Wednesday, February 16, 2022

The Olympic Agenda

 





Sometimes here on Clerkmanifesto secret plans are hatched in my head. They're secret from me too! And so when I started writing about the Winter Olympics a secret plan was hatched that I didn't know about. I would discourse upon the vast array of Olympic Events, providing so insightful and refreshing a view into the Olympic Games that my posts would be shared across the vast panoply of Social Media. This would spread so widely that Sports Illustrated would contact me and hire me to be their Olympic Correspondent.

Things were running along beautifully, but then I bogged down talking endlessly about how great curling is and how they ruined Ski Jumping by using style points and "scores".

Did you know that a few decades ago, more or less, the key to getting good style points in ski jumping was keeping one's skis perfectly parallel while in the air. Then someone clever figured out that making a "V" of one's skis created more lift, like unto an airplane wing, and it allowed the ski jumper to go farther. So a few lesser jumpers started doing the "V" thing and they went farther down the hill than they ever had. But these skiers got marked down for bad style, what with their ungainly "V" technique! But eventually the advantage of going farther was enough that it caused more and more skiers to adopt the "V" method. And with that the judging started to decide that the "V" formation was the very thing that was actually stylish.

Which just goes to show how silly style points are in ski jumping. 

Which I have now written three essays about.

Sports Illustrated will not be calling.

And finally, may I just add almost parenthetically: I literally cannot understand if every TV in the entire World is not tuned Thursday to the Women's Curling match between Switzerland and Japan.

This is your Olympic Correspondent, signing out from Beijing.









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