SLIGHTLY ASKEW

A4

BY BILL CLARKE

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Have you been watching the Olympics? Of course, you have. Just about everybody has. Have you noticed that they have sports you've never heard of before? Of course, you have.

Have you noticed that pretty well all the sports are, at least in some degree, ridiculous? I know you have, but perhaps you haven't thought much about it.

Let's be honest. All sports are strange in one way or another. Some are downright bizarre.

Let's begin with those Olympic ones. Race walking is a good one. First of all, let's be honest. If you're really in a hurry to get somewhere, you'll run. Or maybe catch a cab. Then, have you noticed what those guys look like when they do it? I won't bother to comment.

Trampoline is one of the newer ones. A bunch of adults take turns bouncing up and down. They hadn't done that since they were four. It serves no particular purpose and they end up right where they started.

Then, there are those weightlifters. The idea is to become very strong. That we can all understand. Strength has some uses, but I can't help wondering about certain things. Do they take out the garbage? Bet the wife has to do it.

I have to admire the triathlon guys. Triathletes, I guess you'd call them. They can swim; they can bike; they can run. This prepares them for work as lifeguards, messengers or, well, messengers.

There are a lot of sports that involve getting rid of things. All the throwing events fit here: discus, shot-put; javelin. If you're caught in some sort of demonstration, you want one of these guys around. Other sports where you get rid of something include volleyball and its spin-off, beach volleyball. You have the ball; you don't want it; you bat it across the net; it comes right back. Of course, beach volleyball has another purpose: wearing a bikini in public. It's designed as a spectator sport.

Badminton, except for the bikinis, is much the same. Tennis, however, takes the ridiculous aspects to a new level. It's the only game where they make any mention of love, and it counts for nothing. Philosophers can have a field day with that. But, how do you go from not even on the board to 15, from there to 30, then to 40? Why don't they say one-nothing, two-nothing, three-nothing, game? I suppose the traditionalists would complain.

That fifteen-love, thirty-love stuff is all well and good. But if the game is a bit close, other things kick in. After a tie at forty, it's advantage for somebody, and then if the other person scores, it's back again: Deuce! By the time you've figured out the scoring, it's all over.

And, while you're watching this stuff, a bunch of sailors are out in their boats doing something that isn't even shown on television. It costs a ton of money to get one of those boats, a bunch more money to learn to use it, still more to get it to the games. Then comes the grim awareness that nobody cares.

It's the same with the winter sports. Hockey is fast, you have to admit, but in the end, it's people smashing a little black thing around. That's when they're not smashing each other. Olympic boxing is less violent.

Boxing is the only sport where the aim is to injure the opponent. That's why they use head protection. Wouldn't it be better to do away with the headgear and see who can really hit?

And, it's the same for the sports I was good at. Curling involves sliding big rocks around and sweeping in a way that no housewife would permit on her hardwood floor. Alpine skiing is just sliding down a hill taken to extremes.

In the end, all these sports are visual metaphors for life. How could they be anything but ridiculous?