Hicham El Geurrouj from
Morocco finally won a gold
medal in the men’s 1500m race
after trying and failing in two
previous Olympics (he also dou-
bled up the gold in the 5000m).

Kyle Shewfelt gave Canada a
hero by winning gold in the
Gymnastics floor routine. The
medal marked the first won by a
Canadian male in Gymnastics.

Remember that friend I saw in
the opening ceremonies? Well,
her event was a one-day event.
Guess which day my satellite
went down.

 

 

 

The Down Side of Sports

Darren Paterson, Sports Editor

With the combination of a poor Canadian
showing in the Olympics and my wife meeting
my mistress for the first time, I’d just like to
take a second to blow off some steam and
reflect on the down side of sports.

Let’s start with that Team Canada shall we?
Boy oh boy. I predicted a great showing by our
athletes and man was I wrong. Not only did
our long shots not even make a splash, but
many of our world champions and medal
favorites didn’t do squat either. ’m talking
about athletes like Alexandre Despatie, Perdita
Felicien, or our men’s eight rowing team. Now,
admittedly Perdita poured her heart out and
Despatie won a silver medal (and has a chance
at another as I write this). But these are all
world champions who should be as good as
gold for their country. Or how about our men’s
baseball team? They had the Cubans beat and
a spot in the finals booked and then they went
out and choked in the eighth inning. Then the
Japanese predictably blew them out for the
bronze and we wound up finishing fourth...
again.... Listen, I understand that they’re try-
ing hard but it just seems like Canada has had
more fourth and fifth place finishes this year
than I can ever remember.

But we’re not the only ones who aren’t up
to snuff at the Olympics. How about that

Basketball
team? Not the women,
they’re doing fine, but
the men. Holy crap. “
What happened to these
guys? The formerly invinci-
ble “Dream Team” exists no
longer. With high-paid, big
attitude players like Shaquille
O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Vince
Carter all opting not to play on the
team, rookies like LeBron James and
Carmelo Anthony have been asked to step up
and deliver. Something that they have not done
thus far. After never losing an international
game when fielding the Dream Team, the US
went way off track at the last World
Championships. And now they’ve gone and
dropped three more to Puerto Rico, Lithuania,
and Argentina respectively, which put them
out of contention for gold. This is a team on
the decline and I bet all the players on it are
thinking to themselves, “Man. I wonder when
Michael’s gonna show....”

Also on the decline is my marriage. And I
would like to take one final note to say once
again that baby, I swear to God that I never
met her before. I don’t know how she wound
up in our bedroom wearing lingerie and whip-
ping cream but I do know that it wasn’t as a
result of me picking her up in a bar on 6th
street between 11:20 and 11:40 in the evening.
It wasn’t my fault... It wasn’t my fault....

American

  
  
   
   

 

Closing ceremonies: Wow, what a party. I
can’t imagine how the athletes felt as they par-
tied it up with each other. I don’t know if it’s
just my appreciation for Chinese culture but
Beijing put on an impressive preview of their
Olympics. And with an amazing showing by
their athletes in Athens, I expect the Chinese
to put on an incredible show in four years.

And then, the Olympic Cigar was put out
and I shed a single tear representative of both
the sadness and the happiness I felt for the
ending of the games. But hey, at least it’s only
two more years to the winter games.

 

OUHEPPPESS |