Hence these Grand Finale Olympic Power
Rankings.
There were some really great things in these
Olympics. There were also some things that made you me scream aloud.
Some things kept me glued for hours on end, and other things made me storm off
and boycott the evening. To put it all in perspective, According to Dazz put
together the conclusive Power Rankings of these 2012 Games. Keep in mind that a
low ranking does not make one thing better
than something that is not in the rankings at all. Rather, a low ranking
indicates that something sucks. Not a tough system here, folks.
20. Andrea Kremer
A huge pet peeve of mine is stupid questions.
You know who asks a lot of stupid questions? Andrea Kremer. Case in point (and
this is a paraphrased example), “Michael Phelps, you just won more Olympic
medals than any athlete in the history of the world. How do you feel?”
Answer me this, Andrea. How do you think he feels? You know what, no, he
probably feels tired. Oh wait, he is saying he feels great? No way. Thank you for that in-depth, bare-bones, absolutely
raw piece of reporting. Sheesh. Bet he feels like punching you in the mouth.
Sorry, I had to vent a little.
19. The Dream Team “debate”
I refuse to sit here and break down the
hypothetical time-machine game between the ’92 team and the ’12 team. This is
no debate. Sure, the modern “dream” team has two of the best players ever in Lebron
and Kobe, and they have two of the best modern players in Kevin Durant and
Chris Paul. After that, is there really a stand-out against the likes of MJ,
Magic, Bird, David Robinson, Ewing, Stockton and Malone, and Barkley? What do
you say there? Russell Westbrook? Melo? Shut
up before you look stupid. Let the grown-ups talk in peace.
18. Missy Franklin’s
Personality
I never really bought the whole “I’m smiling all
the time! My life is full of rainbows and flowers and it never rains and sun
has a face on it and when I walk out my front door to go to swim practice
little blue birds follow me!” act. My sister Alexis is a competitive swimmer as
well (she is at the junior national meet right now, by the way, if you know her
wish her luck), and cannot emphasize enough how fake that whole schpeel is. As
someone who goes to swim practice twice a day now, here is what I will tell
you: swim practice sucks. You stare at the same line for at least an hour and
you do the same motion thousands of times in a row. Nothing changes. You do not
race. You look down and breathe when you need to breathe. And it hurts the
whole time. And you feel horrible afterward. She seems fake to me, I cannot
really explain it. No one likes swimming that much, except for someone who has
a really good PR rep, and I promise you her parents would pay for that.
And did you see her gold medal interview?
When things lulled after a question, she held it up for blue-collar America to
see and giggled out, “Look at how preeeety
it is.” What are you five?
17. Tim Bennett
He is the
gymnastics announcer for NBC, the really eccentric-sounding guy. This is not a
total rap on him; he knows a great deal about gymnastics, to be sure, but the
problem is he does not communicate
any of his knowledge to the home viewer. I do not know about you but I know
very little about gymnastics. Tim Bennett could write books about it, so when
he is in the background of the broadcast going Ooh! and Eep!, I want to know why. He did improve as the Games went
on, particularly with how the judges score landings, so we will cut him some
slack. He actually climbed a few rungs on the Power Rankings ladder over the
course of the Games.
Then he totally jinxed McKayla Maroney by
overblowing how dominant she would be on the vault. She was not impressed. Neither
was the Dazz team.
16. Nastia Liuken
Not so much her as it is the image NBC painted
of her. Did you see the way they totally made her off to be this total
prophetic saint of wisdom during the gymnastics competition? It was one of the
most blatantly cornball things I have ever seen come out of the Olympics. They
kept putting some quotes of her on as voiceovers. It sounded like she wrote
them down and recited them. It was really old really fast. It washed her up
faster than Leo washed up in limbo during Inception
(wondering if that metaphor was a stretch . . . wondering . . . persuading
myself . . . nah, no way). All they
did was remind me how much more interesting the 2008 team was than this year’s
team (save Gabby Douglas, but we will talk about her later). It was like NBC
needed someone from the good ol’ days to come and lend credit to this team so
that people would care about them. It was not pretty. Speaking of this group of
gals . . .
