Michael Who?
The Olympics is on. It’s on a lot. Over here it is impossible to avoid it – there’s round the clock coverage on TV, local newspaper’s get excited if an Olympic athlete once ate a hot dog in their town, and babies are being born with the name Sharon Michael Phelps Johnson.
Naturally, and quite understandably, the US coverage of the The Olympics has been extremely biassed. Sports will only be shown if there is an American involved, and only if that American is doing particularly well. So, it’s no surprise that the Olympic coverage over here has turned into a bit of a Michael Phelps-athon. In one instance, NBC (the channel showing the Olympics in the USA) had a few minutes spare so decided to show every single televised Olympic swim that Phelps had taken part in… in full! They also have an annoying habit of cutting into a quite interesting round of Gymnastics or Volleyball just to show Phelps listening to his iPod – I know what I find more interesting.
There is no doubt that Phelps is a talented swimmer. Some would say that he is the best swimmer there is, and certainly his medal collection could hardly deny that. However, I feel sorry for the other athletes taking part. It reminds me a little of being at school – there was always that child who was better at sports than anyone else, and thus got to be on all the teams. There must be swimmers in America who wouldn’t mind having a go at the Olympics, but can’t because Phelps has taken their spot. If Phelps had not competed in some of the swimming races, someone else would have won the gold – and a lot of those would have still been Americans. But maybe they wouldn’t have set a new world record.
I also think it is a little unfair that Phelps does a few races and wins golds in all of them, and there are people competing in other sports, such as Volleyball, Tennis, and Judo, who have to go through days of matches just to receive one medal. Maybe in London 2012 they will have a quota on the total number of medals a player can win.
Maybe I’m just jealous.
