Round, and Round, and Round—a kinda preface to the AoC—a:
What made me walk out on sports?
Strange may it seem, yet the career of a weight lifter never appealed to me as an attractive walk of life. Quite captivating sports, no denying. Look at the guy’s seductive way of approaching the thing, caressing that smooth shaft in the barbell, the tenderness itself. His stare turned away to something a thousand miles off so as not to scare it prematurely. And then, the unexpected savage roar—yargkhah!—and tears he up above his head all that mass of metal.
A couple of seconds, maybe three, the stick stands under the weight, his coccyx a-jerking spasmodically, before to smite the bitch against the floor! Some sportsman, not suitably reserved, might add a yell sounding like “screw you!” Or even to kinda jump. Not overly high though because of his improper shape, a weight lifter never reaches an altitude above half a meter, not even with the pole.
The barbell whimpers its clang-bang complains to the gym flooring, and shuts up, while the weight lifter, like a proud ironclad, goes off with a swagger. Well, yes, not exactly goes but carries he his beefy cross of muscles to the sport podium to mount it and to thrust from aloof his head thru the medal band. Then he would stand erect and listen to the anthem he’d been brought up under or to that of the nation whose chawbacon did occupy the upper step. Besides, the motley flags hang down, also three in number… A catchy show.—
Still and yet, I don’t even know why, there always was a feeling – no, not for me that barbell and stuff.
Later, as my regular ails caused by the Olympic Games current on TV abated, I got it finally that they were not for nothing busting their asses. Nah! Some guy was grunting from under that bloody barbell to stake off a separate apartment another one to secure a seat for himself in the Committee, no matter which one, they would tell, and so forth.
And that’s an absolutely justified ends – why should he otherwise make of himself from his junior years a beast of burden, huh? Straining his skeleton and all to the detriment of his mental skills? Not aiming at to break wind fiercely while he puts back on trucks a derailed trolley in a coal pit, right? Of course, as anywhere else, there are zilch winners too with a chronic rupture instead of the booby-prize of his much-coveted medal.
For these and suchlike good reasons sports somehow failed to hook me on. Well, maybe except for the free calisthenics and figure skating, in part, yet also temporarily before I grew up to appreciating Rubensian forms.
Which is a pity, on the whole, because sport is life. Ask any hockey player and he’ll confirm it. Yes, you’re likely not at once to decipher his lisping thru the couple of teeth still there, the rest knocked out in the ice arenas, which is the underlying reason for their speech problems. And stay assured, when leaving the harsh ice of jousts, they do insert their dentures to have what to smile with, yet the lisp still abides, that’s the mark of their profession. Unavoidable.
The fact is well-expressed in that lyrics by Robert Rozhdestvensky to that soundtrack song by Arno Babajanian for the famous Soviet spy-epic sequence:
...give your cut to the mutual course / the scars and evening bells will be your pay…
Damn, no! Wait! It was Michael Tariverdiev who composed the music, a Georgian Armenian:
‘tyn-dyn-dyn ta-da-da tyn-dyn-tyn’
A really cool rhythm there, by the way...
Now, they were the reasons why I walked out on sports. We split, you may say, without getting to know each other properly.
The sad outcome called for hunting down some other field where to apply myself.