 80 plus points, I question how much fun that was for the players and spectators to enjoy. I do wonder how many members of the Nigerian team collected autographs from the Americans after the game ended.

I watched the American’s latest dream team play their first game on July 29 and I listened to the announcers talk about some of the changes that might take place in future games.

If I heard right, the gentlemen were stating that there may be a change in some team competition like basketball where the players will need to be age 23 or younger.

Now the players can still be professional but it would keep the super stars like LeBron James or Kevin Durant from winning multiple medals in two or three separate Olympiads. In other words they are trying to level the playing field, at least in basketball.

I, for one, would like to see some fresh faces and some more competitive games. With the talent pool the Americans can get from the college and pro teams, I’m sure the USA would still take home its share of medals, especially the gold variety.

I know there are a lot of Americans who want the USA to beat all of their competition by 30 or 40 points. I too want the USA to win as many gold medals as possible and I love it when they play the Star Spangled Banner and see our athletes sing along with the music. But I also love to see true competition. I’m kind of funny like that.

I’ll probably watch more track and field competition this week as well as some medal round basketball since there shouldn’t be a lot of blowouts.

I do wonder though if Usain Bolt can catch a pass. The Seahawks could use a set of wheels like that guy has.

But there is a good chance that he couldn’t catch a cold let alone a football. And one solid hit by a crazy defensive back might end a career before it even would get started.

But just thinking about his breakaway speed on a fly route would be fun to watch.

The Olympic madness will end on Sunday. I hope you enjoyed your favorite sport and athlete. I also hope that I can once again capture the magic of the games as I did when I was much younger.