Whoops! Hot Start To The Olympics For Poland Who Had To Send Six Swimmers Home From Tokyo Because They Simply Can't Count
[Sun] - In an outrageous gaffe, the Polish Swimming Federation (PZP) selected 23 athletes for the Games - with only 17 allowed to participate per FINA qualifying rules.
PZP president Pawel Slominski has since apologised for the error after a number of swimmers called for his resignation.
Slominski said: "I express great regret, sadness and bitterness about the situation.
"Such a situation should not take place. The reaction of the swimmers, their emotions, the attack on the Polish Swimming Federation is understandable to me and justified."
Slominski continued by saying the gaffe occurred due to his 'desire to allow as many players and coaches as possible to take part in the Games.'
Don't even think it's a take to say this is the weirdest Olympics of our lifetime. It's just a fact at this point. Between the no fans, the delay, the fact that Team USA basketball might suck and hell, there are rumors that the Olympics still might get delayed it's all bizarre. So sure let's add the Poland swimming team having to send six people home simply because they can't count. Impressive, really. It's not like rules have changed or anything. Pretty sure it's all the same in swimming. You lose to Michael Phelps, there are a couple people with awesome nicknames and you have 17 people allowed to participate.
I'll tell you what, I actually love the president Pawel, which I assume is just said like southerns calling Paul Finebaum, just straight up saying we can make fun of him. Yeah, it's understandable why everyone is attacking the Polish Swimming Federation, we're kind of morons. I couldn't imagine being one of these people sent home, especially for an event like swimming. This is the pinnacle of your athletic career. You get to represent your country in the Olympics, you fly to Tokyo and immediately get sent home like a terrible fantasy football punishment. I think I'd refuse to go home. Nope, I'm here, I'm staying in the anti-sex beds and hoping for some stand up sex as a fill-in alternate.
I know I'm just a blogger, but I'd like to think I'm pretty good about double checking paperwork. That could just be the dad in me though. If I'm President of an organization that's in charge of sending people across the world for the biggest event, I'm pretty sure I'd read the rules more than once. Not like a 'let's see what happens here' type approach. Then again, maybe Poland was trying to sneak one by us. Maybe he knew they weren't likely to win a lot and wanted to throw as many darts as possible at the board. Hard to blame someone trying to cheat and just chalk it up to being dumb.
And now an obligatory video because it's impossible to talk about swimming and not post this/get fired up.