What I'd Like To See

[sdelmonte]

Michael Phelps auctions off one or more of his gold medals and donate the money to a group like Team Darfur.

Comments

[dotfic.livejournal.com]

I'd settle for NBC remembering there are other accomplished athletes in this year's olympics. Granted, Phelps is extraordinary, and he deserves the praise, but NBC has gone a bit over the top with it (including cutting away right during a women's swimming race to show a loving slomo recap of a Phelps win)

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

Even Bob Costas recognizes it. On Thusday. he said after yet another Phelps swim: "Yes it's amazing, yes, it's incredible, yes, it's historic. It's also ridiculous."

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

OTOH, ratings are apparently up significantly from 4 years ago. Can't blame NBC for going with what sells.

[sdelmonte]

Putting aside my feelings about these games in particular, I lost a lot of interest in the Games because of how clumsy NBC's coverage has been over the years. And it's even worse when there are no Americans doing well (otherwise called the Winter Olympics), as NBC tries to be all "Hooray for the USA" when reality demands otherwise.

[dotfic.livejournal.com]

Somehow I don't think the olympics means what NBC thinks it means.

[ashen_key]

It's been similar over here in Aus, too - really over the time and biased towards certain events (swimming) and just...It's annoying.

[dotfic.livejournal.com]

There are so many interesting stories and small triumphs. A sweep like Michael Phelps *is* news, but it's not the only news!

[adiva_calandia]

Rather. *tolerantly amused*

[vivien]

We have a serious competitive swimmer in the family; she lettered in swimming last year and is prepping for the new season. Swimming's been a pretty big for our Olympic experience, as a result. It's been a great deal of fun to listen to her talk about the technical aspects and to cheer and jump up and down. Swimming in high school is an ignored sport. It's not as "important", especially for girls, as soccer, football, etc. So for her to have the whole country buzzing about swimming? It's awesome for her, and for us.

*shrugs* It's a big deal to some, and not to others. I for one have been thoroughly pleased with the Olympic coverage of swimming and Phelps is amazing.

[areyoumymemmy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was a competitive swimmer up through high school and we definitely don't get this kind of attention year-round, even with two swimmers from my school winning medals at the Olympics. The coverage is never going to be ideal for everyone, that's just impossible with all the concurrent scheduling and different interests and all.

Also: Phelps is amazing, and what I'd like to see is a chance for him to just enjoy his accomplishment without the hysteria/hype, NBC beating it into the ground, the inevitable backlash, or even people as well-meaning as you, Alex, looking at him and basically saying "Great job. Now do something meaningful with it."

If he ends up feeling moved to do something like this with his win, good for him. If he just wants to celebrate an amazing athletic achievement and hang on to the medals he's spent his life to date working for, good for him.

[sdelmonte]

I'm not offering any kind of backlash against Phelps. He sounds quite impressive. I'm just still being unhappy that the Games are in China, and also that the founder of Team Darfur, Joey Cheek, was denied a visa to China at the last minute.

In my ideal Olympics, the entire US team would come home and say "we were used and we denounce the Chinese government." Then again, in my ideal Olympics, the games wouldn't even be in China.

And yes, this is me being unusually political. My apologies to those who don't feel this way.

[vivien]

Agreed. I think we can all agree that the hype sucks, as does the backlash.

I have to say, I'm looking forward to the meets starting up again. Mmm, uncomfortable bleachers and hot, steamy air.

[agonistes]

Agreed. Entirely.

Alex, I can't see this particular opinion as anything other than something contrary to what the Olympics was, and is, supposed to be about -- which is an event that transcends politics while the games themselves are running for the sake of watching people do something marvelous. Your ideal Olympics isn't the Olympics at all.

And it's not like I'm a huge fan of the Chinese government, either, as I'm pretty sure you know.

[sdelmonte]

I don't think the Olympics has ever transcended politics. I think that anything built on national identity from the start is by definition political. I think that the blatant use of the 1936 Olympics by the Nazis, and the Cold War being played out on the sports field for years reinforce that.

[agonistes]

Note please that I said "supposed to be about". Politics doesn't stay out of the Olympics -- but it's supposed to. 1936: Jesse Owens. 1972: Mark Spitz and Olga Korbut. 1996: Michael Johnson and the Magnificent Seven. They're also the years of Nazis, Palestinian attacks on the Olympic Village, and Eric Rudolph. Which gets remembered more?

More personally: when I think back on my experiences at the Atlanta Olympics, the clearest memory isn't being terrified after waking up in the middle of the night and seeing that somebody had bombed Centennial Park an hour after my parents and I left for the night. It's the humans doing really cool tricks that I got to see right in front of me in Athens and at Stone Mountain, and it's hearing languages I'd never heard spoken before.

If the point of the Games was politics, the Olympics would have folded by now. They're supposed to be a safe space to celebrate achievement beyond regional and national lines. I'm not going to condemn anybody for activism in any direction -- that's their personal choice -- but asking any Olympic athlete to do something like put one of their medals on the auction block in order to deliver a slap in the face to the host country (and whatever good in Darfur could come of it, which would be pretty small, it'd still be a slap in the face to China) is both distasteful and contrary to the spirit of the Games.