People who are all gaga over Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals in the Olympics are comparing what he’s done to what Tiger Woods did for golf.
Phelps himself has said he hopes his performance will put swimming in the mainstream of sports.
Look, I’m just as amazed at what Phelps did at the Olympics as anybody, but there’s no way in hell you’re going to find me in front of my TV on a Sunday afternoon watching a bunch of men, or women for that matter, swimming.
Swimming is a great sport, with the aerobics and all that. I love to swim. But, as a spectator sport, it’s something you do when you’re poolside on vacation, watching a good-looking woman swim in the hope her top will come off.
Other that that, it’s dull as a phone book.
The Olympics is a gala event that comes around every four years full of sports we don’t care about the rest of the time. It’s only because it’s the Olympics we take an interest.
I found myself mesmerized, for example, by a ping pong match today between China and Germany.
The day swimming becomes a major spectator sport in America is the day I win the gold medal in the clean and jerk.
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Jason Scott Deegan:
The Accidental Golfer:
Katharine Dyson:
Kiel Christianson:
You are exactly right. After all, one is a true sport, the other, a mere game played by middle aged men...
John Stewart - is TW middle-aged yet? Heard of the LPGA? Swimming is a great sport and I would never deride it but I believe golf requires more skill. Have you actually tried it?
The oracle has spoken.
Swimming is an exercise...what a bunch of dumb-a@@es.
I understand the skill and talent -- aren't those the same things, dumb-ass? -- but true enugh, I'm not wild about the discipline and dedication part.
Swimmers aren't really athletes, anyway. They're just in great shape.
You can throw a person who's never swum in his life in a lake, and they would find a way to swim.
My grandmother used to swim every day. It was hardly a riveting spectator sport.