Olympic Observations

I'm sure it comes as no surprise... I hate the Olympics.

I've always hated the Olympics and with each passing year I usually end up with at least one more reason to dislike them.

I was introduced to the whole thing back in grade four. One of our classmates was selected to run with the torch, so the school made a big to do about it. At the time I thought it was pretty cool that one of my friends got to run with a big flaming stick, although I really didn't understand the big fuss over the Olympics itself. We had to talk about it every day in the "Current Events" portion of class, which always seemed to be dominated by sporting events at any rate.

Naturally I never contributed anything as far as sports were concerned, and even on days where it was my turn to bring in an article to talk about, it never got around to my turn as the discussion about how the "Leaf's" were playing always seemed to take up the whole session. The teacher thought I was pretty uninformed on "Current Events".

The following year we had to watch the Olympics on television, which wasn't so bad as I got to spend an hour or two a day doodling. I didn't do so well on the essay we had to write following the Olympics. The subject was "What I enjoyed most about the Olympics"... of course, it's hard to write a two hundred word essay on something you haven't been paying any attention to.

These days I now that I've had a chance to research the subject a bit more, I really just find the whole thing one big wank for several reasons:

1. I don't like sports. 
2. Which country gets selected as host boils down to who's bribed the most Olympic officials. How the hell else is a place like Sochi selected? If you're not being blown up by terrorists, you'll be crushed by faulty sporting equipment and facilities that have been constructed at a cut rate by the local mafia. And if you survive that you'll likely be devoured by the packs of roaming stray dogs. Sounds like a lovely place. 
3. For an event that's not supposed to be political, it generally always is. Hosting the events in a country with anti-gay laws or human rights abuses is a sure fire way into making it political. At any rate, I don't think it's in the spirit or brotherhood and sisterhood to host the events in a country or countries that routinely send people to gulags. 
4. For an event that is supposed to feature amateur athletes, there sure are a lot of "professionals". If you have the sponsorship of several large companies and spend your entire life training, you're a professional athlete.   
5. Which country wins the most comes down to which country has spent the most money finding and preparing the right athletes.  
6. I've always been told that in sports, it's not who wins or loses, it's the effort that's important. Tell that to the guy weeping because he only got "bronze". 
7. Apparently Russia is dealing with the stray dog problem in Sochi by trapping them and then either poisoning, beating them to death or shooting them. Beijing killed thousands of stray cats to improve the image of the city during their turn hosting the Olympics. Animal cruelty is unacceptable and I think countries with poor records in regards to this and lousy human rights records should simply be banned from the event entirely.
8. Olympic advertising annoys me more than any other form of advertising. How can one as an athlete accept the sponsorship of organizations (such as fast food chains and sugary fizzy drink companies) that contribute to the eating disorders and fatality rates of millions of people in the first world? Tobacco organizations have been banned from sponsoring most events from my understanding and rightly so. I don't believe this is any different.  
9. Many of the sports in the Olympics are just plain stupid. Beach volley ball? Hurtling down an icy tube on a baking sheet at breakneck speeds just to try to beat a record by a few milliseconds? Bah!
10. Some "sports" just aren't right for the Olympics such as figure skating and gymnastics. The system for awarding points is just too arbitrary. Unless someone falls flat on their face or snaps a leg in half, it's rather difficult to judge. On a side note, I'm interested to know a few things about the judges that host these events in particular. One, how does one become a judge for this sort of thing in the first place and what are the qualifying requirements for the position? Two, what do they do when there aren't Olympic events to judge? Do they go back to sweeping stadiums and cleaning urinals? Or are they just grumpy old people that have been snapped up from park bench with nothing better to do? 
11. Throughout the history of the modern Olympics, one thing year after year has proven to be positively lame and often just plain embarrassing: the mascots. 

In the spirit of the Olympics this year, below is a rough sketch of the mascot I believe they should be using: Oliver the Ornery Ogre.

And yes, that is a pile of human bones he's piled up.