The Games

Used to be that we looked forward after the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games to the next ones in four years' time.  When we were somewhat younger, we did.  Just as we looked forward to the next Presidential election.  The Games and the election fell in the same year, the former in the summer, the latter in the fall.  Seems life was a lot less complicated then. When we were younger, it seemed that way.  Yes, indeed.

Since those times, as we know, they've shifted the schedule for the Winter Games to two years after the Summer Games, so now we watch the Games every two years, and the just-concluded 2006 Winter Games in Torino will be followed by the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.  Fine and good.  Olympic mania now occurs biennially.

As someone who has never been a great enthusiast of the Games (except maybe for the swimming and diving events in summer), it occurs to me that scheduling the Olympics every couple of years may be linked to the possibility that, as the television audience gets younger, the sponsors need to keep everyone interested by holding the events at shorter and shorter intervals.

Who is to say that, some years from now, we won't be watching Olympic Games of one kind or another annually?  Heck, they already have snowboarding events to attract the younger crowd.

I'm only kidding, surely.  Yes, I am.