Bode Miller should be on the Mets...

After watching hours of olympic coverage the past week and a half, I have come to the conclusion that US Atheletes have no right to be on skis. It's like the Scandanavian countries are lightyears ahead of us when it comes to all manners of skiing. It's like they are modern day humans in the evolutionary scale and the US ski team is still covered in fur and dragging their knuckles. When you lose a ski race by a few tenths of a second, that's understandable. But there have been many US skiers who have finished a full second or more behind. A second and a half may seem like a short amount of time, but it's like an eternity in skiing. As bad as US athletes are on alpine skiing events, they are even worse at cross country events. They are eons behind. It's only a matter of time before guys named Thor and girls named Heini are kicking are asses at snowboarding as well.

Ya know how every year the Mets and the Jets get all their fans excited. The season begins and they are filled with promise and hope. On paper they look unstoppable. But after about 1/3 of the season, their true colors emerge and you realize they aren't getting the job done. Going into the olympic games, Bode Miller was supposed to be a threat to win a medal in 5 of the alpine skiing events. So far he's competed in the mens downhill, the super G, the mens combined and the super slalom. He hit one of the gates and lost a ski in the super G, so he didn't finish. In the mens combined, he missed a gate in the slalom portion and was disqualified. In the giant slalom, he finished, but way behind everyone else. He was huffing and puffing at the end of both runs. How can you be an olympic caliber athlete, and be that badly out of shape? He also screwed up the mens downhill, I just forget how. I think he may have missed a gate there as well. He still has the regular slalom coming up, but I have lost faith in him. Poor Nike, pouring all that money into marketing around Bode and he is 0 for 4.

Next, I want to climb on the soapbox and talk about LIndsey Jackobelis. You know the people at Wheaties were getting ready to slap Lindsey's face all over their cereal boxes. Lindsey is cute, she's wholesome looking, and she's a gold medalist. Not so fast. Instead of just finishing a race she was winning by 3 seconds, she decided to hot dog it on the last jump. As a result, she whiped out, fell, and ended up coming in 2nd. Now coming in 2nd is a great achievement. Finishing 3rd is a great achievment as well. Knowing you are one of the top 3 athletes in the world at your given sport is something to be very proud of. But when you lose the gold medal because you do something stupid, it takes some of that level of proudness away. I understand when people hot dog and showboat during the X-Games. But it annoys me when someone does it during the olympics. You are there as a representative of your country. You are supposed to behave in a manner that would make your country proud. Ultimately what Lindsey did, really hurt her. But it also make US athletes look bad as well. People around the world already think Americans are arrogant and a bunch of showoffs. We don't need some 19 year old snowboarder making us look even worse.

Lastly, I want to talk about athletes who train in the US but compete for another country. How is this right? You have some vodka guzzlers from some former Soviet Republic train in Minnesota for 4 years, then they compete from the country of Balbukastan. It's sort of like Mike Piazza playing for the Italian baseball team in the WBC. Technically I could qualify and play for the German Olympic team. The only criteria is you have to have a parent who was born in the country. My dad was born in Germany, so I could slap on my kaiser helmet and play for team Germany. But I have no allegiance to Germany, I would have no sense of pride playing for the German team. But believe you me, if I won a gold medal for the US I would be filled with emotion hearing the national anthem being played. If you want to compete for team Butbakastan, train and live in Butbakastan. That's just my $.02.