Horse and Auto Racing

When I watched the 2008 Summer Olympics, I noticed something during the gymnastics competition that perplexed me for a while.

No, I'm not talking about the underage Chinese athletes. I think that's been talked about enough online already. We all know that China cheated, and they got away with it because China is a rapidly growing powerhouse of a country that was able to bully the International Olympic Commission.

I'm talking about the honey.

Go look at some taped coverage, and you'll see it. There were jars of honey somewhere near the gymnasts' chalk buckets. It was subtle and understated, but it was almost always there. Why?

The chalk we already know about. The athletes use it to keep their hands dry, so that they can get better grip on the bars, the rings, the mats, and the pommel horses. Honey, however, is tacky...

...And then it hit me: in pro-football, receivers want hands of glue, but adhesives are outlawed. They use gloves with slightly sticky rubber palms and fingers. Gymnasts can't use gloves, but they can't use adhesives, either. So they resort to honey. A kitchen staple that won't violate the rules or dampen their hands, but will make their grip just a little more sticky.

Personally, I don't think this should be outlawed in competition. Honey is not some "miracle glue" that's out of the budget reach of small teams. A majority of competitors can get it from their own kitchen. So make it available to everyone, and even out the playing field of grips. Besides, it'd be pretty sweet to shake the winner's hand afterwards....

So, the 2008 Summer Games are behind us, but the Olympic action isn't really over. It never really ends, because the 2010 Winter Games are ahead of us. Around the world, athletes are getting ready, training, entering qualifying heats, and basically gearing up for the big even in winter sports.

Sometimes, however, I have to wonder about the quality of the Games. The Olympics are supposed to bring together the world's best athletes, to compete in world class competition, to see who emerges on the top as the world's best. It sure sounds like a good idea.

And then you get the Jamaican bobsled team. Or the Bulgarian women's hockey team.

I don't want to knock them for wanting to compete, or for heading to the Olympic trials, but I think it's fair to wish that some competitors, no matter how hard they try, just don't deserve to reach the Olympics.

The Bulgarian women's hockey team played 4 qualifying games, and gave up 192 goals. That's more goals in 4 games than the Detroit Red Wings, last year's Stanley Cup champs, gave up in a whole season (184). During those 4 games, the Bulgarian ladies managed to score 1 goal, against Croatia during their final game. The Croatian team went home, and is currently training hard on defense.

I don't think the Bulgarian team is headed for the Olympics. They met their debacle in a qualifying tournament, and a performance like theirs simply doesn't qualify. And I know that Bulgaria is not one of the world's hockey powerhouses.... but still, despite ambition and national pride, couldn't they see beforehand that they weren't in the same league as their potential opponents? What kind of chumps were the Bulgarian champs playing, before the tournament, that led them to believe they had a chance?

I think there needs to be some better kind of monitoring or regulation of Olympic qualifiers, if only to make sure that the performance at the games is truly world-class.

This past summer, the 2008 US Olympic Swim team treated the world to not one, but two, examples of excellence in the sport.

The first, of course, was Michael Phelps. I had to watch him compete; like him, my family is from Baltimore and I attended the University of Michigan, so it felt like treason not to watch. Phelps is know to everyone now: 4 years ago, he won 6 gold medals and 2 bronze, in a feat of swimming prowess, power, and versatility that hasn't come around since Mark Spitz won his 7 golds in 1972. This past year, Phelps broke Spitz's record, taking home 8 swimming golds, and reaching a career total of 14 gold medals.

Phelps won for the obvious reasons: like Spitz, he was bigger, stronger, and longer armed than his competition, attributes which, combined with his natural athletic ability and his drive to win, made him unstoppable. Fortunately, he's also a decent-seeming guy who didn't get all arrogant about winning. I think the world will the get the pleasure of watching him compete again in 2012, and that'll be a great show.

The second great American swimmer at the 2008 Olympics was Dara Torres. In some ways she was less impressive than Phelps: she competed in 3 events, and took home 3 silver medals. In other ways, however, her performance was truly amazing.

Torres has a career record of 12 medals (4 each in gold, silver, and bronze), won in 5 (yes, that's 5) Olympic games. Her best Games performance was in 2000, in Sydney, when she won 5 medals. She's one of a very few athletes to have won medals in 5 Games.

The longevity of her career says something about her performance this past summer. She was 41 years old, nearly 20 older than the average Olympic swimmer, and she'd given birth less than two years previously. As a parent, I have seen the physical toll a pregnancy takes on a mother, and I know that my wife would never perform at her best just 20 months after giving birth.

Torres, however, has a competitive streak and a giant urge to win. She showed that 8 years ago in Sydney, when she was 33 and the oldest member of the US womens' swim team. She was also the most successful member of that team. With this recent comeback she wanted to make some statements about age, motherhood, and capabilities, and I think she made her point quite well. She didn't win gold, but how many swimmers her age can compete, with a real chance to win, at the Olympic level? Even Mark Spitz, swimming's living legend, failed in a comeback bid at the age of 41.

There's no real way to end this. Mostly, I was just a little bit awed by what these athletes did, and how far they showed it's possible to push the human body. I hope we see them again in 4 years.

Lance Armstrong is coming back to the world of competitive cycling. Wow.

If I were in half as good physical condition as Lance Armstrong, I'd be one happy camper. And he survived testicular cancer and a shotgun wound to the gut.

For those of you who don't know, Lance Armstrong is the guy who won the Tour de France, the world's most grueling bicycle race (and possibly the most grueling race of any sort, anywhere, The Great Race notwithstanding) seven times.

That's right. He won a 2200 mile race seven times. He rode 15,400 miles to victory. On a bicycle. At an average of 25 miles per hour. In the Alps and the Pyrenees Mountains.

Armstrong is 37 years old, and "retired" from competitive cycling after his 2006 Tour win. That race was his 7th Tour win in a row. He'd dominated the Tour since 2000, and some wags had started calling the race the "Tour de Lance." He's said that he wants to come back, and he'll be competing in the 2009 Tour Down Under in Australia, to see if he's ready for the big race in the summer. This being 2008, he has also volunteered for anti-doping testing of every sort imaginable.

Personally, I wish Armstrong well. I'd like to see him with the Tour de France again. And for the record, I think that he'll pass the drug screens and doping tests. He's a natural athlete, who takes good care of his body and trains hard, and is also possessed of an enormous drive to compete and win. That drive my very well propel him into the history books again. And it'll be great fun to watch.