Many of the popular sports of the Olympics now feature their own, stand-alone international games. Football has of course, the World Cup, and Track & Field has the World Championship.

If the Olympics are partly about determining the best in the world, isn’t this role already fulfilled by the sports’ respective world competitions? Just what do the Olympics have that these events don’t? The torch? International camaraderie? Aren’t dropping TV ratings proving that these concepts are no longer contemporarily relevant?

Feel free to convince a somewhat disillusioned sports fan of her folly in the comments below.

Post from: EveryJoe

Are the Olympics Still Relevant?

So exactly who is this “Haruhi Suzumiya” character? And will this affect the upcoming Olympic games? Probably not.

And what’s with this Chinese-bashing?

Post from: EveryJoe

Beijing 2008 Organizers are Infringing on What?

Jones’ confession follows Floyd Landis loss of his Tour de France title due to drug use. With all of these doping-related scandals, athletes and sports in general risk losing our trust.

Without a doubt, this is a bad thing. We all rage at the unfairness of life, at people who get ahead because they know the right people or invested in improvements like breast implants, which can arguably be interpreted as artificial enhancements of sorts. We can also argue that Yao Ming enjoys an unfair advantage because the Chinese government set up his 6′10″ dad with his 6′8″ mom. We love sports because the game is supposed to be the last refuge of fairness.

Is it any wonder that we come down hard on athletes who are caught cheating? Performance-enhancing drugs threaten to destroy the illusion that successful athletes win based on their own merit. The cycling world is losing its audience, thanks to all the negative publicity focused on the story of Tour de France’s recently dethroned champion.

Organized sports will suffer terribly, as more athletes are found guilty of wrongly tipping the scales in their favor. Can we still look up to our sports heroes and continue believing in them, when some notable examples have broken our trust?

Let’s see if the IOC and all governing bodies involved in the 2008 Olympics can come up with a system that truly keeps the game clean. It doesn’t help that it’s now cool to win at any cost.

Post from: EveryJoe

Marion Jones Confesses to Doping and Retires: Can we Still Trust Athletes?

Enter Lewis Hamilton. This 22-year-old came out of nowhere, making an impact in such a short amount of time:

In his debut year Hamilton has set three Formula One records in quick succession. With his first start at the 2007 Australian Grand Prix, he became the first black driver to compete in Formula One. At the 2007 Bahrain Grand Prix, he became the first F1 driver to finish in the top three in his first three races. After he finished second at the 2007 Spanish Grand Prix, he became the youngest driver ever to lead the drivers’ championship. Hamilton gained his first victory at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix on June 10, 2007 and became the first black person to win a Formula One race.

With such a rising young star, not to mention the establishment of previous youngsters like Kimi Raikonnen, perhaps Formula One will recover from its loss and beat back the challenges of competitors like the A1 Grand Prix.

Post from: EveryJoe

Lewis Hamilton Makes History by Winning the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix

Then, in 2000, we started hearing less of the motto and more of the IOC’s new advertising campaign: Celebrate Humanity. There was nothing wrong with Faster, Higher, Stronger. But apparently, with all the doping going on, many athletes took it literally, justifying the use of performance-enhancers as a part of winning at any cost.

And that’s why the Celebrate Humanity campaign is a huge success. It refocused the Olympic message, reminding people that the Games aren’t solely about scoring the lowest time, reaching the highest marks, and lifting the heaviest weights, regardless of how you do it. It’s also about true competition, about earning real victories that only competing on your merits brings.

In other words, to quote a tired cliché, it’s not about winning, but taking your best shot.

Post from: EveryJoe

How Doping Changed the Olympics’ Message

Let’s accept a simple fact: Amateurism just doesn’t work for the Olympics. And it’s not because cities can allegedly win hosting bids through lots of money. Keeping athletes from earning money from sports is simply unfair.

The word amateur is actually French, meaning “lover of.” Thus the amateur ideal is someone who plays just for the love of the game, without expecting to win money. But I believe such an ideal is irrelevant in today’s world. I’m not saying Olympians nowadays no longer love their sports. I mean, only true passion will keep a person struggling through the many practices and trials required to develop the skill and talent to suceed.

The Olympics does bring out the best of the world, especially in Track and Field. Thus, to have any chance of winning, competitors must spend a lot of their time training. So if most of their schedule is occupied, how else will they be able to put bread on the table? They’ll need venues to prove their prowess, and be rewarded for such with money. That’s where non-Olympic or regional competitions come in. But the thing was, if you were paid for competing, goodbye Olympics. It didn’t even matter if you’ve earned money through a different sport, as Jim Thorpe found out the hard way.

It’s unreasonable to expect atheletes not to make money off something they spend so much productive time on. Recognition and fame is good, but like I said, you still need to put bread on the table. Such a problem wouldn’t exist for the wealthy. Much of their income is passive, and thus they can concentrate on their athletic dreams easily. And this was another unfair aspect amateurism unintentionally brought to the Olympics. It made it harder for the less fortunate to compete. The Olympics is the showcase of talent it is today because people from all walks of life now have a chance to compete. Who said that only the rich can do it harder, faster, better, stronger?

So I’m glad that amateurism is basically dead in the Olympics, because it allows people to be justly rewarded for simply following the dream of being the best in the world.

Post from: EveryJoe

Why I’m Glad Amateurism is Basically Dead in the Olympics