Northwest lite
Olympic commentators are titans of nonstop Greek talk

By Brangien Davis
Special to The Seattle Times

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If you've been watching the Olympics as obsessive-compulsively as I have (ask me what a flair spindle is — go on, ask), you've noticed the announcers having a field day with Greek-themed allusions.

It seems American commentators will forgo no opportunity to insert a verbal wink toward the ancient mythology of this year's Hellenic host country. From the moment the Games opened, the groaner comparisons have been running rampant and fast as Hermes in his jaunty winged sandals.

Over the first few days of the contest, references to Herculean efforts and Achilles heels flew like Cupid's arrows. Television viewers were asked to consider whether it was hubris that felled the U.S. men's basketball team, and whether Michael Phelps would pull an Icarus with his multi-medal goal, soaring too close to the sun and crashing down in a mess of feathers and goggles.

The fact that the Olympics originated in Greece gives the return to Athens an undeniably historic feeling. And it's especially heartwarming that, after all the Cassandra-style predictions about venue completion, the athletes haven't been forced to compete in the crumbly old Acropolis.

But it seems the reporters' reaches for immortal references are growing ever more desperate. The other night a gymnastics announcer noted, "He's not looking up at Mount Olympus, but he is looking for a mountain of a score." (How do you say, "For the love of Zeus, let it go" in Greek?) At this rate, what in Hades will it sound like when the commentators are forced to dig ever-deeper into Greek mythology for their toga-touting banter?

"Thanks, Bob. We're here at the high dive where it appears the young hopeful from China would rather pluck out his own eyes than see the score the judges gave him. Not the performance he was hoping for, was it Cindy?"

"Not at all, Jim. He might as well have killed his father and slept with his mother. Quite a disappointment. Let's join Elfi at the Athens gymnasium."

"Well, Cindy, the pommel horse has turned out to be more of a Trojan horse for the USA's Paul Hamm. Now he must earn a minimum of 9.989 to remain a contender for the gold. Strangely reminiscent of when Jason of Argonauts fame was told that in order to win the golden fleece he had to plant a field full of dragons' teeth using two fire-breathing, bronze-hoofed bulls, isn't it, Tim?"

"I'll say. And in this case, Medea won't be around with a salve of invulnerability, either."
 
"That's for darn sure, Tim. I'm no Oracle, but I'm guessing it can't be done. Rowdy?"

"This is Rowdy Gaines back at the Aquatic Center with Dan Hicks, where Yana Klochkova is slicing through the water with the buoyancy of Poseidon. I'm thinking maybe, like Aphrodite, Klochkova was born of the sea foam that surrounded the genitals of Uranus after his son Cronos severed them from his body."

"You have to wonder, Rowdy. Now over to the hot-as-Helios competition at the beach volleyball finals with Karch Kiraly."

"Thanks, Dan. You know, right about now the USA women are probably asking, 'Who opened Pandora's box on the court?' " The Brazilian duo has come out with the ferocity of a slavering, three-headed Cerberus, and adding injury to that insult, American Kerri Walsh was rendered a veritable Cyclops after getting sand lodged in her left eye. But Misty May has just stunned her opponents with a spike that came down like, uh, like Thor's hammer."

"You said something there, Karch. But if memory serves as well as Misty May, I believe Thor was a character in Norse mythology."

"Maybe so, Mitch, but at this point in the Games, it's all Greek to me."

Brangien Davis: brangiendavis@yahoo.com

Northwest Lite is an occasional humor column that runs in Northwest Life.