Flaming hockey pucks? Hurdles that change height suddenly? What would you do to make the Olympics more entertaining?

-- Atara (atara@raex.com), September 21, 2000

Answers

The horse in the gymnastics competition should be an inflatable one. Then I'd watch. -:)

-- Xydexx Squeakypony (xydexx@my-deja.com), September 22, 2000.

Hmmm. How about piranha in the pool (bet that would increase those speed scores). Or maybe land mines in the soccer field?

-- Jenipurr (acatbyanyothername@pacbell.net), September 22, 2000.

Forget the soccer field - put those landmines on the gymnastics floor! I can hear the commentary now...

[ And here's Natasha, from Vulgaria, with her exceedingly difficult halftwist-halfspin-doublebackflip-with-a-boogersnap-at-the-top move. Here she goes. She starts the routine, begins the backflip, aims the discharge at her opponents...

Oh! oh dear. She came too close to the land mine in the center of the mat. Now one of her legs is blown off and she is bleeding profusely. That is going to hurt her final score for sure... ]

(Incidently, I don't like the olympics. Period.)

-- Allen Kitchen (allenk@blkbox.com), September 22, 2000.

Somehow, I like the idea of Nancy Kerrigan doing graceful skating manuevers with a large flaming rocket strapped to her back...

-- Xydexx Squeakypony (xydexx@my-deja.com), September 22, 2000.

A tennis court covering in ball bearings sounds pretty challenging, too. What I'd really like to see, though, is a soccer game using those huge spiked balls from Qpong.

-- Xydexx Squeakypony (xydexx@my-deja.com), September 22, 2000.

Allen wrote:
(Incidently, I don't like the olympics. Period.)

Curious... Why? Is it the Olympics themselves you don't like? Or the coverage?

-- Atara (atara1@yahoo.com), September 22, 2000.

Why don't I like the olympics?

It's the same reason I don't like most sports; the crass commerciallization and the utter pointlessness of it all. About the only thing good I can say about the olympics is that every four years enemies stop shooting at each other long enough to see whose poor battered 13 year old girl can outflip everyone elses poor battered 13 year old girl. If it were anything but the olympics, any parent who let their child hurt themselves so bad that they would need titanium bodyparts would be immediately arrested for child abuse.

Let's fast forward 10 years. Let's say I'm a soccer player in the olympics and I'm looking for work.

"Name?" "Allen." "I see you attended Univ of Wisteria. What did you major in?" "Basket weaving." "Excuse me?" "Basket weaving, specializing in underwater construction." "I see..." "Coach said that would cause the least interference with soccer practice." "Ah. And now you want to work for Mondo Semiconductor. Tell me, what can you do?" "Well. I can kick a ball really hard. I'm pretty good on defense and I..." "Thank you. Don't call us; we'll call you." "But! But don't you want to see my highlights tape first?" "Next!"

Seems a poor use of a lifetime, working so hard at sports. People tell me that I'm completely ignoring the physical benefits sports brings. I say, "tell it to Fixx," the runner; he ran himself into a very early grave. Tell it to Ali, if you can get his brain to function long enough to comprehend a word or two. Sports are fine and I enjoy watching sometimes. But everyone is making a fortune off of these people killing themselves and I don't want any part of it.

-- Allen Kitchen (allenk@blkbox.com), September 25, 2000.