The Beijing Olympics have gotten off to a tumultous and dramatic start, with plenty of hype and controversy. First it was security concerns, which were quickly parlayed into awe an amazement at China’s perfectly orchestrated opening ceramony.
Yet this positive attention didn’t last long, with news emerging that Russian forces had crossed into a breakaway region of Georgia, breaking with a decades old tradition of putting hostilities on hold for the international sporting spectacle. The military conflict even threatened the hopes of Georgian athletes, as the Georgian government mulled withdrawing its representatives from the Olympics. Luckily they did not, because Georgia’s Nino Saluvadze and Russia’s Natalia Paderina later taught the world A lesson in sportsmanship and diplomacy.
For a brief period of time, the world was given a much needed respite from the incessent drama by Michael Phelps and his fish-like mastery of the Olympic swimming events. Unfortunately the sportswriters and commentators couldn’t just be content to enjoy watching Phelp’s unparalleled performance. Instead they had to continue to seek attention and airtime by tainting the Chinese women’s girl’s gymanstics team’s gold medal performance. Let’s be honest, the questions regarding the Chinese gymansts age arose long before the olympics ever started. There was plenty of time for all interested parties to challenge their eligibility and raise a fuss. Yet, instead the US coaches, fans, and sports networks waited until after the Chinese won to complain and bemoan the unfair advantage conferred to the Chinese by their use of underage gymnasts. It should have been obvious that actually watched the event that following their performance on the unven bars, all of the momentum was in Team USA’s favor. Despite trailing the Chinese by a point, the gold medal was their’s to lose. In catostrophic fashion that’s exactly what they did. The US gymnasts threw away the potential gold medal by failing to execute on the balance beam, and then recklessly throwing away points on the floor exercise. The post-performance controversy is a pathetic attempt by the US coaching dynasty of Bela Karolyi and his wife to deflect blame from their inadequate performance as coaches; in preparing the US gymnasts in handling pressure situations. The US women’s gymnasts should be lauded for congratulating and recognizing the achievements of their Chinese counterparts; demonstrating the sportsmanship that their coaches, media, and countrymen lacked.
Following this even further controvery has been raised regarding freedom of the press, the opening ceramony fireworks display, lip-syncing child singers, and martial artists held against their will. Every little detail of the Beijing Olympics is being scrutinized with a fine tooth comb. At some point one wonders just how much of this is politically motivated. There are many special interests out there who would like to see the Beijing olympics go down as a failure. To them it stands to reason that if the Beijing olympics are allowed to be percieved as a success, then somehow China will be percieved as a successful and modern nation. It is deeply regrettable that these individuals are incapable of seperating their political motives from their coverage of the Beijing Olympics. While they may think that they are doing the Chinese people, and the world a favor by point out the short-comings of the Chinese government, what they are really doing is robbing the atheletes of the world of the well deserved praise and recogniton that they have worked so hard for.
The political posturing regarding the olympics isn’t limited just to the Chinese hosts however. No perceived enemy of the United States is safe from the personal and politically charged diatribes of US coaches. In an unfortunate incident Friday during the 11th inning of the US-Cuba baseball game, Cuban pitcher Pedro Lazo threw a high fastball which fouled off of US second baseman Jayson Nix’s bat and struck the batter in the eye-area. What followed were wild allegations by the US manager that Pedro Lazo had attempted to intentionally throw at Nix’s head.
Yahoo Sports! reports:
“I don’t think that’s the way to defend the wheel,” Johnson said. “Lazo’s a great pitcher. I’m sure their game plan was to throw right at the guy’s head. It bounced up and hit him in the eye. No game of baseball is worth that. … I told my guys, ‘they’re going to do something crazy, and that was their crazy play.’ In my wildest imagination I didn’t think they’d throw right at my player’s coconut.””
Let me attempt to explain how ludicrous this claim is. First of all, it is true that Jayson Nix had hit a home run earlier in the game, and it isn’t uncommon for pitchers to occasionally hit a batter following a home run. However, this wasn’t just any at bat. A half-inning prior to Nix’s at-bat Cuba had taken a 5-3 lead, taking advantage of the new Olympic baseball tie-breaker rule. As a result of the rule runners are placed on first and second, and each team is allowed to select a batter from anywhere in their batting order. As a result, when Jayson Nix came up in the 11th inning, there were runners on first and second, with nobody out, and the Cubans clinging to a freshly acquired two run lead. According to the US manager, the Cubans were intentionally throwing at Nix to prevent him from laying down a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners. Of course what he neglects to mention is that if the Cubans did in fact throw at Nix and hit him, not only would that advance the runners, but it would put the winning run on first base. It would have been asinine for the Cubans to throw at Nix in that situation, especially with a pitcher the caliber of Pedro Lazo on the mound with a two-run lead.
Instead it is more likely that the US simply was embarrassed to lose to its long-standing political rival Cuba at “America’s past time”. They probably further disgraced by the fact that the Cubans are now 3-0, and are a favorite to win the gold, while the US is 1-2 and would need a miracle to even medal. Once again, we see that when the US can not beat its rivals on the field, it resorts unsavory and unsportsmanlike attacks in order to attempt to de-legitimize their competitors in the eyes of the world community.
It is a real shame that a nation as successful and gifted as the United States needs to take potshots at developing nations like China and Cuba, and distract from the tremendous success being enjoyed by American athletes like Michael Phelps. As they say on the internet, QQ more please..
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