Just throw gold at them
IDON’T know about you, but I don’t have time for anything on a TV screen that isn’t the Olympics right now. That might be because a lot of other things in the world seem pretty awful. Priests are being beheaded and imams are getting shot and who even knows what’s happening in Syria, since most of us gave up on that a while ago.
Consequently, I’m glued to the Olympics like a toddler to a security blanket. I have abandoned all my normal cynicism about the cost of global sporting events and the inflated salaries paid to sportspeople. Give them the money, I say. Give them all the money. As long as we get these few weeks every four years where we can cry together out of pure pride for the five minutes it took until Twitter started arguing about whether Wayde van Niekerk should be considered coloured or black.
While the Olympics traditionally celebrates excellence, Rio 2016 has also offered opportunities to cherish the everyman and everywoman in us all. I’m talking about the hapless soul who messed up the chemicals and turned two swimming pools green in the unforgiving glare of the public eye. I’m talking about the official who forgot to register Polish swimmer Konrad Czerniak for the 100m freestyle, meaning that Czerniak had effectively been training for 20 years for nothing.
I’m talking about pudgy Ethiopian swimmer Robel Habte, who lagged half a lap behind during the 100m heats — even though it was later suggested that powerful family connections bribed him into the Ethiopian Olympic team. My favourite comment on the Olympics has been from the Twitter user who suggested that every Olympic event should include an entirely average competitor, so that the rest of us have a benchmark for comparison. Habte — cruelly dubbed “the whale” — was that benchmark.
I’m also talking about the horse which simply refused to clear a jump during the equestrian Eventing Team Finals, just stopping and giving up on life in front of the hurdle. We have all been that horse at work late on a Friday afternoon.
Amid all the good times offered by the Olympic viewing, there have also been some teeth-gnashingly annoying moments courtesy of Olympic commentators.
A special mention goes to Fox Sports for observing that the US gymnastics team looked like they were “standing around at the mall”, but equally riling was the commentator who wrote off Wayde van Niekerk as “beginning to tire” moments before he smashed the world record.
But with more drama than Game of Thrones, more heartbreak than Six Feet Under, more suspense than Twin Peaks, there’s no doubt: the Olympics is still the greatest television spectacle on Earth.