The Olympics got me fired up

Posted 8/20/08 - Joshua

Over the last 10 days or so I have caught the Olympics fever. Not only did I get up in the hysteria that followed US swimmer Michael Phelps and his assault on the Olympic record books, but in all of the other sports as well.

I chalk this up to two strong passions of mine

1.    I love my country
2.    I am not ready to bow down to the Chinese

To that end, my MVP of this Olympics has to be Matt Laporta. (Laporta is the First baseman for Team USA.) In a game against the Chinese after several US players had been hit by pitches, he flat laid out the Chinese Catcher, Wang Wei, who is also their star player. Hey Wei, consider that payback for the US gymnast getting jobbed time and time again during this Olympics.

First and foremost several of those Chinese girls are not 16. I do not need to see any passports to look at a girl and know she is not 16. Jiang Yuyuan, Yang Yilin and He Kexin all have been proven not to be the minimum age of 16. The rule is the athlete must turn 16 in the Olympic year, and yet these girls have had stories from Chinese newspapers saying that they are only 14. In my mind that is cheating plain and simple and to be truthful I don’t give a crap about embarrassing the Chinese. Cheating is cheating and sometimes it really is that simple.

Beyond that some of these girls still have their baby teeth, you can see it on the TV, and it is weird that at nbcolympics.com most of these girls do not have pictures.

Nobody cared about embarrassing Ben Johnson or Canada when they stripped him of his Gold Medal in Seoul, no one cared about embarrassing Marion Jones and the United States when all of her medals were stripped in a doping scandal, so why the hell should we care about the cheating Chinese.

Apparently I am the only person in the world not ready to bow down to their Chinese masters.

On top of the fact, they cheated their way to a Gold Medal; an argument can be made that two of their medals were not earned.

In the team competition the Chinese looked very sketchy on the balance beam and one of them fell off. Still though here score was in the 15’s. Now I have no idea what that means since the Olympic scoring has been ruined in my opinion, but when the American Alicia Sacromone fell, her score was in the low 14’s.

I understand that the home team gets the benefit of the doubt, the Americans certainly did in Atlanta in 1996, but a fall is a fall and that should have knocked them out of the gold medal spot.

In the individual competition one of the Chinese, He Kexin, tied American Nastia Luikin on the Uneven bars. In every other sport in these Olympics that would mean a co gold medal performance. However for this sport Luikin got the Silver, while Kexin got the gold. That girl is not 16 and should not be there.

Again I am not ready to bow down to the Chinese for anything, and cheaters are cheaters regardless of how many billions of them there are.

Now as of today the Chinese have a 17 count lead in gold medals won, that is probably a number that cannot be overcome. Even if we take away their questionable golds in gymnastics. They have clearly been the dominant force in diving, and of all things weightlifting.

So far they have swept the diving gold medals, and won 8 golds in weightlifting. Those two sports have given them there surprising lead in golds. It does look like the United States will win the overall medal count, but it will be very close.

The media is now attempting to make the argument that most medals are who will win the Olympics, and there is no doubt we will win the overall medal count. Silvers and Bronze medals are not golds, and as far as I am concerned the Gold medal count is the one that matters.

On a side note, in the next week or so I may also have exciting news about my new job as an Olympic beat writer for the Vancouver winter games in 2010.


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