Actual journalism.....
So Dara won silver......in another of those nail biting and fingernail difference finishes.
When I first moved back to California in 1976 I had a terrible time getting around Californian's incapacity for irony and sarcasm. I was even taken to the Labor Board by a waitress because I used to say "No smiling!".......in a happy voice that usually elicited an instant smile from everyone else. This person really thought that our restaurant enforced a policy of refusing to let the staff smile.
Yeesh.
So.......when I comment on the ugly picture of the ugly child and mom........that was SARCASM!! One would have thought that the obvious glowing beauty of the pair.....internal and external.....would have made that apparent.
Double yeesh.
For the nitpickers:
Most Career Gymnastics Medals for Women (18)
Larisa Latynina holds the all-time Olympic record for medals won in any sport with 18, won in a twelve year three Olympic Games (1956, 1960, and 1964) gymnastics career for the Soviet team.
Most Career Gymnastics Gold Medals for Women (9)
Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union won nine Olympic gymnastics gold medals between 1956 and 1964. No other Olympic athlete, male or female, has exceeded that number, although three other men have equaled it (Carl Lewis, Paavo Nurmi, and Mark Spitz).
And now Mr. Phelps....
So, the commenter was correct. Still, I only heard this stat in passing from a grumpy gymnastic fan.....not the professionals on the tube. Whether the emphasis on Spitz and Phelps and not the Russian woman is about her being a her, or being a damn Russkie, is up in the air. Maybe it is just historic bias. The fifties were sooooo, well.....fifties. There was not much broadcast love for the ancient Finn or the gay black man either. And the MSM is down on Russians these days.....sorry, guys: Shannon Miller is not the most prodigious medal winner ever in gymnastics, male or female. That is poor old Larisa.
Thank God that Michael Phelps doesn't have any idiosyncratic hair issues......so no Dorothy Hamil haircuts and no Mark Spitz mustaches will sweep the nation. And no tatoos, so we are safe there.
Maybe that 12,000 calorie diet will catch on. That would be good for the caterer.
If you want to keep track of your sports heroes and heroines.....and maybe hire one for your next birthday party: Olympic Gold.
Carl Lewis is doing great....at $40,000 a pop. Mark Spitz is down around the $10k mark.
Must be that mustache.
Oh, and no Russians.
When I first moved back to California in 1976 I had a terrible time getting around Californian's incapacity for irony and sarcasm. I was even taken to the Labor Board by a waitress because I used to say "No smiling!".......in a happy voice that usually elicited an instant smile from everyone else. This person really thought that our restaurant enforced a policy of refusing to let the staff smile.
Yeesh.
So.......when I comment on the ugly picture of the ugly child and mom........that was SARCASM!! One would have thought that the obvious glowing beauty of the pair.....internal and external.....would have made that apparent.
Double yeesh.
For the nitpickers:
Most Career Gymnastics Medals for Women (18)
Larisa Latynina holds the all-time Olympic record for medals won in any sport with 18, won in a twelve year three Olympic Games (1956, 1960, and 1964) gymnastics career for the Soviet team.
Most Career Gymnastics Gold Medals for Women (9)
Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union won nine Olympic gymnastics gold medals between 1956 and 1964. No other Olympic athlete, male or female, has exceeded that number, although three other men have equaled it (Carl Lewis, Paavo Nurmi, and Mark Spitz).
And now Mr. Phelps....
So, the commenter was correct. Still, I only heard this stat in passing from a grumpy gymnastic fan.....not the professionals on the tube. Whether the emphasis on Spitz and Phelps and not the Russian woman is about her being a her, or being a damn Russkie, is up in the air. Maybe it is just historic bias. The fifties were sooooo, well.....fifties. There was not much broadcast love for the ancient Finn or the gay black man either. And the MSM is down on Russians these days.....sorry, guys: Shannon Miller is not the most prodigious medal winner ever in gymnastics, male or female. That is poor old Larisa.
Thank God that Michael Phelps doesn't have any idiosyncratic hair issues......so no Dorothy Hamil haircuts and no Mark Spitz mustaches will sweep the nation. And no tatoos, so we are safe there.
Maybe that 12,000 calorie diet will catch on. That would be good for the caterer.
If you want to keep track of your sports heroes and heroines.....and maybe hire one for your next birthday party: Olympic Gold.
Carl Lewis is doing great....at $40,000 a pop. Mark Spitz is down around the $10k mark.
Must be that mustache.
Oh, and no Russians.
posted by Txacoli at 1:21 PM
1 Comments:
Michael, I know this is gonna piss a lot of people off (like that's never stopped me). I'm going to posit that, even if they don't have the most medals, Phelps' and Torres' performances are inherently superior to any gymnast's because swimming is a speed sport with objective, quantifiable measurements. Any sport that requires a judge is suspect in my book (and it's no accident that such sports are dominated by Communist countries, where the omniscient State decides everything by a consensus of shadowy puppet-masters). Now, I'm sure there have been cases where one gymnast, figure skater, etc was the best performer, hands-down - but it's ultimately an athletic performance, not contest. Also, synchronized diving is the most egregious, shark-jumping nonsense I've ever seen in the Olympics.
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