Posted on 08/25/2004 8:34:42 PM PDT by nuconvert
Drug-free losers embarrassing to United States
By DAVE BARRY
ATHENS -- The Olympics were canceled Sunday after the authorities determined that everybody involved, including the guy who shoots the starting pistol, is on drugs.
OK, it's not that bad. But it's not good, either. There have been many subtle yet disturbing signs that the use of performance-enhancing substances is widespread:
• Both the track and the field are littered with syringes.
• Urine samples routinely burst into flames.
• Slow-motion videotape analysis of sprint races has shown that some top runners are using as many as five legs.
• One boat in the two-man dinghy sailing event was clocked at 114 miles per hour.
• The gold medal in the equestrian jumping event was won by a Swiss athlete who, tests later showed, did not use a horse.
• Bob Costas has gained 85 pounds of solid muscle.
Every day, more top athletes are expelled for drug violations. This has taken its toll on the quality of the competition, as dramatically evidenced by the men's high jump, where, even at the lowest height, none of the competitors could get over the bar, forcing officials to award the gold medal based on a limbo competition. (The winner was Bob Costas.)
BASKETBALL BLUNDERS
But before you get too cynical about the Olympics, let me stress that not all the athletes are taking performance-enhancing drugs. Some of them appear to be taking performance-reducing drugs. I refer here to the U.S. All-Star Billionaire Men's Basketball Team. There was a time when the United States always won in basketball. Sometimes, just to make it competitive, it would send a team consisting of only four players to the Olympics, and they still kicked international butt.
But in this Olympics, our men hoopsters have been playing like -- to use the Greek word for it -- tipiyokti. First, they lost to Puerto Rico, which is ridiculous, because Puerto Rico is basically the 51st state. It's like losing to New Jersey.
But then the U.S. men lost to Lithuania. Lithuania! I mean, I'm sure it's a fine country and everything, but it has, what, 50 residents?
I bet the Lithuanian gross national product is less than what the U.S. men's basketball team spends per week on sneakers. This is embarrassing, people! We're America! The most powerful nation on Earth! The entire world hates us anyway! We should at least be able to derive some athletic benefit from this, in the form of stomping the juice out of Lithuania.
Listen: If we let Lithuania beat us in basketball, it's only a matter of time before France does. And if that happens, we basically have no choice but to use nuclear missiles.
TIME FOR SOME JUICE
So I say that, in the interest of world peace, we stop messing around here. If our current basketball players can't get the job done, let's get some players who can. Like, maybe we can buy the Latvian team. Or, if there's some Olympic rule against that, we could at least send in an American who knows how to win.
That's right: I'm talking about Bob Costas.
I hadn't been watching, but Google says that the Lithuanian basketball team starring Sarunas Jasikevicius did kick butt. Most Americans (including me) don't even know where Lithuania is.
If that little country of 3.6 million people could field a basketball team that could beat the American team, well, either our team wasn't trying or their athletes should be recruited as the new stars of the NBA.
Dave Barry's Olympic Coverage has been hilarious. I think the guy's a genius.
Ir's rare that I don't LOL at least once while reading one of his pieces.
OMG...Dave Barry is brilliant!
I actually know where/what Lithuania is because of of an old neighbor whose wife's family fled from there to USA in WWII. (GREAT holiday bread & traditional pastries...good neighbors.)
The US Basketball team has been living in "hardship" in a 4-star hotel in Athens..NOT the Olympic Village, It's considered hardship because they don't have all their personal trainers/lackeys/groupies paid for & boarded...the passage is only for athletes & coaches...not the whole entourage...so they'd have to pay for the rest of the herd to come tend/cheer them. Oh. the deprivation!!
Local sports gurus have noted that the USA team is not a TEAM...they are all hotdogging each moment, going for the slamdunk...instead of (gasp) doing the pass to score the points...and it seems not one of them can hit from the 3-point zone. (Which, by the way, ONE Lithuanian player can do...hee-hee...must be the pastries)
Unless they get past the Room Service mentality, USA/NBA Basketball is outtttaaa-there!
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