On Olympic Women's Archery

So far I think what I've enjoyed most from the London Olympics (besides my sister dressing my nephew in such blatant support of team USA) has been women's archery. I was initially intrigued to watch because during the Beijing Olympics I happened to stumble across the men's gold medal team match between Italy and South Korea, which was one of the more understatedly dramatic sporting events I've ever seen, with lead change after lead change, pressure ebbing and flowing onto each team as each arrow struck... so I thought it'd be fun to see some more archery. Plus I find Koreans to be a bit smug about their two big sports (short track skating and archery) so it's always fun to potentially see a giant killed.


Once I tuned in I was further intrigued and enchanted by a couple things, one being the venue. The archery is taking place at Lord's Cricket Ground, so you have this beautiful old building behind them and the green lawn, very cool. And the first match I saw had American girl Miranda Leek who's out there wearing this baseball cap cocked off to the side to keep the sun out of her eyes. Very cute, very gangsta. They keep raving about how The Hunger Games has caused this big surge in interest in archery for kids, and I have to think Leek in her cock-eyed cap is probably going to help.


I will happily admit I get the most entranced by women who scare me just a little bit, and a woman who can hit the 10-ring from 70 meters with a bow is definitely sexy. I keep thinking of Nicholas Cage in The Weatherman, when he notes that people have started treating him with respect now that he walks around New York City with a bow and arrows slung over his shoulder, and I can't help but picture these women walking around with a bow and a full quiver. "Hey baby, you need some fries to go with that shake?!" "Uh, have a nice day. Ma'am."


By the way, some may say by finding high level women's sports such a sexy affair I am diminishing the athletes, looking at this exhibition of women with power and control and confidence and only seeing sex. I think this is unfair, because for one thing sports really are about the body, and these athletes are showing what a magnificent thing a woman really is. Not "cute", magnificent. I also find I actually enjoy the sports the most where they wear real, practical uniforms (watching beach volleyball or gymnastics with teenage girls in ever shrinking leotards just makes me feel creepy). Plus every woman I've ever been to a sporting event with has breathlessly latched onto some male athlete for reasons that extend beyond their game stats, and if I have to hear about Ricky Rubio's shaggy mane, or the unmentionable places somebody wants to put a Joe Mauer home run ball, I figure I can admit to wanting to marry a Norwegian handball player (crashing into defenders and whipping balls into the corners... Jeg elsker deg.)


In the end, another gold medal for South Korea who has really produced the stiffest competition for the past few years, proudly boasting that the South Korean Olympic qualifiers were a tougher competition than the actual Olympic tournament. But I'm really impressed with the two Mexican ladies who climbed the medal stand with her, for hopefully starting another sporting tradition for Mexico even though beating the South Koreans turned out to be even tougher than dubbing The Weather Man into Cantonese must have been. Although I now must admit, I'm a little concerned for our post-apocalyptic future if the Mexicans can shoot this well.

What the hell is going on in Vancouver?

I don't know if they just got confused and thought they had until 2012 to prepare, but everything about the Vancouver Olympics is so slap-dash and even dangerous, if I were Canadian I'd honestly be ashamed of this.

Every time I turn on the TV somebody's getting hurt. NBC's decision to show that endless loop of Nodar Kumaritashvili flying into the support post at 90 mph was certainly grotesque, but it's amazing to me that it happened in the first place, that after trying to add inches to Canada's penis by having the fastest track ever there was just zero consideration for the possibility of an athlete losing control at the bottom, where the speeds are highest. Part of the fun things about the Olympics is that it gets athletes from smaller countries and smaller sporting programs involved in a global event, but that does mean there will be a wider range of skill and experience amongst the athletes... to be completely unprepared for the possibility of a crash after repeated warnings is just criminal.

Olympic rings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or where have I been all summer

I've realized recently that I really started losing track of the 2008 election and stopped providing updates on it. One reason of course, is that I've decided to vote for General Zod from Superman 2, but also I found a much more interesting and occasionally more frightening clash of superpowers in the Beijing Olympics. And there have been some fascinating developments at the games so far, not least of which was the first complete WTF moment when news broke about the Spanish national basketball team's "slitty-eyed" ad campaign. Facing a serioius credit crisis, that's definitely a great way to court the Asian tourist dollar. Or euro, or yen, or baht or whatever else you got.

After the inevitable nuclear holocaust over oil resources, somebody will have to rule the barren wastelands, and I'm not betting on the mohawked Australians in football pads from The Road Warrior. I think the South Koreans will emerge to fill that role, spreading out from Busan and Koreatown to rebuild a feudalist society based on tofu. The reason I say that is that after decades of living a hop skip and a jump over the minefield from Kim Jong Il's nuclear program they've clearly started preparing the low-tech army that will rule a world without sophisticated manufacturing and electronics, by aggressively teaching the bow and arrow. Have you seen how freakishly good Koreans are at archery? The streak of bullseyes they smugly fired in against the Italians in the gold medal round was crazy, and Korean archers may have taken over from Norwegian biathletes as the scariest people to meet in the woods. (Who am I kidding, I'd love to meet a Norwegian bi-anything in the woods.)

As I was flipping through obscure Olympic events nobody but me watches I found a couple other real surprises, like the medal sweep by the US women's sabre team. It's been a hell of a long time since I lifted a sword in anger, but man is it nice to see that the rare women I used to fence against really succeeded in cracking the door open for women in our weapon. Also the chick who won the bronze is hawt. I can't help it, elite female athletes are already sex bombs but a redhead with a sword really gives me funny feelings in strange places.

It was also interesting watching the group play in women's soccer to see what a difference a year made when the US women played New Zealand. A year ago at the Women's World Cup (note to the Captain: the WWC was also curiously located in nnnnnnn-China!) when I caught the Football Ferns in action against Brazil they looked like a bunch of underdeveloped girls whose schoolbus had dropped them off at the wrong field and they'd been thrown in against full-grown women. But they were still fun to watch, especially their keeper Jenny Bindon crashing after loose balls with her knees up and Ria Percival in her paddington bear yellow boots. In the last year they've grown into their bodies and their game, and even though they got spanked by the US (4-0) they held their own against the Japanese and kept things close against Norway, which can't have been easy. Now that the Matildas are out of their region it's more or less inconceivable that there will be an international tournament without the Ferns, so I look forward to seeing them again in Germany'11.

But really the most surprising thing was the opening ceremonies. When I heard Zhang Yimou had taken over for Steven Spielberg as director, I knew that we'd be treated to an amazing spectacle, just based on his wuxias I've seen (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and The Curse of the Golden Flower) but I kept waiting for the inevitable third act to such an epic: death and shrieking on an unimaginable scale. Seriously, with all those athletes standing exposed in the middle of the field and Zhang Yimou at the helm I kept waiting for the inevitable hail of arrows or ninjas with hooks rapelling from the rafters, all in smashing outfits. Then again, maybe he's saving it for the closing ceremonies.