In less than four months the world will congregate in Athens, Greece, for the 28th Summer Olympic Games. Over 200 countries will participate and close to 10,000 athletes will compete in nearly 30 different sports. The Olympics are going home and it’s going to be a great show. People like to watch the Olympics to watch athletes succeed. I like to watch the Olympics to watch them fail.
The summer Olympics are always exciting, especially because the winter Olympics are so boring. The only reason to watch the winter Olympics is for the corruption in judging and athletes who test positive for performance enhancing drugs. I used to enjoy the winter games but my respect went straight to hell when the International Olympic Committee admitted curling as a sport. Gymnastics
The human body is capable of launching itself up to 12 feet in the air and can do multiple flips and twists. 12 years of training, 6 hours a day – 6 days a week can be behind a gymnast when they step onto the Olympic mat, and nothing is more satisfying than watching them crash face first on the mat. I love gymnastics, especially when they fall.

Beach Volleyball
This is a sport?

Synchronized Swimming
Sometimes called water ballet, this event comes in two forms: group and duo. A true test of endurance, this sport is described by a commentator as “Treading water for four minutes, with your arms held straight over head and lunatic smile on your face.” Up until the 1996 games in Atlanta, there used to be a solo event … in synchronized swimming. What was she being judged in synchronization with? Her reflection in the pool?

Women’s Soccer
The U.S. Women’s soccer team is no longer the best in world. 1996 Olympic Champions and 1991 and 1999 World Cup Champions, they lost the world cup this year to Germany. This means that if the U.S. women do win this year, Brandi Chastain is going take off more than her jersey in celebration. Imagine being known as the woman who flashed the entire world?

Track and Field
A true symbol of the Olympics, track has been around since the ancient games were first held more than 1,500 years ago. The U.S. has an incredible line of champions to it’s name: Flo – Jo, Carl Lewis, Jackie Joyner – Kersee, Edward Moses. But the field events are always the most entertaining. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if an athlete won while impaling an official on the sidelines with his javelin. Or if a German athlete decapitated innocent spectators with her discus?

Trampoline
Remember that warm summer dusk when you were five and dad was cooking burgers on the grill in the back yard and you were enjoying a relaxing bounce on the trampoline in the back yard? Olympic trampoline, however, is a brutal competition in which the trampolineists jump more than 30 feet in the air, and like the gymnasts perform multiple twists and flips.
Wouldn’t it be great if a trampoline athlete jumped through the roof of the venue she was performing at and just kept heading straight up into the stratosphere?

Swimming
Hearing the stories about these poor swimmers is absolutely heart breaking. One man from Sri Lanka had to sell his mother’s lung on the black market to pay for his training. This women from Uzbekistan has the rare and incurable genital leprosy.
And then the swimmer who always wins is some pampered suburbanite American who thanks her parents, god and Britney Spears.

Baseball
In the international world of baseball, the United States is not a dominating force even though baseball is America’s national pastime. It was a real shock in 2000 when Tommy LaSorda led a group of rag-tag college athletes to gold is Sydney, beating international powerhouses Cuba and Japan.
Sadly, the defending Olympic champions did not qualify for this year’s Olympiad but that doesn’t mean that this year’s competition is going to be any less thrilling. But I don’t know if they have peanuts and cracker jacks in Greece.
In competition there can only be one winner. But it is the performances of the losers, which make the Olympics, winter or summer, worth watching.