Backyard Olympics

I’ve been watching the Olympics a little bit this year, which would make these Olympics the first I have ever watched. I usually ignore the Olympics except for basketball, but this year I found myself more interested in other sports and felt a sense of pride in seeing the U.S. of A. win some golds. However, as I was looking over the medal counts, I was so intrigued as to how China was winning so many medals and in particular - so many gold medals.

After getting the medal count list and reviewing it, I saw why, it isn’t because China is dominating swimming, or running fast, or playing any team sport, its because they are great at playing all the sports most people quit by about the age of 9. I mean seriously… Shooting… Archery… Ping Pong!?!… Badminton… Fencing… Trampoline… I swear to fucking god it sounds like the YMCA summer camp I went to when I was 8 years old. Now if these are considered sports, and Olympic sports at that, why not throw in Bar-B-Queing or Hot tubbing? What about Water Basketball or Whiffle Ball? These were great sports.

However, I must hand it the Chinese, their discipline in these sports and not turning them into something fun is utterly amazing. I mean, Ping-Pong… How long did it take for Americans to turn that into a drinking game? Trampoline… Who hasn’t pushed a trampoline next to a garage or a swimming pool and done some incredibly stupid jumps? The Chinese however, were able to take it to a whole new level, by not drinking while playing ping-pong, or jumping off garages onto their trampolines, they have became world dominant at them.