World's Fastest Man

The individual who holds the title of World's Fastest Man is named Usain Bolt (Jamaica). Bolt?! Are you kidding me! Who plans this stuff? That's phenomenal.

In other Olympic news, congratulations to Michael Phelps for breaking the record of most Olympic golds both in a single Olympic games, and of all time. Yeesh.Now, for an Olympic rant. I've been hearing a lot of skepticism recently about the players who compose the Olympic basketball team. NBA players, primarily. Duh. Who else would we choose? They're the best basketball players in the country.But the argument is that the Olympics is a competition for amateurs, not paid professionals. (I've heard this from multiple people for multiple Olympics, for the record.) But let's think about this, folks. All Olympians are by no means all amateurs. A significant number of these athletes who are in the major events are paid athletes. Yes, some of them are young, high school or college students. Fair enough. However, just as many of them are professional, adult, paid athletes. For example, who cycled in the Olympics for two games? Lance Armstrong. Who played tennis in this 2008 Olympics? Federer, Nadal, the Williams sisters. Michael Phelps isn't making money working at McDonald's while simultaneously training to win 8 gold medals at once and perpetually breaking his own world records as an amateur. No. He is a full time swimmer and he makes the big bucks doing it. So why do the basketball players always get the heat? Soccer, tennis, sprinters, cyclists, swimmers, beach volleyball stars--they are all full time athletes. They are professionals. So back up off Kobe, man! He's got skillz! Why shouldn't the basketball team also be composed of the best players in the country? It should. And it is.