As The Tokyo Olympics Near the End . . .

First of all, Allyson Felix won a two more career Olympic medal for a total of eleven, a bronze medal in the 400m race and a gold in the women's 4x400 relay race on a team that was rounded out by Sydney McLaughlin, Dalilah Muhammad, and Athing Mu. This makes Felix the most decorated American track Olympian ever.  And if that weren't enough, Jessica Springsteen earned a silver model in equestrian team jumping. 

Taking bronze medals home to America are Simone Biles on the balance beam and the U.S. women's soccer team while Canada won the gold medal in women's soccer.  And in case you missed it (and you did, because all sports talk these past few weeks has been about the Olympics), the U.S. men's soccer team won the CONCACAF Gold Cup.  Amazing - they could actually be contenders in the 2022 World Cup!

The men's soccer Olympic tournament?  I don't want to talk about it.  (That is, Brazil won.)

Also, congratulations to two more bronze medalists - Molly Seidel in the women's marathon and Paul Chelimo in the man's 5,000m track race.

That out of the way, the turn for the worse in all things COVID requires me to address the Winter Olympics in Beijing.  First of all, despite COVID, they're still on.  Second of all, because the Delta variant made it over from India to China in a spectacular example of what I regard as karma, China is suffering a major outbreak they haven't seen since the Communist government invented the pandemic. Third, despite the delta corona, China is set - dead set - on having the Winter Games in 2022, as scheduled, rather than 2023 (and the pandemic should definitely be over by then).   Needless to say, a lot of people in the West and Americans in particular are ticked off about all this, and bipartisan group of lawmakers in Washington are trying to get the Winter Games postponed, canceled or moved.  Not just over COVID, but for persecution of the Uighurs un Sinkiang, threats against Taiwan, the crackdowns in Hong Kong, and everything else.   

Good luck with that. The Chinese have so much power and influence that they can get away with anything, and nothing is going to stop the Communist government from Beijing in the first place having the Winter Games in Beijing on schedule.  Nothing stopped them from getting the 2022 Winter Games in the first place, despite the fact that Beijing hosted the Summer Games only a decade or so ago.  Certainly not a bid for the 2022 Winter Games from the only other city interested  - Almaty in Kazakhstan.  So, once again, we'll have to watch athletes competing in empty stands and officials not just in face coverings but presumably, because they'll be outside at skiing and bobsled events, hazmat suits.  (Respiratory viruses can spread much faster outdoors in winter weather.)  

Oh yeah, I just found this out about the Winter Games.  Remember when winter Olympiads were only ten days?  That all changed when the organizers of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary expanded the duration of those Games to sixteen days in part to make room for more winter sports but also to add an additional weekend of competition to please corporate TV sponsors.  And once Winter Olympiads got staggered in alternate even-numbered years, they may have become more important, but they also became more bloated.  In some respects, the change from ten to sixteen days was necessary; the Winter Olympics had gained such scant attention before 1988 that the International Olympic Committee considered getting rid of them all together.  But given that we are now seeing major cities rather than cozy mountain hamlets hosting the Winter Games - the 2026 Winter Olympics will be hosted by two Italian cities, Cortina d'Ampezzo and Milan (Cortina d'Ampezzo alone was enough for the 1956 Winter Games) - was it worth it?

Right. I've been arguing against Beijing hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics since long before COVID hit, mainly because the climate in northeastern China will require a lot of artificial snow to make it work, but now for many more reasons.  I still say, move them to Almaty - as Borat would say, Winter Olympics for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan!

Nice!