Corruption wins the gold in Beijing
Other than the fact that the Beijing Olympics of 2008 were one of the most corrupt games I’ve ever watched [I’m only 31] because I love so many athletes from so many countries and am simply a die hard sports fan I still couldn’t pull away.
I am more than pleased with the entire Canadian team. I was going to write a rant during the Olympics asking people to shut the fuck up about our lack of medals in the first week, I was about done listening to people around me and the media not to mention the CBC commentators speak negatively about our athletes, the commentators weren’t so much saying negative things as they were just talking in agro voices, it was annoying.
WHO in Canada doesn’t know that we are a winter sports country? I wish we were an all sports country but it will never happen, sure because all eyes are now on us the Canadian athletes will probably get more money for a few years maybe enough for us to grab upwards of twenty medals in London 2012 but after London things will go right back to exactly how they are which is pathetic. If the country isn’t going to support the athletes properly then stop bitching when they only achieve like the most personal bests and Canadian records in maybe ever. Seriously people HOW could that not have been good enough? Breaking a PB is one of the best feelings EVER I can’t even imagine how insane it would be to spend your life training for something, perform your very best, break what WAS your very best and have it NOT be good enough for your country. Disappointment and being tired of seeing only personal bests and Canadian records fall are two different things.
I’m already annoyed by all of the talk of topping the Beijing Olympics, the big one being the opening ceremonies. Ok - what? So you want us to put on a computer generated fireworks extravaganza, destroy a young girl’s confidence probably for life with a bullshit lip-syncing so called pretty girl, you want us to fake the age of some of our athletes robbing the rightful owners of their gold medals AND you want us to have even worse corruption than was just demonstrated over the last two plus weeks?
Unless nothing else is on, hardly anyone watches the Olympics anymore. What, with the drugs and the mockery being made of the judged sports. I know that both have always been there, always been a problem and not just at the Olympics but what I don’t understand is why we don’t do anything about it.
When it comes to how Vancouver is treating its people we are right on up there with the Chinese. I don’t think we’ve torn down any homes that people actually own and were living in yet but it’s probably coming. All I could think watching the pre shows on how the middle class and lower class and homeless were being treated in Beijing was what I’m sure most Vancouverites were thinking - OH FUCK. When your city is known world wide for its homeless problem, the east side, skid row, whatever you want to call it you really would think the government would want to do more than try and HIDE the problem but dreaming is probably still free for a reason.
It got to the point with the judged sports that we had to start watching them in moderation to keep tempers calm. I am a lover of many athletes from many many countries it is hard for even me to keep track of them all, so I am not just talking about Canada when I say the judging in my opinion was the worst we’ve seen this century, I can’t see it being the worst ever but it’s up there. And I am sorry but it may take the full eight years they have to find out what they are on but all of the Jamaican male sprinters are drugged out, they use better Visine than Ben Johnson did but yay, if it was only Bolt that was fast that would be one thing but the ENTIRE team. If you watched the Olympics, think back to Phelps, notice the natural progression of his stamina his endurance level, the boy looked tired you could tell he was working his ass off and then some. Bolt and his boys were show boating cruisers. Everything and everyone is faster and stronger in this day and age but not that much.
Out of curiosity I thought out loud “I wonder how many of China’s gold medals were in judged sports”. Turns out to be approximately half of their 51, in Athens as a nation they won 63 medals in TOTAL. But to be fair let’s compare with another power house, let’s compare with the United States. Of their 36 gold medals in Beijing approximately 3 of them were a result of judged sports. In total The States won 110 medals, in Athens they won 102. Seems like a natural progression of improvement to me. Something just isn’t right with how many judged golds China won and the fact that they went from a total of 63 medals to a total of 100 at their own games.
I personally have a bigger problem with corruption in the judging than I do with the drugs, but please do not get me wrong I have MAJOR issues with both. At least with drugs when you are caught you not only embarrass yourself you shame your entire country. You are stripped of your medal. You have to live with what you did forever. You are marked forever. In my opinion if you are caught once with drugs you should NEVER be able to compete again, screw a suspension. And I agree with my father who thinks if one of them is caught doing drugs the whole team should be sent home. That would put a stop to it all pretty fast.
It really bothers me that sports like softball are being removed from the Olympics yet NOTHING is being done to change judged sports or stop the corruption.