15. The “Fab Five”
Nickname
There needs to be a rule in sports about
nicknames. For those who are unfamiliar with the original Fab Five, the
nickname comes from a group of freshman on the ’91-‘92 University of Michigan
men’s basketball team who took the unimaginably-young team all the way to the
NCAA Championship Game. I know I was not around for their primes, but I
understand that they were a craze. They brought the swag. They brought the
game. They were the cool kids on the block, so to speak.
The women’s gymnastics squad did not have
that same vibe it seemed. The OG Fab Five were actual buddies who goofed around
together. Admit it, during these Games you wondered at least once if this whole
hug-fest thing was just a big act. The Fab Five did not jive (. . . keep it)
with me.
Anyway, there needs to be an unwritten rule
that teams cannot steal nicknames from other teams. Exceptions exist, of
course, and one could borrow a nickname if a) the original team was crappy, or
b) if 35 years have gone by since the original team. While we are on this
topic, there is a nickname Hall of Fame, and if a name is inducted, it is never
to be used again. Hint: The Dream Team is in the Nickname Hall of Fame.
14. Ryan Lochte
Not to say that he did not have a fine Olympics,
of course. He had a great Olympics, by most people’s standards. The problem is
he had a crap-shoot Olympics by his standards. This was supposed to be his time.
He was supposed to take the swimming crown from Michael Phelps and establish
his reign as the face of American swimming. Instead, he took home one fewer
gold than Phelps, and while he dominated the 400 IM, his comments afterward about
being the better swimmer than Phelps failed to hold water after he choked away
the last stretch of the 4x100 free relay, and then came second to his rival in
the 200 IM.
Aside from that, he sounds like a caveman,
wears a grill, rides a scooter without mirrors (because I guess that’s cool or
whatever), and has his own customized designer tennis shoes. He also apparently
only has time for one-night stands, and this behavior was further evidenced by
his comment that having a girlfriend during the last Olympics was a “big
mistake” because he missed out on the Olympic Village . . . shall we say, proceedings.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner
for the World’s Biggest Tool Award.
13. Kobe Bryant’s
Reputation
This Olympics he looked to change his ways
by pretending to be a good teammate, bombing more shots on London than the
whole year of 1940 (bad taste . . . yeah), and making silly accusations about his
(team’s) place in history.
Hey, wait a second . . .
12. Usain Bolt’s
Trash-talking
I will give him this: he backs it up. He is
undoubtedly one of the greatest sprinters of all time. He has the hardware, he
has the records, and he has his place in history. I do not mind someone
declaring that they are looking to go out onto the track and crush everyone—that
is a competitor. What I do mind is someone declaring that the other runners in
his heat are “running in [his] service” or talking about how honored everyone
should be to be in the same race as he is. It is wearing on me a little. He can
back up all of his trash, of course, but I just wish he did not have to be a
total jerkwad (Man, I cannot wait until I can use profanity on this blog. I
feel like I am in third grade here) while he did it.
11. Track Cycling
Ok, I like the last two-thirds of the deal.
It is exciting, it is strategic, it is tactical, breakneck, and seemingly
dangerous. But the first lap . . . what the hell is that all about?! They just
mope around for a whole lap “working on their positioning” and staring at each
other like they are trying to burn holes in each other’s tires. It is the
stupidest thing you have ever seen. The announcers tell you that they are
trying to take an advantageous position on the track, but it just does not
explain why one biker will not just suddenly start sprinting off and catch the
other by surprise. I do not understand. At all. They have to have the stamina.
I should be a coach of that sport. My biker and I would be undefeated. All that
tactical streamlining stuff cannot be that complicated anyway. You can do all
that while going fast. Easy.
Look for Part II--coming soon!
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