What do McDonald's, Budweiser and other advanced nutritional supplements have to do with the Olympics?
Commerce and sport are inextricably linked. Kobe and Tiger sell Nikes, Beckham hawks Adidas soccer gear, and O.J., in happier days, urged us all to rent cars from Hertz. Full disclosure: I work in marketing at Levi’s, so I get it. It’s called “borrowing equity.” A brand’s meaning is enhanced by the inherent qualities of the endorser.
Nike strives to stand for performance in consumers’ minds, so getting the best basketball player to endorse its shoes reinforces its unique selling proposition. The idea is to induce the gullible consumer to part with his hard-earned cash in the hallucinatory hope that he might achieve Kobe-like greatness, or at the very least coolness, when he dons his Hyperdunks. Implicit in this reasoning is the assumption that Kobe actually wears Nikes and that these shoes are a key part of his accomplishment.
But what on earth does McDonald’s have to do with Olympic achievement? Has Mickey D’s ever led a great athlete to his proudest moment atop the podium? The fast-food retailer, a leading sponsor of these games, might strive to stand for the halcyon ideal of bringing American families together for a meal, but we all know what they’re really about: making people fat. They started with Americans, but they’ve managed to export this unique skill set to 118 other countries across the globe.
A Double Quarter Pounder with cheese carries a hefty 740-calorie load. A distance runner burns about 100 calories a mile. So a high-level athlete could burn off his burger with a warm-up run in about half an hour. He might be a tad more sluggish than usual, so let’s say 45 minutes. But add a large order of fries and the guy has to run another five miles to burn off the salty goodness. How much Olympic coverage would sedentary Joe Schmoe need to watch to scrape that burger from his protruding gut?
The Olympic Games elevate athletic achievement and human striving to phantasmagoric levels, all the while selling couch-potato complacency. These Olympics will set the record for revenue generation, topping each day with over 200 hours of air/online time, which means it would take a viewer almost five months to watch all of the available footage. Even if Dick and Jane weren’t fatty McFatFats before that marathon of Olympic watching, they surely would be upon completion of this test of endurance.
What is McDonald’s hoping to achieve? Do they think that by associating themselves with the games that people will suddenly, magically, believe that Big Macs are the breakfast of champions? That Michael Phelps achieved his ripped physique by shoving nuggets and fries down his gullet? Budweiser and Coke are also sponsors. When’s the last time Nastia Liukin pounded a six-pack of weak beer before hopping on the balance beam and turning a back flip? Do you think Shawn Johnson gets all her stellar flipping energy from caffeinated sugar water?
What are these big brands hoping to glean from the association? An image of squeaky-clean American goodness wrapped in patriotic triumph? Do they really think we’ll believe that these athletes are fueled by McBurgers and Bud?
I suppose it doesn’t matter. For these corporate behemoths, the massive visibility and blunt association with jingoistic pride is more than enough to justify their multimillion-dollar investment. The point is that the Olympics are really all about money. Money for corporate America and money for the athletes that bring home the gold. The rest of us saps are simply being sold the opportunity to witness transcendent physical greatness, while kicking back with a greasy burger, super-size fries and an ice cold, piss-poor excuse for a lager.
Jennifer Sey is the author of "Chalked Up," her memoir about the ups and downs in internationally competitive gymnastics. She was the 1986 U.S. National Champion and a seven-time national team member. More Jennifer Sey
The South Korean city beat out Munich and Annecy, France
The South Korean city of Pyeongchang was awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics on Wednesday after failing in two previous attempts.
Pyeongchang defeated rivals Munich and Annecy, France, in the first round of a secret ballot of the International Olympic Committee.
Needing 48 votes for victory, Pyeongchang received 63 of the 95 votes cast. Munich received 25 and Annecy seven.
The Koreans had lost narrowly in previous bids for the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.
Pyeongchang will be the first city in Asia outside Japan to host the Winter Games. Japan held the games in Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.
Korean delegates erupted in cheers in the conference hall after IOC President Jacques Rogge opened a sealed envelope and read the words: “The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing that the 23rd Olympic Winter Games in 2018 are awarded to the city of Pyeongchang.”
The vote totals weren’t immediately released.
A majority was required for victory, meaning Pyeongchang received at least 48 votes among the eligible 95 voters.
It was the first time an Olympic bid race with more than two finalists was decided in the first round since 1995, when Salt Lake City defeated three others to win the 2002 Winter Games.
Had no majority been reached in the opening round, the city with the fewest votes would have been eliminated and the two remaining cities gone to a second and final ballot.
