I’m going to take a quick break from Apple and New Media Douchebag related topics to point out some Old Media Douchebaggery. I don’t follow sports much (read, “at all”) but I can spot some dipshit logic as well and anyone, so this piece by Alan Abrahamson at nbcolympics.com caught my eye. The bottom line is that some Jamaican cat named Usain Bolt broke some world records. Apparently this dude is really fast. The part that I want to highlight is this. After questioning whether Mr. Bolt is under the influence of anything more powerful than some tasty jerk chicken, Abrahamson writes:
And while no evidence of any sort has surfaced to suggest he’s not, it’s naïve not to wonder how Bolt is able to run so fast. Because no one in the history of human beings, from the first primitive soul desperately trying to outrun a saber-toothed tiger to the sophisticated races of our times, has ever run as fast as Usain Bolt has run at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Fuck me running! Isn’t that the point of breaking a record? Apparently, in Alan’s mind, doing anything more competently than a neanderthal is suspicious. Anyway, we all know that there only one real performance enhancing drug. Everything else is ashes and dust.
The funny part is the silent “…because he’s not an American!” in there. Because you just know if he was, he’d be hailed as a hero by NBC instead of vilified as a drug user.
That, and his name sounds like “hussain”.
Sheesh, that Phelps dude puts in a performance a dolphin would be proud of, and that’s just good ole’ ‘Merkin ingenuity and stamina. But the Jamaican fella breaks a *single* record, and that’s juicing?
I live in the Caribbean, and i’m insulted, by these Douchebags who thinks that only American athletes can do wonders. I’m so glad that i didn’t have to rely on NBC for my Olympic coverage.
I’m from Moscow, ID (mud in spring, hellishly hot in summer, on fire in autumn, and – most importantly – arctic wasteland in winter), where the Jamaican bobsled team trained. They were on something, but it wasn’t performance-enhancing.
Bolt, OTOH, seems to be keeping his head clear, and I would expect from that that he’s just working hard.
Sadly, your Guinness link is broken…
First time seeing this on mobile Safari. Beautiful. Finally a site that actually handles multiple web clients properly!
Personally, I love the notion that the fastest people in the world – from the very beginning of history – have invariably participated in the Olympics (never mind pesky details like dates or geography).
I wonder if there’s any chance they’ll add the Saber-tooth 1600m relays back into the Games… I miss those.
@mdhughes:
That’s fucking weird, the html for that link looked ok in the editor, but it was rendering wrong. Fixed now.
Because no one in the history of human beings, from the first primitive soul desperately trying to outrun a saber-toothed tiger to the sophisticated races of our times, has ever run as fast as Usain Bolt has run at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Actually, he seems to be mistaken. According to *my* record book, a guy named Urg in 50,000 BC outran a saber-toothed tiger 0.00001 seconds faster than Bolt did his thing. Of course, there is some debate about the stopwatch technology used at the time… And the meter hadn’t been invented, so the distance calculation may be off. (Converting to “ugs” to “cubits” to “royal whatchamacalits” to “meters” has had problems in the past)
I wonder what history of humans running, especially the bit before writing was even invented, this guy was reading?
Fortunately, outside of marketing jock straps and tennis shoes, the Olympics are pretty much meaningless for anything except mindless entertainment.
It’s nice to see that no one can be a winner without arousing suspicion of cheating. Some things never change. Envy is an ugly thing.
Given the recent history of performance-enhancing drug use by top-level track & field athletes, it’s natural that some degree of suspicion would be directed at the remarkable Usain Bolt — and the fact that he’s not an American has nothing to do with it. The ease with which he won both his races and the staggering margins of victory were bound to raise questions, but I think the current drug screening regime at the Olympics can probably be trusted.
So swimming is exempt from suspicion? What about the 4 x 100 relay that Jason Lezak swam the fastest 100 meters in history to win? He must have been on steroids! And the Italians and the Swedes both broke the existing world record to take 4th and 5th place! How come nobody questions their performances? Could it be because they’re all white?