Determination and really gaming the system!
Now, as you are most certainly aware, the Winter Olympics in PyongYang are rounding the bend to their conclusion. The Games kicked off almost two weeks ago producing spills, chills and feel good moments.
They have also produced a touch of controversy and let’s us, for a moment, consider the saga of Liz Swaney.
The American skied in the freestyle halfpipe event for the central European nation of Hungary and left the crowd speechless by doing zero tricks, just back and forth and back and forth.
How did she end up at the Olympics and on national television?
CBS Sports reporter Pete Blackburn says, “It was a combination of determination and really gaming the system. The field is not very deep in the women’s halfpipe, so she was she was able to enter events in which there were 30 or less competitors, and if you earn a top-30 finish in a World Cup event you score points through the International Ski Federation.”
Simple but polarizing. A percentage of the viewing public felt cold rage at Swaney’s performance, thinking it mocked the hard work other athletes put in. A percentage of the viewing public felt warm happiness, thinking Eddie the Eagle type human stories are exactly what makes the Olympics special.
All fine and good but we don’t care about freestyle skiing, do we. No, we care about Olympic surfing and this is going to for sure happen in the event’s inaugural run at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Some Zoltan Torkos character is going to figure out that Greece, say, doesn’t have any good surfers, jump through Olympic Committee hoops and voila make it to the Olympics where the television studios will produce a feel-good segment on his fish-out-of-water story.
In three years, Zoltan the Great will hit theaters starring Dexter Holland (as Zoltan) and Brendan Fraser (as his coach) and the question I have for you is will you go see it or will you wait for it to be On Demand?
Also, it doesn’t have to be Zoltan Torkos who “determinedly games the system.” It could be you. To be later played by Rob Schneider in the yet-to-be-named film.
Do you have Olympic dreams? What is going to be the name of your film?