Taking The Fun Out Of The Olympics
Twenty-five days until the long-awaited Tokyo Olympics open and I’m already tired of them.
Between biological men competing against women and spoiled brats planning to act up on the podium, I’m not sure I’ll even watch.
Looks like the Olympics may go the way of the Academy Awards. You know, events that used to be fun but got polluted by politics.
It all began when powerlifter Laurel Hubbard was selected by the New Zealand Olympic Committee as a member of the women’s team.
You see, Hubbard is a biological male who competed as a man until 2013. Now the 43-year-old transgendered weight lifter is clobbering female competitors in the super-heavyweight division.
Hubbard’s inclusion on the women’s team has triggered a wave of objections from folks who correctly see a threat to all women’s sports if this continues.
Anna Vanbellinghen, a powerlifter from Belgium, called Hubbard’s selection “a bad joke.”
"Males do have a performance advantage that is based on their biological sex," the group's co-founder Katherine Deves told Reuters TV.
"They outperform us on every single metric - speed, stamina, strength. Picking testosterone is a red herring ... We are forgetting about the anatomy, the faster twitch muscle, the bigger organs.”
Hubbard isn’t the only transgendered athlete competing as a woman. The U.S. has Chelsea Wolfe, a 28-year-old BMX freestyler who’s an alternate on the American team.
Wolfe’s a delight.
In a Facebook post last year, Wolfe reportedly announced plans for the Olympics.
“My goal is to win the Olympics so I can burn a U.S. flag on the podium.”
Lovely. This athlete wants to turn the Olympics into a night on the streets of Portland.
Which brings us to Gwen Berry. Several days ago she secured a place on the U.S. Olympic team by placing third in the obscure sport of hammer throwing. While on the podium at the trials, the National Anthem played.
What did Berry do?
While the first and second place finishers beamed and put their hands on their hearts, Berry turned her back on the flag and stuck a black T-shirt over her head that read, “Activist Athlete.”
Berry said she was “pissed” that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played and that she’d been “set up.”
Seriously?
She’s vying for a chance to represent the United States in the Olympics and has a hissy fit over the playing of the anthem? What is wrong with her?
This isn’t Berry’s first insolent act. In 2019 the hammer tosser was placed on probation and lost some of her lucrative endorsements because she raised her fist in protest at the Pan Am games.
(Which raises the question, do companies really pay money for hammer throwers to endorse their products? If so, why?)
The Olympic Committee has a long-standing rule against political demonstrations by athletes, one that 200-meter gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos violated at the Mexico City games in 1968. The two Americans gave the black power salute from the podium during the National Anthem and were promptly booed, suspended from the team and banned from the Olympic Village.
Thankfully, the U.S. Olympic team is one of the few national teams in the world to receive no public money, so this is not our tax dollars at work.
On the other hand, since this is a privately-funded team the athletes enjoy no First Amendment protections should the organizers decide to replace the brats with athletes who will not burn the flag nor turn their backs on it.
That’s a suggestion, by the way.
