Olympics sometimes thrill, but most of its events are 'snoozefests'

Now that Simone Biles and her teammates have bravely redeemed themselves, can we go back to ignoring gymnastics for another four years?

OK, that's a joke. Mostly, anyway. The sport interests me not at all. If it's even a sport. I prefer contests where scoring is objective. You know, three goals to two. Like that. So yes, it's remarkable what those young women can do, but ballet dancers are equally extraordinary, and I find them tiresome, too.

Your mileage may differ.

Although it aggravates some people, the Olympics have always left me somewhere between lukewarm and cold. Particularly the flag-waving, medal-counting and boasting. Especially the boasting. Sure, the USA brings home a lot of "gold," as nationalistic announcers like to say. We're the largest rich country in the world, with the resources to fritter away sending skateboarders, fencing enthusiasts and skeet-shooters to exercise their hobbyhorses on the world stage.

Good for them. Just don't expect me to cheer.

See, I'm a sports fan. Indeed, I've spent more time playing and watching athletic contests than is entirely consistent with an ordered life. Having married a baseball and basketball coach's daughter, I have a wife who considers it normal for a man to watch a ballgame every day. Before Diane's eyesight went bad, she used to watch with me. Even so, we haven't missed an Arkansas Razorback basketball game broadcast in years.

One time when she was playing in a tennis tournament, I had to carry a 5-gallon bucket of cold water to pour on her between sets lest she succumb to heat stroke. After her match, they suspended play because competitors' shoes were melting on the court.

Another time, I overheard a bossy neighbor demand to know why she let me watch baseball games on TV. Apparently, I was setting a bad example.

The conversation went something like this: "Well, if I told him he couldn't, he'd do it anyway. He doesn't try to tell me what I can watch on TV. Also, my daddy was a coach, and I like baseball, too. Sometimes I watch with him. But here's the thing: When he's watching ballgames, he's home, he's sober and he's not out at a 'gentleman's club' stuffing twenty-dollar bills into some girl's bra."

As if ...

Diane's not normally so curt, but she's irked by controlling women. Having spent her formative years riding in school buses filled with teenaged baseball players, she's often the woman laughing when the others are aghast.

Then there's Olympic swimming, another snoozefest. I agree with Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times: "For the past 206 weeks, I haven't thought about competitive swimming. Why start now?"

The thing is, I was briefly a competitive swimmer back in my lifeguarding days. As a consequence, the smell of chlorine makes me bilious. Swimming laps is extremely boring; you've pretty much got to be a masochist. We had an ambitious coach who made us swim 100-yard sprints until I couldn't climb out of the pool without help. As I'd gone to college for an education, I needed to be able stay awake to study.

So I walked away. Never missed it for a minute. Zero interest in watching.

As for "artistic swimming," please. How is that a sport?

Even so, the Olympics can surprise you. It's always good to see athletes from small countries prevail. The astonishing finish by the Netherlands' Femke Bol in the 4x400 mixed relay race was something to see. Channel surfing the other night, I watched the astonishing athleticism of Danish badminton player Viktor Axelsen in a sport normally dominated by China. Seeing Julien Alfred of St. Lucia, a tiny nation of 180,000 souls, win the 100-meter dash over highly touted rivals was exciting as well.

Real sports; objective results; individual excellence.

Even at that, I'd have to concede that Biles is one of the most extraordinary athletes in the world. Having overcome being sexually molested by the appalling U.S. gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar as a teen, she also conquered what gymnasts call the "twisties" years later — an inexplicable loss of muscle memory and confidence that makes star athletes become suddenly incompetent.

Baseball players call the same phenomenon the "yips," and it's a rare athlete whose career survives. But baseball players don't risk the kinds of crippling injuries that gymnasts do.

After Biles withdrew from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to address her mental health issues, no less an athletic authority than Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance attacked her. Then a Senate candidate, Vance said that "it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people, not for moments of strength, not for moments of heroism, but for their weakest moments."

Weird? I think you could say so.

Even weirder than a guy who's seen maybe 100 Boston Red Sox games this season, but who's pretty much taken a pass on the Olympic games.

Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President.”

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