THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 62 lines
The Olympics have provided uplifting stories for what seems like weeks or months.
As the games near their end, we would like to dispel a couple of rumors and suggest a few improvements.
First off, rumors have been flying that the women gymnasts seem so light and speak in such high, strained voices because they inhale helium before competing. Those rumors are false. The gymnasts are breathing ordinary air, though not much, because they are small.
That's not to say women's gymnastics is necessarily good for the girls who compete in it. ``At its worst,'' says a report in a recent New England Journal of Medicine, ``the sport can result in serious, life-endangering physical and emotional disabilities.''
Currently, a girl gymnast must turn 15 in the Olympic year to compete. The maximum will increase to 16 beginning with the 2000 Sydney Games. Perhaps the maximum age for girl gymnasts ought to be 9. At that age, many girls look like gymnasts without starving themselves. Less emotional and physical damage will be done to the girls if their careers end when they turn 10.
The second completely false rumor is that President Clinton refuses to watch the Olympics on nights when Whitewater events are on. He flinches, but he watches.
And speaking of rough water, we believe that synchronized swimming would achieve more popularity if it were performed in the surf. The contestants are so talented that their event, in still water, seems boringly effortless. In the absence of surf, we could have ``Whitewater Synchronized Swimming,'' though rumors would fly that President Clinton never watches.
Synchronized Surfing would be widely watched, also.
For the millions of us watching the Olympics on TV, what's really needed is a MUSIC MUTE function. It would allow us to hear the announcers but would eliminate the ``inspirational'' music.
NBC attempts to wring every emotion out of every viewer every minute. An athlete is shown on tape simply jogging down a dirt road as part of training, but the music - with cymbal crashes and blaring brass - is the kind that inspires young men to go to war.
NBC, please stop trying to manipulate our feelings.
We're dubious about events whose winners are determined by judges holding up little cards. In the old days, communist bloc judges would give any Eastern bloc diver a high score and any capitalist diver a five or six. Those days are behind us, but we still prefer less subjective measures. The Olympic motto is higher, faster, stronger - not prettier. We favor events you can measure with a tape or stopwatch.
So, how about an event called speed diving? Contestants could be electronically timed from when their feet left the platform to when their hands touched the water. Better yet, how about speed balance beam? Whoever completed the mandatory moves fastest would win. There should be two equestrian events: horse high jumping and horse racing.
Finally, on a more serious note, these Olympics have offered a reminder of how dramatically the world has changed. Early in the competition an 18-year-old German swimmer won a silver medal. The announcer remarked that she'd grown up in East Germany but was just 11 when the wall came down.
She now competes for a reunited Germany and probably has little memory of the East-West tension that characterized the Olympics for so many years. The end of the Cold War has shifted the focus away from geopolitics and back to where it belongs - on individual achievement. by CNB