Dear nerds and fatties Olympics haters:

Try sports yourself. Oh shiat, almost forgot, you already tried and sucked. Well, what a pity.

Concerning the article: the author is way off the facts.
Sports were re-introduced by German "Turnvater" Jahn, following the motto "mens sana in corpore sano". It's funny to see that his intention was to fight obesity and now his sports ideals are fought by obese suckers or nerds who couldn't even throw a ball straight.

The Olympics are not about World Peace. Given the fact that this is the author's first line, we can forget about the rest. He continues by summing up some controversial results about boycotts, yet what he does not understand, is the fact that the Games have survived all the political attacks and remained what they are: a sports event. For sportsmen. It was politicians who tried to instrumentalize them for their propaganda, like Hitler proving a superior race, same thing as the US and Soviet Union tried to do during the Cold War.

BTW, it's funny that for those who matter, the athletes, the Olympics are the greatest event to be. For them it's worth more than a World Chamionship, you gain some kind of immortality when you are an olympic champion. And I personally have exercised all my life and dreamed of getting there. I know what people have to go through to make it there and they have my deepest respect. I cheer for anyone who shows good sportsmanship and I don't farkin' care from which country he is. If he's a good winner, he wins double. And by that I mean the absence of arrogance. If a dutch speed skater beats my country girl: so what? She was happy, joyful. She was better and earned it. They respect each others performances and if they were better, well, then they should win. Performing in sports means to deal with defeats sometimes. It's good lesson for your life that teaches you to get up on your feet and try again.

The hostility that some countries feel against each other (besides the politically influenced one I mentioned above) usually comes from unfair results, and as one of these the author neatly tries to ignore the incident that took place in Salt Lake City in 2002, when the Korean short trakcer was tripped off his gold medal for dubious reasons. Apollo Anthon Ohno was promoted to first place and you might say that that was justice for the box fight in 1988. And here you go: in the long run these mistakes will equal out.

There's a lot more positive about the Olympics than the author has thought about in the rush he had when writing the article. It's a pity he didn't throw it where it belongs: in the olympic flame.

Purple_Jack: Never mind the politics, it should be cancelled because it's crap. Proper sports already have their own championships, so there's no need to tag them onto the Olympics as well. The Olympics just add disruption to their regular sporting calendar.

You obviously do not know much about atheletes then.

There are some sports which have their own royal event (football, cycling) that leaves the Games far behind, no doubt about that, but in almost every other olympic discipline it's the creme de la creme and an olympic title means double the world championship title. Every athlete exercises four years just to be there and the only ones who are disturbed in their annual schedules are some leagues like NHL or NBA who once were too snobby to send their players. Even they have changed their attitude. And if it's nothing special, then why do Americans still talk about the hockey team of 1980?

I doubt that all the functionaries in the IOC are saints, but once more: it's the athletes who count. All the bad things that happen at the olympics happen anywhere else as well. So I guess we should abolish all sports then?

Man, it's not losing that hurts. It's bad winners who suck.

Who cares apart from the contestants themselves and a few of their close relatives?

Those who are/were active in sports themselves, for example. For anybody else there's probably some Jerry Springer re-run for educational purposes. Ever heard of a remote control?