Tuesday, February 28, 2006
The root of the problem
So, the Winter Olympics have finished and Japan have one poxy gold medal to show for it. And that was down to a huge slice of luck.
I was demanding answers from the students: why, eight years after the Nagano Olympics raised the profile of Winter sports in this country, can Team Nippon only muster one spawny gold?
The guy who knows sports blamed changes to the length of skis. I've read up this argument before: basically, the permitted length of skis is proportional to the height of the skier. Or lack of height, in the case of Japanese skiers.
And with skis scarcely longer than my workshoes, who can expect the sadly-abused Japanese to mine Olympic gold on the piste?
The guy who doesn't know sports (and is a perpetual blight on my Tuesdays because of his incomprehensibility) came up with a much more inspired answer:
"Japanese does not have a good power because they are vegetable people."
I couldn't find fault with this.
I was demanding answers from the students: why, eight years after the Nagano Olympics raised the profile of Winter sports in this country, can Team Nippon only muster one spawny gold?
The guy who knows sports blamed changes to the length of skis. I've read up this argument before: basically, the permitted length of skis is proportional to the height of the skier. Or lack of height, in the case of Japanese skiers.
And with skis scarcely longer than my workshoes, who can expect the sadly-abused Japanese to mine Olympic gold on the piste?
The guy who doesn't know sports (and is a perpetual blight on my Tuesdays because of his incomprehensibility) came up with a much more inspired answer:
"Japanese does not have a good power because they are vegetable people."
I couldn't find fault with this.
