By Deborah Wilkinson | Staff Writer
For every athlete there are sacred games, and only the strongest of the strong and the best of the best get in. These games are held every four years, in different places and most every country is invited. For an athlete, every day of work and toil is worth that final victory.
These games are called the Olympic Games, and in this Olympiad, the games are being held in Vancouver, Canada. Every sport wants in, and some get turned down year after year, but some return strong.
Skiing, bobsledding and ice skating are time-honored sports that get their share of glory.
Earlier this year, the American speed skating team lost its chief financier, which left the team far from being able to pay for equipment or the dues to get into the Olympic Games. He left the team and their star athletes in peril.
But the team was not lost, for one late night comedian with an inflated ego signed on as chief financier and raised nearly $300,000 for the athletes to finance their trip to Vancouver.
Who would have thought that Steven Colbert, host of the Colbert Report, would be the person to bring the team some light in the darkness? The only term of the agreement was that the “Colbert Nation” logo be on every racers’ thigh.
It turns out it is prime advertisement space; each thigh goes for $100,000 (Colbert must have bundled). Due to his comedy stylings, many people are weary of how he would portray the sport, but he was done a righteous job of shadowing them as the fierce competitors that they are.
As a follower of the Colbert Nation, I see the comedy in sponsoring a group of athletes that skate around in full body spandex.
The jokes are endless, but he doesn’t make them. As a fellow athlete, I, like many of the Speed Skating members, saw the opportunity for him to poke fun and lower the team further than their financing issues ever could have.
Again, I must note that Colbert did not shoot the team down, nigh he rose them up to great heights. He highlighted them in many of his episodes and encouraged them to donate so these great athletes could get the chance they so deserve.
This may be the beginning of sponsorships like we have never seen before, it could be the new trend. This might make advertisements all the more prevalent in sports, or it perhaps provide the much needed funding for all the other numerous sports that hope to be included in the Olympic Games.
For a fact, I can tell you that this “stunt” got these skaters through their rough spot, but I don’t know what exactly Colbert was trying to prove.
Perhaps nothing, for it could well be another ploy in another line of witty spin-offs. So I give Colbert a “tip of my hat,” and to all those doubters and naysayers, a “wag of my finger.”
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