Farewell, Winter Olympics. I hate you and I hope that you never come back.

The Winter Olympics ended last night, and I am pleased that the asinine spectacle finally came to a close.

I am sure that millions of people tuned in to the closing ceremonies to watch the elaborate parade of athletes with funny European names smiling and waving.  I imagine that silly national anthems were played, and that Bob Costas said very positive things.  I assume that a torch was involved and that viewers felt a heartwarming sense of national pride.

The extravagant pageantry of the closing ceremonies is thoroughly uninteresting to me.   In fact, I despise the Winter Olympics as a whole. 

I can relate more to the summer games, since I have actually participated in many of the summer sports.  The sports in the Summer Olympics are simply more accessible.  If I want to play basketball, I can purchase a ball and a pair of sneakers and go to a nearby schoolyard.  A desire to run 400 meters could be quenched by stepping outdoors, after phoning the British Empire to determine how far 400 meters is.

If my friends and I wanted to play tennis, we would break into a Bimmer and steal the racquets from the trunk.  Then, we would steal a tennis ball from my neighbor’s dog.  As a child, we referred to this procedure as “Instant Tennis.” 

When I have an itch to play volleyball, I can head to North Avenue Beach, if the weather permits.  As an added bonus, I would get to see dozens of pairs of exquisite female mammary glands in their glistening, bikini-covered glory.  If I wanted to play baseball, I could purchase a ball, bat and glove at Target, call a few friends, and head over to the nearest park.  Unfortunately, I have the debilitating handicap of retarded ambidexterity which forces me to throw a baseball with the same hand that is most comfortable for wearing a mitt, so I do not play baseball.  Clearly, God hates me. 

In comparison, participation in winter sports is a logistical nightmare.  They require snow, which is only present in Chicago for three to six fucking grueling months each year.   For most of the year, participating in winter sports is not an option.  In addition, winter sports require a significant capital investment in the form of highly specialized equipment.

When I was a kid, snowboarding was still an emerging spot struggling for mainstream legitimacy.  I had a few friends who would snowboard from time to time, but they were mostly spoiled little bastards.  Snowboarding is a sport which requires expensive equipment and periodic vacations to picturesque, snow-covered hills.  My family did not go on vacation when I was a child.  My parents both earned modest incomes, and most of their money was spent on alcohol, anti-depressants and the payment of whatever fines had been assessed to me in juvenile court.

My friends and I never went skiing, bobsledding or figure skating.  If one of my friends invited us to luge, we would have played “Smear the Queer” instead, pummeling the poor lad in the genitals until we eliminated any chance that he would procreate in the future.  The notion that we would have the desire, let alone the funds to acquire the necessary equipment to luge was obscenely offensive.

Speed skaters wear special gloves with reinforced fingertips to prevent their precious digits from inadvertently being sliced off by the razor-sharp edge of a competitor’s ice skate.  I briefly scoured the Interwebs to learn the cost of these sturdy gloves, but my searches were unsuccessful.  Apparently, this type of equipment is made exclusively for professional skaters and is not available to the general public.

It is safe to assume that such exclusive gear is very pricy, and that many amateur speed skaters have bled to death after having their finger sliced open while practicing.

Most kids never participate in winter sports, due to these absurdly high costs.  As a result, I perceive the Winter Olympics as games of privilege, dominated primarily by Caucasians with wealthy upbringings. 

Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn was skiing at the age of two.  When I was two years old, my parents were scrubbing my feces out of cloth diapers because they were too fucking broke to afford disposable diapers.  Clearly, I have nothing in common with the athletes at the winter games, so I have a hard time giving a shit about them or their extravagant sports.

The Summer Olympics, on the other hand, are far more relatable for the average person.  For many summer sports, the list of required equipment is short, consisting of “shoes” and “legs.” 

An athlete need not be a part of exclusive club of caviar-eating, summer-home-owning, Anglo-Saxon Protestants to be successful in the Summer Olympics.  This assertion is supported by the fact that track and field events are routinely won by athletes from African countries that lack luxuries that we take for granted, such as clean water and the Malaria vaccine.

These common tales of athletes from impoverished countries overcoming adversity make the summer games inspiring.  The winter games are an exposition of rich athletes participating in sports that I cannot connect with.

The best example of this is the biathlon, which features the curious combination of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.  I have never been compelled to ski with a gun, because the awkward mishmash of skis and firearms seems unnecessarily complex.  Inevitably, I would wear my rifle as a ski and blow my toes off, leading to the most gruesome biathlon injury in recorded history.  

The summer games offer an elegant simplicity, while the winter games are a convoluted mess of complex, expensive sports that I cannot summon enough energy to give a shit about. 

Furthermore, all winter sports involve snow and/or ice.  Snow and ice are the two most wretched substances in the entire universe.  I am unable to enjoy the Winter Olympics because snow is a total fucking bummer.  When I see snow, I instantly become angry; it usually means that I have to shovel pounds of the shit in order to move my car, and that I will inevitably fall on my ass.  This is a conditioned response that extends to watching television. 

(Whoever wrote the song White Christmas was a delusional asshole.  I hope he died a slow and extremely painful death.)

As I write this, thousands of athletes are taking their last opportunity to bask in the glory of the Olympics before packing up their medals and equipment.  Soon, they will return home, to places like Norway, Finland and Sweden.

In four years, many of these blond-haired, blue-eyed athletes will head to Russia to compete in the next round of the games.  Once again, millions of white people around the world will be transfixed on the games.  They will breathlessly follow the medal count, hoping that their country will be declared physically superior to all others. 

(I believe that this is how World War II was started.)

I will continue to be puzzled by the world’s collective fascination with the Winter Olympics, or as I call them “Crackers on Ice.”  Part of me wishes that the games would never return, though I can appreciate the quiet tranquility that occurs when millions of Americans are distracted by the events. 

For example, I acquired four new tennis racquets during the closing ceremonies last night.    

2 responses to 'Farewell, Winter Olympics. I hate you and I hope that you never come back.'

subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'Farewell, Winter Olympics. I hate you and I hope that you never come back.'.

1. Being poor didn’t stop Doug E. Doug from bobsledding in ‘Cool Runnings’!

   Shak

   03.03.10 09:11 PM

    

2. Didn’t those guys crash? (re: Shak’s comment) I feel like I vaguely recall a movie with a bunch of d-locked guys bobsledding in a movie.

   boqueen

   03.12.10 01:29 AM

    

respond/react

name (required)

email address (required; will not be published)

website