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Johnny Neihu's News Watch: Beijing 2008: slower, lower, weaker

So the “Genocide Games” have finally come to a close, but apart from the host’s already well-documented support for state-sponsored killings in Sudan and Tibet, the only other notable genocide to take place during the Chicom’s grand debutant ball was the death of the Taiwanese athlete.

While most countries were busy improving their medal tallies from four years ago, our athletes were heading in the opposite direction. Maybe that’s because it’s hard to get pumped up when you compete under a pseudo-national moniker like “Chinese Taipei.”

With just four bronze medals to show for the efforts of 80 athletes in 15 events, pitiful just doesn’t begin to describe our showing. I don’t want to demean the achievements of the athletes who actually won a medal, but the Olympics are really all about gold. Bronze medals are the sporting equivalent of pre-election promises on upholding sovereignty — easily forgotten.

And given the way the government has been trying to erase “Taiwan” from the international community over the last few months I couldn’t help thinking that the poor performance of our boys and girls was part of our jellyfish-cum-President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “diplomatic truce.” Win fewer medals than any of our diplomatic allies in the hope we won’t piss them off, thus forcing them into the hands of China.

Well that certainly worked. The Vatican probably won more medals than we did.

“Taiwan’s performance was not ideal,” read the headline of a piece in Monday’s China Times, a quote from the chief of our Olympic committee, Tsai Chen-wei (蔡辰威).

Talk about understatement.

The failure of the team to do better has, as usual, sparked a bout of phony self-criticism, with various political bigwigs coming forward with ideas about how Taiwan can increase its medal haul next time around in London.

Well, never the shrinking violet, I too have come up with a solution to the nation’s sporting ills.

How about this for an idea? Unlock the classrooms and let the kids go outside to run, jump, swim and play. You know, the things that kids are supposed to do. Maybe then, and only then, will they get a feel for fencing or a grasp of gymnastics.

It is hardly surprising that Taiwan fails so miserably in sports when we treat our kids like intellectual battery hens, cooped up inside classrooms and bushibans for 16 hours a day.

I’d be willing to bet that the most common sports injury in Taiwan these days is Nintendo tennis elbow.

But back to the Games. What happened to the pre-competition confidence? When Chicom mouthpiece Xinhua on Aug. 6 quoted “Chinese Taipei’s chef de mission Tsai” as saying “that his side will try to make a breakthrough at the upcoming Beijing Olympics,” it really got my hopes up.

Still, at least Tsai didn’t “do a lawmaker” and threaten to commit seppuku and spill his intestines over the floor after Taiwan failed to win more medals than four years ago. That would have made a real mess on the Presidential Office carpet during the reception for the returning athletes.

Pre-Games, Tsai was also busy talking up the chances of the nation’s baseball team.

“We have many talented baseball players,” he said. “Though the Americans and Japanese are very strong, I believe we could reach the semi-finals.”

What happened to all these talented players? In the games I watched there was about as much talent on show as an episode of Million Star (超級星光大道), a kind of “Taiwanese Idol” for the tone deaf.

Not only did the team fail miserably on the field, but they also had one of the few athletes stupid enough to test positive for a banned substance.

But even then, Chang “Prince of the Forest” Tai-shan (張泰山) couldn’t cheat properly. Instead of getting caught taking the latest designer, performance-boosting steroid, the poor schmuck was busted for popping a male fertility drug.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that anyone who hasn’t got enough Grade A man juice to impregnate his woman shouldn’t be in the team in the first place.

Then there was the humiliating loss to China, which I said enough about last week. A performance with about as much conviction as Ma Ying-jeou’s clenched fist at an election rally.

Next up, those other medal hopes: the archers. They were so bad that they reminded me of Hong Kong crooner Jacky Cheung (張學友) in that old Matisse whisky ad, only this time they looked like they were shooting after they’d finished a few bottles of the cheap gut rot.

Another no-show was female shot putter Lin Chia-ying (林家瑩), who finished in 28th place and failed to make the final. But Lin’s disappearance was not entirely her own fault, as those reality-denying Chicom TV producers at Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co decided to cut to other action every time she was scheduled to throw, causing confusion among the Taiwanese commentators.

Sheesh … don’t my compatriots recognize the “one China” policy in action when they see it?

Even Taiwan’s first couple of taekwondo, Chu Mu-yen (朱木炎) and Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君), couldn’t live up to the pre-Games hype, with a single bronze to show between the pair of them.

Maybe if they’d done a little bit less clowning around peddling mutant hamburgers with the red and yellow buffoon and a bit more training they might have performed better.

Yang, trying to save face, promised she’d be back in London in four years time, but she shouldn’t count her chickens, as she may not get the chance.

Taekwondo is already locked in a fight for its own Olympic survival, and media reports say the sport only just survived last year’s vote by the International Olympic Committee to trim the number of sports, and it faces another vote next year.

The problem is, apparently, with the judging, and in the few fights I watched during the Games I’d have to agree. There were a number of occasions when the competitors were kicking the shit out of each other only to fail to score any points whatsoever.

Maybe that was because the judges looked as if they’d spent the previous three hours locked up in a small room with Lien Chan (連戰) for company.

Cuban athlete Angel Valodia Matos obviously agreed with me when he kicked one of the incompetent officials in the mouth after being disqualified.

Angel’s revenge had to be one of my favorite Olympic moments, along with the beach volleyball. Although after watching that event religiously for more than a week, I’m still at a loss to explain why the sand didn’t stick to the players — even when it was raining.

Overall, now that our supposed medal events — baseball and possibly taekwondo — are getting the boot (excuse the pun), there is the distinct possibility that the medal tally will be even worse in London come 2012.

Worse, that is, unless the replacement sports are Wii Tennis and the scholastic freak decathlon.



Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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