Maintaining a decades-long tradition of rendering poor
decisions based almost entirely on either profit or addle-brained
nincompoopery, the IOC today let wrestling back into the Olympics and denied
squash its rightful place. On-lookers
were stunned as the wrestling delegation immediately got into those cute
thong-like things they wear for a quick celebratory round of crotch-grabbing,
while the base/softball delegation, who had already resigned themselves to
defeat, slunk off and injected performance-enhancing drugs in the bathroom.
Meanwhile, squash players the world over sighed and headed
back onto the courts. There to play the greatest individual sport yet created,
a fact that does not need the IOC’s confirmation.
Nothing and no one is served by disparaging and criticizing the other two disciplines. It makes you a very poor sport and not representative of the larger body of squash. It's neither clever nor compelling. The other two had their own issues and their own adversity to overcome. They are who they are, and like us, filled with countless honest athletes who just wish to compete for the love of sport and competition. Pointing out that some play dishonestly is not our beef or argument. No, our challenge is to overcome a very, very broken, incompetent, bewildering, and incredibly confusing system. The IOC has proven time and time again that it says one thing and does another -- our task is somehow to convince the body that we are the prize, we are the brass ring, we are the addition to bring Sport At Its Best to the Olympic games. So far, we just can't seem to crack that nut.
ReplyDeleteTrue, a bit juvenile. I'm surprised it had the negative effect it did, but so be it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I disagree with you that it is not appropriate to note that both wrestling and base/softball have substance abuse problems. They have them aplenty, and for my money that doesn't make them particularly good sports for a competition that has a global stage and which sets its athletes up as idols for the world's youth.
My snarky comment is based on the IOC process, which does not judge sports in an unbiased way. They judge mostly with an eye to revenue, pure and simple. Since the IOC's process to admit a new sport has instead admitted one that has been there for millenia, I can't help but feel, well, a little pissed. Not at the athletes in those sports, as long as they are clean, but at the members of the IOC who are dirty.
you say that now, now that they rejected the bid, you should have done what you said months ago. but you've been wanting their approval and now that they haven't given it...it should have been damn the whole lot of them squash is the greatest sport on the planet...it is and will always be. Squash speaks for itself, never forget that, those who truly love this game need no Olympic approval it will survive that too.
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