When did trash talking become an Olympic event

In any sport there is going to be some division on what is good and what is great. Certainly there will always be those who are un happy about how things turn out from how the game is play, who play, and how things end. Now I am not so naïve to think that trash talking has not been a part of sport from the very first Olympic games in ancient Greece; You call that a tribute to Apollo that is not even worthy to feed to Cerberus. Remembering the Olympics from the past years that I’ve watched both summer and winter I can not say I recall the amount of negativity as is being expressed about these games in Sochi, Russia. Building an infrastructure is a very difficult thing and Russia isn’t the first to face such problems, Vancouver and Salt Lake both had issues, and for every negative thing being said I am sure there are a lot of positive things going on that are not getting as much attention and exposure in the media. Putting aside the flaws with the readiness or lack of readiness of the physical sites and even the lack of winter conditions is the troubling lack of sportsmanship in these games, especially on Team USA. Now before you start filling your glasses of hater-aid and calling me a long hair hippy commie let me explain and then by all means hate away. Team USA across that board regardless of sport or event have been talking shit about other athletes; they don’t deserve to be here, they are too old, too young, too exposed, too stuck up, no talent and on and on. Part of the problem may be that with social media and so much access to world wide publicity of statements which in the past would have remained in lockers or private journal to be never read again or if they were years later and not in the moments as the events are unfolding. Do not tweet when you are emotional. Additionally the mainstream media wants to keep as many people tuned into sporting events which do not have widely followed professional circuits so they find controversy to keep people watching. However, a bigger part of it too is un sportsmen like behavior or what ever the gender neutral term is for not having poise and dignity when things do not go your way as related to sport. Some of the most widely fed controversy is that of snowboarders blasting Shaun White. Now this was not just Team USA other teams including members of Team Canada were involved. Their complaints were all over the place that Shaun White is too old, a sell out, there is a judging bias in his favor. The trash talk went on and on. The first thing which is related to Shaun and other athletes is that he did not need to be on the team in the first place. Well that has little or nothing to do with any of the competitors desire to be on the team as it is up to Team USA and the US Olympic Committee and any governing body of a particular sport. Which may be part of the problem if the selection process is corrupt this isn’t really any one athletes fault as it is a symptom of a bigger problem. I offer that money is the problem. It costs a lot to travel, train, and televise the Olympics. The winter games are not widely followed sports when compared to other sports so selling advertising becomes an issue but if you can sell ads by having a well known competitor on the team as opposed to a slightly better athlete who is unknown it can make a difference. More work certainly could be done by the governing bodies to secure funding for their sport without the athletes tided to the sponsors. Even if the selection process is corrupt that does not excuse bad behavior and being poor sports. Shaun White has done more good for snowboarding and to erase all the bad that the legions of snowboarders in the world bring on themselves. Crashing into skiers, being rude and offensive around families and then being ruder when confronted about the bad behavior, in short many in the snowboarding world are their own worse enemies. Sorry if you are a boarder and are offended but if you are not that type of boarder you know there are a lot who are not considerate of other on the slopes. There are skiers who fall into this category as well but not in as large percentages. I do not speak as an outsider I worked for years as a profession ski instructor and have skied in Europe as well as North America. I’ve seen the poor behavior first hand. I will say there are fine and decent people who snowboard but the bad apples do get a lot of attention. Shaun did decide not to compete in one event he was selected to participate related to injuries. I can not fault any person for deciding not to go forward and compete if they are not feeling 100% healthy. Team USA has doctors those questions should have been asked and then teams selected based on this. It is not like Shaun White was injured privately and then did not disclose his injuries. These were known and the team made the choice to name him over others. In practice he fell aggravated the injury and dropped out. Why fault him for not taking an unnecessary risk with his body. He will have a life after his competitive days are over and would probably like them to be as pain free as possible. Snowboarding has a lot of injuries every year and some deaths. Again from personal experience with the people with whom I worked with in the skiing industry many of them have injuries which cause them pain and limit or adversely impact their mobility on and off the snow. Because Shaun did not finish well does not mean he did not earn his spot, most of the competing athletes do not finish well. Of the 15 different sports and 98 events and nearly 3000 competing athletes only 98 are going to win gold. Ok it is slightly more with the team sports but the point is that is close to only 5 percent of the athletes are winning. Lolo Jones is another getting a lot of guff about being there. If the Team USA picked her because she is well known that is on them not her. Lolo is driven to compete. She did have very fast push times in all of her runs. Her push times were as fast as any other teams. Her driver did not do so well. There were more bangs against the wall on any single run by her driver than some teams had in all four of their runs. And not to say she is a bad driver. She made mistakes. Mistakes on this level of competition when winning is decided by hundreds and thousands of a second, making the smallest misstep can mean you don’t win. Lolo and her driver still qualified for the finals in their event and a lot of teams did not. So for the men’s bobsleigh team to completely shun the women’s events because of Lolo being chosen to be on the Olympic team was petty and childish. The examples continue into most of the events and I’m left saddened and wondering why. The thing is that the Olympics are supposed to be the height of athletic competition, sport for the sake of sport, sport regardless of political, religious or other ideological beliefs, sport for the love of the game and the challenge of competition. Nothing exists in a vacuum and the Olympics are no exception. Athletes still compete under the flags of Nations and personal ideology shapes how they compete and how they behave. Perhaps I am too idealistic and believe that we can be better as people. It is understandable too that the investment that is preparing for the Olympics in training and time and then not making a team for a particular sport is a huge let down on a personal level. It certainly would be a hard pill to swallow especially if there is corruption in the selection process. Take that out on the selection committee and not the individual athletes. For any one person to say that they deserve to be on a team over someone else perhaps they should consider that there are tons of talented athletes that do not even get a chance to train or even be considered for the Olympics for a myriad of reason. I grew up with skiers who if they had the best coaches would have been world class competitors and possibly Olympians. They did not have access to these services. I know a swimmer who could have been on an Olympic team and most likely would have won medals but did not complete because as a minor his parents refused to allow him to put off school for a year to train. There are also those who simply choose not to compete but who are far and away better than those who show up for trials and make the teams. Because the Olympics are on the world stage does not mean that you are actually in competition against the very best athletes in a sport. It is a sampling of people who have had access and a desire to compete in the games. Perhaps the athletes on Team USA need to consider some humility and reflect on why the Olympic Games were revived. The other problems are not going to go away by attacking the athletes, the organizers and governing bodies need to be taken to task by the athletes who complete in the various sports. Maybe these people would also benefit from some reflective time about why the games exist. That’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it is your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it is not your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015