I still remember years ago, during the Olympic Games, spectators would get to see multiple shows. Particularly in the aquatic disciplines, in addition to the athletic show, a fashion show would be running in parallel. Swimsuits of all styles, colors, and shapes. All brands, materials and shades. Nowadays, we gather next to the TV, with some snacks and drinks, we set to the right channel, and we see a line-up of aliens about to jump to the pool. Did I say aliens? Yes, aliens, for the lack of a better word for the goggled, breast-to-ankle suited, all black, capped, large humanoids.
But boy, do they perform. I overheard (yes, me and a billion others…) a dialog between two commentators. Here is how it went:
Commentator one: Look at this guy/girl, sliding lazily in at a time of 2:00 (that was 200 meters backstroke I think).
Commentator two: Don’t forget, just a couple of years ago, this was the world record…
Obviously, the winners came in much earlier… And lets not talk about Michael Phelps. Why? He isn’t a swimmer, he’s a super-swimmer. Looks to me like he found a way to install an under-the-skin warp drive or something.
But the bottom line is, while I clearly remember the mustached face of Mark Spitz, and while I’ll be able to recognize him if we passed each other on the street, I doubt I’d be able to recognize any of today’s swimmers. With the black swimsuit, the goggles and the cap, they hardly seem like people to me, but rather like swimming machines.
Trying to project twenty years into the future, I can see men and women with scales, gills and fins, wearing real shark-skin suits, with the teeth and all, enhanced lateral muscles and of course webbed. No body hair, no protruding parts, all streamlined and hydrodynamic. A new species – real waterpersons…
Anyway, I still like to watch swimming. And soccer, and athletics, and track, and sailing, and weight-lifting. All of course on one condition – that I don’t have to do any of the swimming, running, jumping or lifting myself.
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