Nothing makes me feel more like a biological piece of meat

Many TV observers of Olympic events are no doubt charmed when they see twin competitors holding hands as they cross the line.

To my mind, alas, an image of that kind is troubling. Those identical ladies are not simply cute ; they're clones. The situation becomes more troubling when we move to triplets.

For the moment, this situation has not reached alarming proportions. But, what would happen if we were to end up with a group, say, of four identical Usain Bolt clones ? Would gold medals have to be chopped into pieces, enabling each clone to take away a fragment?

I don't believe that this clone phenomenon, all on its own, will soon be responsible for ending the Olympics. But, with everyday annoyances such as dope, biased judges and (last but not least) Brazilian boos for non-Brazilian athletes, the end is probably near. Another trivial but slightly disturbing subject (but not necessarily a problem) is transgender athletes: individuals born as males who end up competing as females. The case of Caster Semenya, an 18-year-old South African female athlete, is disturbing, to say the least.

So-called “gender verification” tests were called for by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). They indicated an “unusually high level of testosterone” in her body. A newspaper revealed that a coach of South Africa’s runners is a former East German coach named Ekhart Arbeit. The former shot-putt champion named Heidi Krieger says that this fellow fed her so many anabolic steroids that she finally underwent an operation in 1997 that made her a male, now known as Andreas. Is that what we once knew as sport?

One of the most troubling events of all is when a once-champion athlete finds himself or herself beaten by a new-generation competitor. Emotions rise to an almost suicidal level.

For me, as a TV viewer, an annoying aspect of the whole Olympic show is that various sports have risen to a degree of technical complexity that often prevents me from understanding what is actually happening. Often it's no longer fun to watch a TV transmission of a sporting competition than I can hardly understand. For example, in a canoe/kayak race, I'm totally incapable of realizing whether a competitor has handled a "doorway" correctly. In a fencing duel, I never know who touched whom in an acceptable or less acceptable fashion. In judo, I have no idea whatsoever of who's winning and who's losing. In diving, I don't have the faintest idea of which competitor hit the water in the best style. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets bored by watching synchronized swimming, which has always appeared to me as a silly joke that has never made me smile let alone laugh.

As silly and boring as twirling...

In any case, the Olympic spirit has existed long enough, like competitive sport in general. It can't go on forever...

Meanwhile, here's a funny video of a loser: