Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had taken the path of Sarah Palin.

Before she quit her gig as governor of Alaska to become a FOX News talking head, before she went rogue as John McCain’s biggest mistake, before she won hearts and minds as the feisty mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin was a sportscaster. This was, of course, after she was pageant queen, which, come to think of it, is not that far off the career path of most sportscasters. Suffice it to say, there’s a reason I was a sportswriter and not a sportscaster – and it’s not just because I had a face for newspaper, as my colleagues in the NBC 2012 Olympics broadcast booth can attest…

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There is a reason they call them the Games of the XXX Summer Olympiad – and it’s not just because the quadrennial pageant of amateur athleticism began in 1896.

Have you seen the athletes? Have you been paying attention to the uniforms or lack thereof? Now that you’ve seen the synchronized divers clad in their Spandex fig-leaves, are you now feeling insecure about your athletic performance as well as your performance in the bedroom?

Not only are these competitors the pinnacle of athletic achievement, but they also look like supermodels – the men and the women. Whatever happened to Hulga, the East German powerlifter? All the gals used to like her – except for the women’s gymnasts who all looked like Macaulay Culkin. Now they all look like Giselle or Rafaela or whatever one-named wonder graces the sticky pages of your midseason Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Every four years we hear about the athletes’ dedication, their training, their dogged pursuit of the pinnacle of their sport: Their Olympic dreams coming to fruition on a world stage! But these look like Olympic dreams of the wet variety and not just in the Aquatics Centre.

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