Confederacy of a Dunce - Olympic Fever

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

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Well, it's now been decided that London will host the 2012 Olympics. Rather than ranting about its expense and lack of value to me as an individual (or cheering the regeneration of a massively deprived area), I've decided to focus instead upon my own Olympic dream. After all, it'd be a shame if I didn't participate, since it'll be practically right around the corner; I could probably even walk there, although I'm sure athletes will have special transport opportunities (the Olympics will be held in the future, so athletes will probably get there by jet-packs or matter transporters). But first I need to decide upon an event! The list of sports can be found here on the Olympic site. I can rule out team sports as I have neither the time, nor the energy (nor, some would argue, the interpersonal skills) to assemble a suitable team. That eliminates baseball, basketball, football, handball, hockey, softball and volleyball. I'm also not much of a violent person and haven't been involved in a fight since my little brother stopped beating up on me (and I don't want to start again just for the sake of winning another gold for the U!!S!!A!!), so that's a big no for boxing, judo, taekwondo and wrestling (and I should probably avoid fencing as well). I don't especially like horses (and am about at the limits of my abilities as a provider to deal with the demands of a lone house cat), so I'd better not take up equestrian or modern pentathlon. The remaining sports, however, all seem possible (especially since I have plenty of time to prepare). I could rule out the boating sports (canoe/kayak, rowing, sailing) on the grounds of equipment, but I have previously achieved waterborne success (2nd place, Father & Son canoe race, Wildcat Creek). Therefore I have decided to let chance determine the category of sport I will pursue in the hope of winning gold in 2012. Here are the categories:

1. Aquatics
2. Archery
3. Athletics
4. Badminton
5. Canoe / kayak
6. Cycling
7. Gymnastics
8. Rowing
9. Sailing
10.Shooting
11.Table Tennis
12.Tennis
13.Triathlon
14.Weightlifting

In order to choose my sporting category I went to random.org which generates numbers using atmospheric noise. I selected a single random integer from the range 1:14 (corresponding to the digits above) (I realize this may give unfair weight to those classifications with fewer individual events). As it turns out, random.org gave me #4, so I will be chasing gold in BADMINTON. Men's singles to be precise, as this is the only individual event for which I qualify in this category. I have even played badminton before, although perhaps a more leisurely version than is played in international competition.

So who is my competition? Badminton has been an Olympic sport since 1992, Indonesia has 7 medals (two gold), China has two (one gold), Denmark one gold, South Korea one silver, and Malaysia one bronze. And that's it. In 2004 the gold and bronze were both won by Indonesia, and Korea took silver. The winner, Taufik Hidayat, is often described as temperamental and called the "bad boy of badminton" (and for good reason as he has had his Eric Cantona moment, maybe even more than one). But he's only listed as being 5'9 and 141 pounds, so I'm sure I could take him. Besides, he'll be really old in 2012 (31!) so I'm sure he'll be past his prime, while I instead will be right at the peak of my badminton career.

Now I just need to decide whether I should participate for the U!!S!!A!! or take on British citizenship and win my medal for the Queen. I think there's only one way to go, really. If the Olympics were in New York it might be different.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005 2:29:42 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)