NE OF THE GUY NETWORKS like ESPN has to broadcast an old-school version of the Olympics that leaves out all the Hallmark moments and just shows the sports. You know, Adolph Hitler once used the Olympics to show that Aryans were strong. NBC will be using them to show that Americans like to cry.

Now, for you youngsters out there too young to remember a time before Oprah ruined everything in the old days, when we watched the Olympics, it was just the events! Nothing about the heartbreak and pain it took to become the best damn kayaker a man could be. The shot putter just threw a big iron ball. His mom's chemotherapy, his sister's glass eye and his dog, a wounded combat vet never entered into it. And if we'd been told that the decathlon guy overcame a lifetime of bedwetting to go for the gold we'd have just said, "Hey, if I wanted to sit through hours of melodramatic, personal backstory, I'd pay attention to my wife!"

This [indicating photo] is Nancy Pitts of the U.S. women's wrestling team. Two years ago, the unthinkable happened to Nancy: she was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Happily, it was caught soon enough, and she was back to her usual training regimen: three hours of weightlifting followed by an hour of shaving.

You know, somehow the Olympics now gets the sort of coverage once reserved for a war, while actual wars are treated like sporting events. NBC is airing 1,200 hours of Olympic coverage versus three they gave the Democratic Convention. But what the heck, this is about swimming! Oh, if only it were about swimming without having to wade through the three-hankie immigrant parents, the latchkey kids, the single moms, the inappropriate touching by uncles and all the brave athletes who rose before dawn and traveled hours in the frosty silence of the Iowa winter just to meet their drug dealers.

The Olympics are that rarest of events, a coalition of a great variety of nations coming together for a purpose other than killing Iraqis. So, please, media barons, just give us one channel where it's pure sporting competition and the belief that how high a man can hop proves who has the best country. And then you can keep the focus group-approved drivel disguised as in-depth analysis where it belongs: in the coverage of the presidential election!

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