Strolling Around the Blog, Sport

Phelps schmelps. He is not the greatest Olympian ever as the media is proclaiming him to be because he has won 8 gold medals in a single Olympics. They fail to point out that swimming is the only sport contested at the Olympics where there is the OPPORTUNITY to win 8 golds. Sure the guy can swim fast, but as the best ever Olympian I'll take Jim Thorpe, Jesse Owens and even Carl Lewis before I get to any swimmer and that's not even mentioning the women. And speaking of fast, did you see that guy "Lightning" Bolt? Me neither. You need slow motion to see that dude.

I should also mention that I was pretty fast in my day. In fact if I had concentrated on track instead of other sports I could have gone to the Olympics. Yup, that's the truth. I would have been fast enough. Fast enough, that is, to beat you to the ticket line. And I was also a fast swimmer. When Woowoo Charly and I had an up and back race in the pool and she gave me a half pool head start, I would almost make it to the first end before she finished the race. Then, of course, she would swim back to me and shove me to the wall so I wouldn't drown.

So what is a sport, anyway? I've been trying to find an accurate definition for years. I think races of any type are sports and games played with balls where scores are kept are sports. But are gymnastics, diving, trampoline-ing (hey, it's in the Olympics!) really sports? What about figure skating? I think any competitive activity that is subjectively judged is not really a sport, it's, well, something else. A pseudo-sport maybe. I mean, what's the criteria? If you permit subjectively judged events to be called sports and allowed to compete in the Olympics, then why not beauty contests, fashion design ( Blackwell on the Romanian team, "elegant in a Dracula sort of way. You could wear that outfit while drinking blood.") juggling, tight rope walking, any circus act for that matter, singing, (is American Idol a sport?) dancing, etc. And by etcetera, I mean that kid who eats hot dogs on the Fourth of July.

I don't know I tell ya, I just don't know. Do you?