Pyeongchang had been determined to win in the first round after its previous two defeats. The Koreans had led in each of the first rounds in the votes for the 2010 and 2014 Games but then lost in the final ballots to Vancouver and Sochi.
Pyeongchang, whose slogan is “New Horizons,” campaigned on the theme that it deserved to win on a third try and will spread the Olympics to a lucrative new market in Asia and become a hub for winter sports in the region.
The Korean victory followed the IOC’s trend in recent votes, having taken the Winter Games to Russia (Sochi) for the first time in 2014 and giving South America its first Olympics with the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.
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The Olympic skier pays homage to the famous cinematic crotch shot on the cover of ESPN
Olympic gold-medalist Lindsey Vonn has recreated that scene from “Basic Instinct” on the cover of ESPN magazine. And by “that scene” I do mean the one in which Sharon Stone infamously flashed her naughty bits to the world. It’s the magazine’s movie issue — why ESPN has a movie issue, I do not know — and it boasts a bunch of athletes reproducing classic film scenes. The headline accompanying the saucy cover photo is, wait for it, “Back to Basics.” Funny, I thought the magazine’s Body Issue — which came out just a few months ago and features exquisitely athletic naked bodies — was a return to “basics.” But it doesn’t get any more basic, or base, than paying homage to the most famous crotch shot in cinematic history.
Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More Tracy Clark-Flory
Record number of athletes to be tested prior to 2012 games
London Olympic organizers say a record 5,000 doping tests will be carried out at the 2012 Games.
The local organizing committee has signed a memorandum of understanding with Britain’s anti-doping body and will implement the testing program under the authority of the International Olympic Committee.
London 2012 director of sport Debbie Jevans says the size of the testing program will give a “strong message that drug cheats are not welcome at the London Games.”
UK Anti-Doping will train anti-doping officials and assist them during the event to carry out a 10 percent increase on the 4,500 tests conducted at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
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The gold medal winning hockey team boozes it up on the ice and sparks condemnation
Canada’s women’s hockey team has scored quite the controversy by daring to celebrate their win against the U.S. on Thursday by sipping beer, guzzling champagne and smoking cigars on the ice. After the fans filtered out of the stadium, the ladies returned to the rink still in uniform with gold medals draped around their necks. They laid on the ice, poured champagne in each other’s mouths and soaked up the Olympic glory. Their revelry hardly would have garnered any attention, except for one minor detail: there was an Associated Press photographer on hand to capture it all on film.
Now, the International Olympic Committee has reportedly written a letter to the Canadian National Olympic Committee “to find out a few more details,” and the team has issued a public apology. What’s the big deal, you might ask? For one, 18-year-old team member Marie-Philip Poulin was snapped holding a beer, and she’s just under the legal drinking age in British Columbia. OK, so that’s inappropriate, I guess — only, in her home of Quebec, the drinking age is 18. Are people really that scandalized that someone just weeks away from her 19th birthday was caught imbibing in Vancouver after winning an Olympic gold medal?
I suspect not. Judging by the online chatter over the “incident,” the age issue is but one more complaint shoveled onto the pile. Primarily at issue is that some perceive it as a display of poor sportsmanship, which I find kind of hilarious for two reasons: 1.) Ice hockey is one of the most impolite professional sports around (within five minutes of the first men’s hockey game I attended, two players had already resorted to fisticuffs on the ice), and 2.) Have these people never witnessed the hooting, hollering, fist-pumping, champagne-popping, and exclamations of “I’m goin’ to Disneyland!” at, like, any major sporting event?
I hate to be predictable, but I gotta say it: I suspect there’s also a definite undercurrent of sexism here. For example, one blogger wrote:
My question is: Why ‘ladies’ play men’s sports and look so awkward (unlady like) in the process? Being a woman is all about being a woman (grace, softness…). Figure skating is by all standards a women’s sport, as we witnessed yesterday in Kim Yu-Na’s performance. Simply brilliant.
So ladies, make an attempt to look like females, stay away from men’s sports, don’t try to be like men, you know, that’s what the men are for.
Aw, I think he’s scared of the big bad lady athletes. Poor dude — we just aren’t used to seeing women engaged in such stereotypically manly celebration. Not only are they drinking beer, they’re also chugging champagne and smoking cigars. Looking through the photographs, you can almost hear their self-satisfied guttural belches — and, you know what? It makes me swoon in full-blown girl-crush mode. I mean, my cheeks actually ache because every time I catch a glimpse of those snapshots, I grin uncontrollably. Now these are some women I’d like to grab a beer with.
Why don’t all the haters take a note from these Canadian ladies: Grab a Molson’s and chill out, eh?
Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More Tracy Clark-Flory
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