I went down to the sea to see the hot Olympic sailing action. I knew the action would be hot because the Olympic organizers put out a news release headlined: “Hot action predicted for sailing.”
The sailing action takes place in the Saronic Gulf, which is perfect because it is located right next to Athens and consists almost entirely of water, which is the best sailing environment.
I got to the sailing facility and went through security, which has been (Don’t tell the terrorists!) fairly relaxed so far. It seemed especially relaxed at the sailing facility, which is probably not a prime terrorism target because if it were attacked, the horrified world reaction would be: “Sailing is an Olympic sport?”
But apparently it is. I say apparently because, if you want to get technical, I never saw it. It turns out that the actual sailing is not visible from the land. To see it, I watched a TV monitor in the press area, which showed a bunch of sailboats sailing along in some body of water that could have been the Saronic Gulf, but also could have been Lake Erie.
Superimposed on the bottom of the TV screen, mysteriously, was the single word “Yngling.” I wondered what this was. A sailor’s name? The Greek word for “sailing?” The official Olympic beer?
I decided that “Yngling” was probably a nation. When I grew up, there were like 10 nations in the entire world, but now there seem to be thousands, including (these are actual nations competing in the Olympics) Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea and Guinea-Bissau.
Anyway, it turns out that “Yngling” is not a nation: It’s an Olympic sailboat class. There are 11 sailboat classes, including (I am not making these up): “Single-handed dinghy open Laser,” “Double-handed dinghy men Finn” and, of course, “Double-handed dinghy open 49er.”
So as you can imagine, there is a lot of hot action taking place out there in the Saronic Gulf, somewhere over the horizon. I don’t know who’s going to win, but I hope at least one gold medal goes to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, because I would love to hear the national anthem:
“O we are the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
“Leave us a message, and we’ll telephone ya.”
I will have complete Olympic sailing results for you in a later column, unless I forget, which is currently my plan. But stay tuned, because tomorrow I’m going to explain the exciting Athens taxi system, assuming I can clean the stomach contents off my notes.