Regarding the July 7 Associated Press article "Youth Olympics set for 2010 debut": I can't imagine a greater travesty than an Olympics "meant to drag kids from computer screens and onto the playing fields." What a crying shame that the minds of men would hold this farcical vision of an Olympics -- some kind of youth health corps to dramatically decrease the ages at which "professional" training begins -- to prepare for the hell of the Modern Competitive Athlete.
Years of training regimes, expenses for a professional coach, trainer, support staff. The absence of time, play, a normal life. Add sports-pharmaceuticals, competition for God and country, Mom and Dad, and the glory of winning. But it's not winning, it's how you played the game! Who's game? . . . Youth is a term that was usurped by "teenager" in the last century. A Youth Olympics isn't going to give it back. "Teenager" is a Western invention, it doesn't exist elsewhere. Maybe if they just erased the word from the vocabulary, the "teenage problem" would disappear.
Olympic leaders announced this in Guatemala City. How many kids do they think, in Guatemala, are glued evenings and weekends to their computer screens? What a simple-minded group of fools to imagine that this would improve the lives of "youths."
Prepare kids for what? Burn-out at 17? Or to get 10 million of them around the world glued to their TVs and computer screens for a week? Go for it guys! I'm sure the world will never be the same.