Spitting the Bit

I've avoided any critique of the Olympic coverage because it's the same every year: America American Americans America's America. It's such a hallmark of Olympic coverage in this country that I won't belabor the point, except to say it'd be interesting to compile a list of greatest Olympic moments that Americans have never heard of. I'd vote for the 1984 bicycle race in which the East German slowed at the finish so he could grasp the hand of the West German chasing him and cross the line together. Or perhaps Nigeria upsetting the whole world to win the '96 soccer gold.

I've never understood the notion that athletes are putting shots or slalom skiing for anyone's glory but their own. Or the notion that Olympic victories somehow reflect national superiority. The execrable Soviet Union won bushels of medals while many perfectly pleasant industrialized democracies focus their attention on liberty, justice and prosperity rather than on sporting domination. Victories by Chinese athletes do nothing to mitigate the abysmal human rights record of the despicable Chinese government.

In the 2008 Olympics, the most compelling narrative has been Michael Phelps' assault on eight gold medals. With seven in the bank as of this writing, the story is about to reach its zenith and fulfill NBC's wildest dreams. As is often the case, the narrative is obscuring some of the facts.

On the surface, the genial and talented Phelps has accomplished an amazing feat and deserves all the accolades. It takes nothing away from him to note that he's been extraordinarily lucky in two of his races. But since that muddies the narrative, you've probably joined NBC's conspiracy to ignore some inconvenient facts.

First, Phelps owes one of his medals to Jason Lezak. Phelps did very little to earn the 4x100 freestyle relay gold. He wasn't noticeably faster than his French competitor. France was stronger in the two other legs. Lezak, however, swam a 46-second anchor leg, a full second faster than Alain Bernard's 100m world record time the next day. That's Lezak's gold and no one else's.

More significantly, Phelps gets credit for touching out Milorad Cavic by .01 seconds at the wall in the 100 butterfly. But Phelps didn't win anything: Cavic spit the bit. As any third-rate swimmer in a summer league (my pedigree at age 14) could tell you, when you don't have any room to stroke at the wall, kick like hell. Had Cavic simply complied with that Competitive Swimming 101 rule, he would have won by a visible margin. But if NBC acknowledges that Cavic choked, they let air out of the Michael Phelps float.

Reality is merely an illusion, said Einstein, albeit, a very persistent one. NBC has proven more persistent.