Round Two

That was AWESOME.

I’m not talking about Michael Phelps’ wins or the unequivocal skill of China’s male gymnasts; I’m talking about your response to yesterday’s round-up. It was even more intense than I could have dreamed. Beautiful.

Now that I’ve laid out my controversial belief that the end goal of an Olympic medal does not warrant the extreme effort that goes into it, I might as well tell you how I think the Olympics could be made more entertaining: every event should have a control athlete.

You know how science experiments always have a “control” to show what happens when the scientists do nothing to the specific material, creature, or what-have-you being studied? I think every country should be represented both by their best, most superbly trained athlete, and by some random person they just picked off the street*. Don’t just throw Natalie Coughlin in the pool; put the chick who lives down the street from her in there as well. How long does it take some schlub to swim across a pool?

And that synchronized diving was pretty cool, but can you imagine what it would be like if only one member of each team had been training for his or her entire life? It would be like the try-outs for American Idol, but with really dangerous sports. National pride, here we come!


*The only time this will probably have no effect is during the Winter Olympics’ curling event. I’m pretty sure no one really knows how to play that.