Just Let'em Play and Nike Does Rule the World

I agree with this semi-op-ed on the NYT Olympic Blog.

It's a shame that the IOC stepped in a had to ban Iraq from this year's Summer Games. Okay, so it's a severe punishment that's supposed to get the Iraqi government in check and to prevent them from meddling in Iraq's Olympic Committee. But of course, the people hurt the most are the seven Iraqi athletes who qualified for the Olympics but don't actually get to go.

I don't see what the problem is with letting governments try to sway athletic committees in their nations/countries. We saw the same thing with FIFA, after it also made the same decision to ban Iraq, the reigning Asian champions in football (soccer), from international competition. That almost killed Iraq's chances for qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. But FIFA lifted the ban, after Iraq said that changes to the nation's Olympic Committee didn't effect it's soccer federation.

I don't understand why it's so wrong for an Olympic committee or a soccer federation to be state run. Also, there has to be some other way to punish a country for doing such a thing that doesn't also hurt the athletes who probably, most likely have no say in the matter.

They just want to compete. Let them.

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I love the Uni Watch blog. It's amazing. It's like fashion-sense for the sport world.

The blog has a piece dissing Nike's Track and Field and USA Basketball outfits for the Olympics.

Their main point is that Nike doesn't use an "American" color scheme. I disagree. I like the uniforms. I think they're sleek.

Nike sure has learned from its 2002 World Cup debacle, when it used cookie-cutter uniforms for the teams it outfitted. The 2006 World Cup was much better.

And so we're here at the Olympics and Nike decided to splash some light blue on Team USA's track unis. So what? There are so many ways to adorn an athletic outfit and make it look good with just three colors. And the colors of the United States are red, white and blue. It doesn't say which shade of blue, which I think is the main point of contention.

Nike has made some awful uniforms in the past, but I think they actually hit the mark for this year's games. I especially like the kits for the U.S. Men's Basketball Team. It isn't boring, finally.

Now if there was only a way to make that Nike "swoosh" a bit smaller.