For example, WHY does gymnastics even need judges anymore? Why not take the maximum score have exact deductions for falls, misses, step outs, incompletion of compulsory moves and add em up at the end and then the person who has the least amount of mistakes and did all the moves gets the gold. I guess that would be too complicated.
It wasn’t all bad and there were some very touching moments, moments that were my favourite just like I have from every Olympics I remember watching. I don’t know why but my favourite moment of all was when Ian Thorpe turned around and gave Mrs. Phelps a hug after Michael won yet another gold. I thought that was pretty good.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
My only concern with the Olympics being hosted here is I fear a repeat of what happened to Vancouver with Expo ‘86.
I wish I was able to watch more of the 2008 Games. I did watch most of the highlights however, but it’s just not the same as it used to be.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Great post Corinna, and I think you’ve touched on many things that need to be talked about.
First, the whole idea of judged sports. I felt that some of the Mexican athletes (diving) had been improperly judged. Judging means leaving it up for human failure.
Second, the whole idea of how people will be treated once Vancouver hosts the game. I am also VERY worried about this. Will Vancouver be shipping homeless people out? How are we going to deal with this?
Third, the relevance of the Olympics. When I was younger, I would never miss them. But with the whole corruption thing, I rarely see them. Except to see diving and volleyball
Great post, Corinna. I loved this post.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I agree with you, if someone is caught with drugs then that should be that. No more competions for them. Not sure how I feel about the whole team being banned though. Its not always fair to be blamed for someone else’s mistake and alot of people out there would do it anyway, not caring about the fate of their teamates.
August 25th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
[…] The corruption bothered our own Gus Greeper more than it did myself this year. I think I am so ‘done’ with the Olympics now….corruption, in my opinion, is now par for the course. […]
August 25th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Banning those using drugs, ABSOLUTELY! Sending the whole team packing, absolutely NOT. Could you yourself imagine being at the top of your game only to be sent in the other direction because some jackass decided to use “performance enhancing” whatevers. I think a mandatory testing of your entire team would be better if someone does indeed test positive. To punish the whole would be a little extreme, you can’t control what your teammates do.
We didn’t get to see a whole lot of coverage here, mostly because John likes to channel surf and because of the 12 hour time difference. That was tough. I did get to see some of the gymnastics and do agree that there was a great favoratism towards the host nation. A fall on vault was rewarded to the wrong person to the complete devastation of another. Not to defend just one incident (and I know there were a few) but if we don’t understand a sport, we are not able to take in the difference of adding in the facts of degrees of difficulty. I do think that this new scoring in the sport of Gymnastics does make it better for those that do have the more difficult tricks allthough again, there will always be room for corruption. I do however feel that Kyle Shewfelt is a long way away from being a good commentator
At the beginning of the Olympics, I was tempted to change my fb profile to “more like USA vs. China. Even though I don’t really believe that, nor do I believe the rest of the world any less capable of achieving gold, it was hard not to notice how many medals the two countries were receiving. I could just imagine the backlash from that one!
August 26th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Well thought out post. I have to say, for whatever reason, I was glued to the tv. Maybe it’s because swimming is such a big draw in the Olympics. As a swimmer it’s really exciting to watch a week of nothing but swimming. Very interesting observations about judged golds.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I was just talking about the “judging” in events the other day with PG… we agree, that it seems like a mistake to have opinions in events, that it should be totally based on points. Glad we aren’t the only ones thinking that.
I lost interest in the Olympics a long time ago.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:29 am
its interesting watching the change along east hastings as soon as the olympics was announced for vancouver. you can almost see the dust clouds of homeless people as the government is trying to sweep them under the rug. look at hastings between cambie and carall… that area was dying for help for the longest time, and i would cringe as i used to watch tourists in gas town go down carall to get to chinatown. nothing was ever done to help. now rennie and co are in there building all these super condos where woodwards used to be and god knows what else would be put up in that block. so where do all those homeless and unfortunate junkies go.. they disperse further down in the residential area. great plan. i like the fact it is being cleaned up but that is out weighed by the obvious motivation and the ill-guided end sight. money. not solution.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Excellent commentary. About the only thing I don’t agree on is banning the entire team if one athlete is caught. How about testing everyone, before, during and after the games? A tube or two of blood and some pee isn’t going to hurt any of them.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I heard (before these olympics) that the country hosting the olympic games always gets more medals than usual. Maybe it’s an advantage not having to travel so far and all that. I know with aussie rules football the home team is always at the advantage. I think it’s just a thing.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Hi
Fucking hard thinking posts