when you’re a sports commentator, it’s a real benefit when you can call your event by multiple names. football is also the world game, the beautiful game. Racing is also the sport of kings. well, the olympics are not just the olympics, or the biggest and most watched sporting event in the world, the best of the best, the olympic spirit yada yada yada – they’re also the games of the twenty ninth* olympiad. This is great. It’s such an unusual construction. You can’t say ‘7even is proud to broadcast the Olympiad’, it doesn’t work like that. It’s the games of the olympiad. What is an olympiad? And I will have no wikipeding or googling here. We must reason this out. Is an olympiad some kind of quadrennial festival, not limited to games? If it were limited to games, then saying they’re the games of the olympiad would be a tautology. Is there anything else of the olympiad? And has anyone ever used the word olympiad without preceding it with ‘games of the [insert ordinal possessive]’?
Can we coin some other –iads? How silly would it be if we referred to pollies as members of the XXIV Parliamentariad? (Forgetting for a moment politics would never qualify for RN status).
For the games, I prefer Olympiac anyway. Stay tuned, for more of the Games of the 29th Olympiac!
More importantly, Olympiad could be the first name in the history of all names in which a man’s name is derived from a woman’s. This is a landmark event in the anti-sexism in language movement. Olympia is a nice name, although somewhat spoiled by Olympia Dukakis. Olympiad is strong, athletic, great.
And while we’re on diving, what an incredible sport. A couple of things here. Firstly, as far as I can tell, there is no greater sign of skill in diving than making the least possible impression on the water as you enter it. That’s a little perverse, isn’t it? Like running as hard as you can into a brick wall and then walking away serenely as though nothing had happened. Alright it’s not really like that, but it’s like something I can’t put my finger on but the point is the same it’s odd. Secondly, surely the judges shouldn’t be so myopic as to limit their judging to what happens in the air and then the initial entry mark – they should follow divers all the way through as they descend to the pool’s well-lit depths, and possibly even as they rise to the steps. Divers should have to make their way to the steps while making as little impression on the water as possible. Thirdly, in the synchronised diving, if one person’s landing is piss poor but the other person matches it exactly, they should be rewarded, not penalled. Finally, there should be more scope for playfulness in synchronised diving. They could bow to each other mid-air, shake hands, embrace, or have one person acting out attempting to win the other’s attention for purposes of seduction, while the other acts out cooly ignoring them.
Matthew White just informed us that Olympic fever is spreading fast and the only cure is gold. Well, I’ve just inhaled 30 migs of gold filings and my sinuses are worse, not better. Matthew, you’ve just secured yourself a malpractice suit.
* in this case, aka XXIX. Note thus that the olympics qualify for roman numeral (RN) status, a mark of history, dignity and esteem. Curiously, Wrestlemania and the NFL - but not rugby league - have attained RN status.
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3 comments:
I love it. Awarding marks for a synchronised bad entry - that's got Ham plastered all over it, using nothing but organic adhesives.
There's the maths and phyics Olympiad, but you wouldn't know nuttn bout that wujdoo.
Here's a little known fact: Professional ten-pin bowlers all suffer from obesity on account of all the chips and coke they consume while waiting for their turn. They also have tinea from all the rental shoes they wear. Some top bowlers travel with their own can of aerosol deodoriser, but even this can only do so much.
Yeah!
- cw
May I also submit that it would make for an emminently more watchable event if athletes were assigned either to the proletariat or plebian status post-event.
For example, the medal winners in all events instantly become the olympic proletariat, or olymbiotic proletariat. The remaining athletes make up what becomes the plebian olympians. This creates a class structure which would hopefully dispell the apparent goodwill between competitors even after a severe whooping. Lets get back to the bitter and emotionally devastating core of the games.
To make a statement based loosely on a cliche, there's no 'fairplay' in 'You mo fo, that's my goddamn medal'. MV
great idea, Emvy. along lines of your idea, perhaps losers from events could be locked up or caged in a public location, and only the medal winners have the keys. if they deign to release the losers, they immediately become indebted to them to the value of seven franking credits, payable in blow.
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