Farewell, Olympics

The international spectacle, the celebration of some of the finest athletes in the world, the culmination of years, if not decades, of training, perseverance and dedication known as the Olympics have ended, and I think I speak for all of us when I say: Thank God.

Because I have to be honest, I don't like the Olympics that much. Oh, I'll get all patriotic when the U.S. beats the cheating sneaky Commie Chinese in the medal count, and I'll wave a little American flag when our team of millionaire basketball players somehow manages to eke out a gold-medal win against that traditional roundball powerhouse Spain, but overall, the Olympics for me are a big pile of "Meh."

When I was younger, I didn't like the Olympics because when they came on, for two weeks or more my usual television-watching was interrupted. Rather than watching Mork from Ork and his wacky antics here on Earth, I was stuck watching some guy from an Eastern European country I couldn't pronounce throw a steel ball, all the while grunting like a wildebeest in heat. I had to give up "Shazbot!" for shot-put, and to a ten-year-old, that's not a fair trade.

Plus, frankly, the Olympics aren't always about sports. Don't get me wrong -- I understand these athletes train for years and in some cases ingest massive amounts of illegal drugs to perform the feats they do. But there have been events in the Olympics that don't qualify as sport, even if you squint your eyes really hard and ingest massive amounts of illegal drugs while you watch them.

Think I'm kidding? Take a look at these events that were held in the 1900 Olympics in Paris (keep in mind that some people won ACTUAL GOLD MEDALS for these events, which makes them just as much an Olympic champion as Michael Phelps):

• Cannon Shooting

• Delivery Van Driving

• Kite Flying

• Hot Air Ballooning

• Fire Fighting

I defy anyone to claim the people who competed in these events were world-class athletes. It got so bad that at one point, a journalist with the London Telegraph, Chris Lyles, wrote an article about the poodle-clipping competition at the 1900 Olympics, which was won by (who else?) a French woman. Chris made the whole thing up -- as a quick Google search will prove, poodles didn't even exist before 1932 -- but because we're so used to weird events being in the Olympics, everybody just assumed he was telling the truth.

And before you feel so superior to the people who had stupid events in the Olympics in 1900, let me point out to you that from 1984 through 1992, there was an actual event at the Summer Olympics called "solo synchronized swimming." Stop and think about that a moment. If you figure out what that actually means, call me and let me know, okay?

So I'm glad to see the Olympics go. Now ESPN can go back to showing some REAL sports, manly sports. Like poker.

(c) 2012 John Puckett