Are all Olympic Dorm Rooms Equal? Nah.
I can hear you now, "Eat your heart out, Bode, you coulda saved on the beer."
U.S. Olympic speedskater Apolo Ohno appears "excited to come home to a place designed to help my performance."
Other room enhancements include sensory changes involving temperature, lighting and visual stimuli. However, at the request of the USOC's Sport Performance Team, the complete details are not being revealed to prevent competing countries from gaining the same competitive edge as the U.S. athletes. ~ Ohno Gets Room Improvements.Is anybody as uneasy about this as I am? Should rich countries get to provide more scientific pampering to their athletes during the games?
Remember, at the original games there weren't even toilet facilities. Things got heck-a-ripe in Old Olympia. If you were rich maybe you got to stay in a tent.
Now, I'm not saying that we should try to turn back the clocks a couple millenia and make electric light and sewage systems illegal during the games, and I'm not saying that these experiments can't be carried out back in the US at some training facilities. But somehow we've come to love the idea that the Olympic Games were about individual achievement of a sort that trascends arbitrary political boundaries, while paying enough homage to the homeland so we mere mortals can root for the locals if we choose.
Besides, what if Rosekind is wrong, and we've really been designed to Sleep In Shifts?
Comments
While I fully agree with the sentiment you express, I am at a loss as to any practical way around the issue. We could, I suppose, insist on standard regulations for every competitor. But even if we did that, and even if those regulations were enforced, all we would really be doing would be reducing the possibility of anyone getting enough of an additional edge to push his respective sport forward (if indeed there is any edge being given). Is that what we’re after?
In truth, athletes from some countries always have advantages over those from other countries. Those advantages might arise from wealth/technology. They might arise from early selection and training. They might, in fact, arise from a lack of the very comforts that “coddle” the wealthier athletes. But as we have seen over the years, environmental advantages can mean very little when confronted with the extreme determination, grit, talent, and skill that accompany the truly exceptional athletes that we have the privilege of watching during the Olympic Games.
Rebecca–
I wasn’t suggesting that we throw out all scientific research provided by wealth and commercial associations–it’s just that I always figured that once athletes got to the games, they all got treated the same. But it’s not true. Should it be? I dunno intellectually, but inside I want it to be true.
I want to think an athlete won an event because of “extreme determination, grit, talent, and skill.” In the back of my mind, though, I’m measuring that athlete against the advantages he has over others in areas not covered by those ideals.
When I raced cars in a club, it was amazing how drivers would lend an engine, transmission, or even a whole car to a competitor who’d lost one, just for the joy of competition. I’d always rather win against someone as well equipped as I. That’s the only time winning has any real meaning.
Thanks for commenting.
james