Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
After a long five-year hiatus, the world’s greatest athletes have converged for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. When I haven’t been busy putting together this week’s paper, I’ve been watching these athletes compete in a bevy of sports while feeling insecure about my athletic shortcomings compared with the unbelievable feats achieved by the competitors.
It’s an American tradition to sit on our couches and watch TV for six hours while wondering why we aren’t as athletic as those who are competing in the Olympics, after all.
While the Olympics are among my favorite sporting events, along with the NCAA Tournament and World Cup, there are certainly some sports more entertaining to watch than others. While recognizing that all athletes at the games are incredible at what they do, I’ve taken the liberty of compiling the five most entertaining and five most boring sports I’ve come across so far in these Summer Games. They’re listed in no particular order, aside from being recognized as either one of the most five thrilling and couch-gripping events or one of the five biggest snoozers.
Most entertaining
1. Gymnastics
If you think you’re a physically strong person but want your self-esteem shattered, look no further than gymnastics. The flexibility displayed by athletes like Simone Biles combined with the sheer strength by a gymnast holding themselves on the pommel horse and the balance required to pull off tricks on the balance beam is something else to behold. Plus, it’s a bonus bit of entertainment to watch the most amazing physical feat you’ve ever seen and have the announcers say something to the effect of, “another critical mistake made there.”
2. Diving
Maybe not the first choice that pops into many people’s minds when you bring up “most entertaining Olympic event,” but I’ve always been fascinated with diving. It’s amazing, gripping and rather amusing to watch competitors complete acrobatic feats while plummeting through the air before barely making an impact on the water (in fact, they’re penalized the harder the splash). I do think they should have a belly flop contest in the Olympics, though.
3. Swimming
Swimming gets a fan’s blood pumping like no other in the Summer Games. Races are decided by hundredths of seconds…remember when Michael Phelps barely kept his quest for eight gold medals in eight tries alive when his teammate, Jason Lezak, helped the United States win a relay medley race by one one-hundredth of a second? Whether the race lasts a minute or five minutes, the intensity is hard to match.
4. Water polo
Water polo may be an addition out of left field, but the physical exhaustion those athletes must feel after a game is astronomical. The players are playing team handball while treading water constantly, throwing the ball with force and accuracy and moving up and down the pool…swimming is already physically demanding enough. If you haven’t watched water polo yet these games, I recommend giving it a try.
5. Track and field
The classic events that the Ancient Greeks competed in millennia ago can still be found today in track and field. Similar to swimming, running events are decided in hundredths of seconds and the fastest humans on Earth flex their skills. Jumpers touch the sky while clearing their hurdles and bars and throwers flex their strength with deep tosses of hammer, javelin and discus.
Most boring
1. Distance swimming
Look, it’s very impressive that someone could swim for miles at a time and not sink to the bottom of a lake in exhaustion. I couldn’t do it, and there’s a good chance those reading these couldn’t either. But that doesn’t mean I don’t consider distance swimming the most boring event of the Games. The people are under water. You can barely see them, and when you can, it looks like you’re watching a fish move in a straight line. Great accomplishment, but I’ll pass.
2. Equestrian
I might catch some heat for this inclusion from the many horse-lovers of Lincoln County, but equestrian events just don’t get my heart pounding the way many other events do. The relationship between a person and a horse can be a beautiful sight to behold, but it doesn’t appear nearly as athletically impressive as water polo or gymnastics. I turned this event on over the weekend and saw a lady on horseback riding in a square. While I recognize my ignorance in the skill that takes, I wasn’t overtly drawn to the screen by the sight.
3. Rowing
Here’s another aquatic event that takes a ton of skill, but would take even more skill to draw my viewing eyes in. At least you can see the people competing, *cough* distance swimmers *cough*.
4. Golf
Obviously.
5. Triathlon
Finishing a triathlon, let alone medaling in one at the Olympics, is one of the greatest athletic achievements a human can accomplish. But for whatever reason, I just can’t sit and watch it for two hours while staying entertained the whole time. It combines distance swimming (have I mentioned distance swimming yet?) with cycling and running, which is physically astonishing but personally boring for busy journalists like myself to stay engaged with.
Readers of this column are encouraged to submit letters about their favorite (or least favorite) events to watch at the Olympics for next week’s issue.
– Drew Lawson is the Editor of the Davenport Times. He can be reached at dteditor@centurytel.net.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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