The summer Olympics coincided with the births of my children, the first of whom was born during the Barcelona games and the second of whom was born a month before the start of the Atlanta games, and perhaps that’s why I love to watch them. I don’t love them enough to stop my life for two weeks though, so for recent ones, including Paris, I recorded the prime time summaries and viewed with my finger toggling fast forward. Skipping not only commercials but also interviews, athlete profiles, and pretty much everything other than actual competition, I can get through three recorded hours in less than ninety minutes, which says something about what Americans care about? Or maybe about what television networks think we care about.

I’m always a day or two behind and so sometimes I hear the results before I see the event. This didn’t happen a lot though, likely because I am a) retired and b) married to someone not exactly keen on sports. My husband has spent these Olympics proposing sports he would watch, such as Mime and Pickpocketing.

I don’t see those coming soon, although this cycle we had breakdancing and skateboarding, and I hear jump-roping is making a strong case for inclusion in 2032. I don’t watch any of those, though I did take a peek at Artistic Swimming, which is much more athletic and 3-dimensional now, consisting of acrobatic sculptures formed above and below the water.

Having said all that, and knowing that I am very likely to watch future winter and summer Olympics in the same manner, I must confess that a lot of it seemed ridiculous to me this time. The speed races in particular are so close–how often did a field of eight swimmers finish a race with everyone less than a half-second apart? The global search for athletic elites and the millions invested by competing countries in training them has produced competitions that can only be adjudicated by computers. In one of the long women’s track races, the fourth place woman “lost” by one one-hundredth of a second. This sort of delay could occur due to a sneaker pin (improvement on cleats!) catching briefly on a dirt clot, and would be indiscernible to even the wearer.

The subjective sports are worse. Barring a fall or clean miss, most of the audience does not really understand why a gymnastics or diving performance gets the score it does, and even the esoteric group of judges relies on monitoring tools, especially in the case of a challenge. Even when the viewers “get” the criteria, we may not buy in. Why is it so important for a diver not to splash, or for a vaulter to stick the landing? At some point, someone made the whole thing up.

Of course, that’s also true of economics, the name of which we commit much more serious sins than arbitrary medal awarding.

Prime time network coverage in America yammers on about how close the times and scores are, as well as how many world record holders and former Olympians are competing, which would seem to emphasize the foolishness of anointing just three of them, yet it also describes those not on the podium, or even those not winning gold, as disappointed losers. Which may well be true, since the athletes have obviously all bought into the hype. I imagine if someone were to suggest that we could have groups of gold, silver, and bronze winners, say everyone within the same half-second pace or within 1% of the same overall score getting the same award, the athletes would be the primary objectors.

DNA tells us that we are equally close relatives to chimps and bonobos. The Olympics are definitely a creation of aggressive chimp-like patriarchies. Bonobo matriarchs would say they’re all winners, and then celebrate with unbridled sex. Despite the return of “anti-sex” beds to these recent Games, the athlete quarters may have more of a bonobo vibe.