OK, that's it for the Olympics for another four years. Don't tell me about Vancouver. I don't do snow. People slipping and sliding around on ice and snow is not my idea of sports. Looking back at the past two weeks, the Chinese put on a great show. As far as memorable performances go, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, women's gymnastics, and Team USA basketball come to mind. Soccer goalie Hope Solo is entitled to the biggest "I told you so" in recent memory.
I suppose the greatest controversy of the Beijing games is that 5 of their 6 gymnasts could be underage. I don't care. Setting the minimum age at 16 is purely arbitrary, and amounts to nothing more than age discrimination. If we can change our voting age and drinking age, there is no reason the gymnastics federation can't change its minimum age. If a 14-year-old diver can represent Great Britain at the Olympics, then 14-year-old gymnasts should be allowed to compete. I want to see the best gymnasts in the world, not just the youngest or oldest.
On a related subject, I have to mention rhythmic gymnastics. If I know next to nothing about "regular" gymnastics, then I know less than nothing about rhythmic gymnastics. It's an obscure sport that I remember watching even twenty or thirty years ago, and I didn't understand it then, either.
It isn't very big in America. As far as I can tell, all of the competitors come from former Soviet republics, and they're all named Ludmilla or Olga, or something like that. I'm not sure, but I think when a girl grows up to be too tall to be a "real" gymnast, she goes into rhythmic gymnastics. They perform their exercise routines with a piece of equipment like a hula hoop or a pair of batons. Those don't interest me, but they also perform with a ribbon that must be about 20 feet long.
That's what caught my eye. It's the image of a girl waving this streamer all over the place while she dances around inside it. The color of the ribbon is coordinated with her leotard, and the visual effect can be mesmerizing. They should dump the hula hoop and batons, and just have the girls wave that big, long ribbon thing around. I can't tell a good performance from a bad one, but I actually recorded a couple of hours of it, and saved it on DVD.
As far as basketball is concerned, the 11-point victory over Spain shows that America needs its best players in the Olympics. It would have been nice to have had Tim Duncan in that game, but he wasn't interested.
On the track, there was Usain Bolt breaking a world record without even trying. Speaking of track, maybe they could design a new baton for relay races, something with a handle on it?
I missed seeing George F. Bush at the closing ceremony. The opening ceremony was one of the most amazing shows ever staged, but it couldn't hold his interest. The cameras caught him looking at his watch. It reminded me of his father getting caught looking at his watch during a presidential debate. Then he left the USA-China basketball game in the middle of the fourth quarter. A billion people would have given anything for that seat, but they had to waste a ticket on him. George F. Bush, in a few months, we will finally be rid of you.
That's all for the Olympics. Now I will go back to writing about the boring and mundane matters of economics and finance.
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