In the winter of 2004, a lot of people started calling me Cheddar Ted on account of my exceptional rapping abilities. It's a nom de guerre I didn't initially take to, but I'm really warming up to it now. This is the Blog of Theodore "Cheddar Ted" Bressman. You think you know, and you probably do.
by Gritz Schonberger
Recently, I’ve found myself pretty disturbed by the Olympic torch, to the point that I think it may be more dangerous than WMDs. It’s bandied about so carelessly that people are blind to its destructive potential. At least WMDs are so well-hidden that even the people who want to use them can’t find them anymore. The torch, on the other hand, may just be the ultimate Trojan Horse of the modern era. Watching that Asian betty from Blue Peter getting jacked up during her jog through London, I pondered the ways in which this Grecian flame could end up leaving a trail of destruction behind it:
In the popular imagination, the Olympic torch is supposed to represent world peace and the eternal flame of sportsmanship. Yet its destructive potential is inherent to its constitution—it is ON FIRE, after all. Thrown like a burning javelin, it could burn down an entire city if directed at the right target. Swung as a flaming bludgeon, its open flame could take a man’s face off. I guess it’s sort of like one of those Bond gadgets—innocuous enough to sneak through customs, but deadly enough to kill loads and loads of people.
A lot of people assume that the Olympic flame was invented by Zeus, but they could not be more wrong. It was actually invented by the NAZIS. Check out this article:
[The Olympic torch] was invented in its modern form by the organisers of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. And it was planned with immense care by the Nazi leadership to project the image of the Third Reich as a modern, economically dynamic state with growing international influence…The organiser of the 1936 Olympics, Carl Diem, wanted an event linking the modern Olympics to the ancient. The idea chimed perfectly with the Nazi belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.
With these sinister antecedents fueling each “Olympic flame,” is it really surprising that it’s still causing riots and pandemonium? Newsflash to my brothers worldwide: the purity of the torch was compromised a long time ago. Ain’t shit changed but the chaunces carrying it.
When I think about the Olympics, I think about Greg Louganis doing a sick forward two-and-half somersault. I think of Dominique Dawes and that time England won the curling. These are good memories.
But then I also think of Pre, my favorite athlete of all time, and how his only Olympic experience was overshadowed by the Munich massacre and those shits in balaclavas. Then, I remember that the Olympics can be pretty f’ed up.
Is it naïve to think that a sporting event could transcend the deep divides that separate nations? Yes, of course it is. The economic stakes are too high and the host nation wields too much political power ipso facto. So why not move to neutral ground? Please—you and I both know that neutral ground is an ANACHRONISM.
But riddle me this: is “sportsmanship” an anachronism? Is lifting a sick amount of weight or jumping incredibly far not a TIMELESS pursuit?
Sports arouse a lot of passion, so it’s not surprising that a lot of political causes leach onto this enthusiasm like parasites. Still, some of us out there still like to watch people sprint 100m in under 10 seconds without thinking about human rights atrocities and strangled economies. Is that TOO MUCH to ask?
Granted, any event under 400m has already been ruined from within the sport by rampant drug use. So maybe “Sport” is not even worth saving. Even if it is, it’s certainly not worth fighting over. But there’s something foul burning in that torch, and if we can get to the bottom of that mystery, then maybe—just maybe—we can save the Olympics.
Gritz is the editor of Gradspot.com and a frequent contributor to Entertainment Weekly. He suffers from eczema, enjoys skiing and was the 2002 recipient of the Loomis Family Prize, an award presented annually to the graduate of Loomis-Chaffee that most embodies the spirit of the school.
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