PARIS—Now that the biggest, most important sports story of this summer (and possibly of ANY summer, ever) has been tidily wrapped up with Brett “The One” Favre’s trade to the J–E–T–S Jets Jets Jets (seriously, how was this guy not lumped in with the celeb-triumvirate of Brit, Paris and Barack?), we are free to concentrate on the second-biggest sports story of the year.

The Games of the twenty-ninth Olympiad begin today, a crazy eights sort of day in Beijing, China. Here in France, where a recent poll in La Tribune noted that only forty-five percent of French claim to be “excited” about the games, they still call the host city “Pékin.”
In all the newspapers and television programs, it’s Pékin this and Pékin that. This always strikes me as a little anachronistic, for some reason. Linguo-geography buffs, you have the floor.

The pomp and circumstance will be on full display with this afternoon’s opening ceremonies. You already know how I feel about opening ceremonies—or if you’ve just joined us, here’s the short answer: I hate them. So I will not be one of the millions upon millions of viewers tuning in to what, if the storyline of China treating the games as a big coming-out party holds true, will be the most elaborate opening ceremonies of all time. Ah, the costumes! And the dancing! And the strange recreations of ethnic traditions that have been completely repressed by modern regimes yet still feature strongly in opening ceremonies worldwide!

You think they’ll have fireworks? Maybe?

The only thing that could get me to tune in, other than to see Herzog and de Meuron’s amazing “Bird’s Nest” stadium, would be to see the innovative, ultra-nationalist choreography that comedian/oracle Lewis Black predicted on last Wednesday’s Daily Show: “When a dictator throws an opening ceremony, you know it’s gonna be good. Screw the ribbons and froufy dancers. I want to see a panda feeding a monk… to a tiger.”

Yes, all eyes will be on China over the next seventeen days, as sports columnists and news-channel carpetbaggers (hey, hard news folks, we sportos don’t swim in your elections/hurricanes/wars/scandals toilet; please don’t piss in our pool) fill every column inch and television segment with vacillating opinions on how the successes and failures of these games reflect more broadly on the progress and status of the great, rising Chinese power. Yes, the games will be political. That much is inevitable.

Cue the Sportstrotter’s Olympics drinking game! Take a shot of shaojui every time an on-air “sports” broadcaster references any one of the following:

* Tibet

* Smog

* Censorship

* Human rights

* World trade agreements

* Nasty authoritarianism versus awesome democracy

* “The new villains.”

(As in: “These are the most exciting Olympics in ages because of the emergence of Chinese athletes as the most competitive ‘villains’ of the post-Soviet era; Me: “I hate to break it to you, Americans, but over the past eight years the rest of the world texted in their vote for ‘new villain’, and, well …)

(Also, props to Salon’s Gary Kamiya for his insight on this one)

* Athletes getting lead poisoning from “Made in China” bronze medals (hey, that’s what you get for finishing third)

* Killer pandas

* Jackie Chan’s official olympics album

The Economist really hit it on the head with their quote in this week’s leader on the games: “Sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will.” Give it up for my man, George “The Optimist” Orwell.

“But in the end,” as you’re bound to hear just as often over the next seventeen days from media contrarians, “these games are really about one thing: the children.” Oops, I mean the athletes. And the competition.

These are, after all, “games.” The Olympics are a huge party. Anybody who’s anybody will be there.

Except for this column.

Yes, the Sportstrotter, in the tradition of Parisians everywhere, is shutting down for August, just as the curtain goes up on the biggest sporting stage in the world. Hey, my local boulangerie is on holidays, my greengrocer is on holidays, even my damn local bar is closed for les vacances. The only Parisians left in the city are the waiters conscripted to serve the hordes of tourists that have descended on this ghost town, and if you thought Parisian waiters were surly most of the time, just imagine how the ones who have to stick around for August feel.

Dottie, the first-timer-in-Europe from Minneapolis: “Oh, you know what gang? It says here in my Oprah’s Guide to Loving Your Shape in Europe travel guide that French people never leave a tip. Isn’t it fun to be like the French, kids?”

Dottie’s five obnoxious kids: “Let’s go to Euro Disney again!”

Jean-Marie, the waiter from Belleville: “Merde.”

So I’m getting the hell out of here, too. I’m not headed to my summer rental on the Côte d’Azur, but back to Canada, to compete in the greatest, most challenging sporting event known to man: holy matrimony.

After I’ve made an honest Madame out of Mademoiselle Trotter (touch gloves and let’s have a fair fight!), and traipsed around Italy for a couple weeks, I’ll be back for the start of September, looking forward to the NFL season and this column’s long-promised exposé into the wild world of the sport of kings, pétanque. I actually have an in to play in a high-stakes pétanque game on a secluded pitch near one of the horse tracks in the Bois de Boulogne, care of the 82-year-old twin acrobats who live downstairs from me. And yes, I swear every word in that last sentence is true.

In the meantime, I leave you in the capable hands of our Olympic bloggers, Mara Hvistendahl and Mitch Moxley who will be reporting from China while I ignore almost every second of the second-greatest-sports-story-of-the-year. (I will, admittedly, miss the anthems. I love the anthems).

Bon courage, Mara and Mitch. If you need any betting tips, I’m your man. Here’s one freebie: for the men’s marathon, my money is on the Smoke Monster from Lost. If anyone can handle the Beijing smog … whoops, did somebody say smog?! Bartender, pour me a shot!

Image: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

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Posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 8:15 am. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.