Bring the Olympics to D.C. in 2008

Wouldn’t it be great to have the Olympics here in 2008? I’m sure 2008 sounds like a long time from now. But it’s only 11 years. (The Bullets won’t still owe Golden State another No. 1 draft pick for Chris Webber by then, will they?)

Eleven years is nothing. Think back 11 years, to 1986. What’s changed here? Cal is still playing every day. David Poile is still the Caps GM.

I wholeheartedly support the local effort to bring the Olympics here, particularly in July and August, when our climate is so hospitable. To share in the civic responsibility I plan to learn key phrases in a variety of foreign languages so that, for example, when I see a French tourist dripping with sweat, his tongue hanging out like a dog, and I hear him gasp, “Il fait tres chaud,”

I can reassure him in his native language, “It’s not the heat, Jean-Claude, it’s the humidity.”

I look forward to the opening of the Washington Olympic Games, with the official symbol of the city, red tape, adorning all the lampposts, telephone poles and government buildings. I look forward to Marion Barry, mayor-for-life, addressing the pole vaulters, pointing to the bar, and telling the white athletes in particular, “Get over it.”

You know that when you host the Olympics you get to put in one demonstration sport of your choice, something peculiar to your culture. Seoul added a martial arts competition. Barcelona added pelota, a form of jai alai.

My friend Tracee, who’s from Kansas and thinks that we here in Washington “are easily panicked, and have the crisis-solving skills of teacup Chihuahuas,” suggests the demonstration sport “Grocery Store Running,” a timed event in which two-person teams are told of an impending snowfall, and rush through supermarkets piling bread, milk and bottled water into shopping carts.

I’m sure there are people out there who don’t think Washington has the facilities to host the Olympics. But, really, how much does it take?

Washington is naturally gifted with venues.

Laurel can handle the equestrian vents.

The Potomac River can handle the whitewater events.

You can make lap lanes in the Reflecting Pool and hold the swimming there.

There are many potholes in my neighborhood that will work fine for diving.

You can hold the boxing, archery, javelin and shooting competitions randomly around town.

We have large stadiums: RFK, Byrd, the new Redskins stadium. Less than an hour away are Baltimore’s three big stadiums: Memorial, Camden Yards and the new Gotta Go To Modell’s football field. We’re flush with places to hold soccer, baseball and track.

We’ve got lots of spacious indoor gyms to hold basketball and other indoor sports, such as gymnastics, judo, fencing, wrestling, weightlifting: Cole Field House, Patriot Center, USAir Arena, the new downtown MCI Center. (By 2008, the Bullets and Capitals will have gone through a massive restructuring. LaSooz will have been proclaimed president of Ecuador, leaving David Poile as GM of both teams.

What is the scariest thing about the Olympics? I mean, besides John Tesh. It’s providing security. We can do that. We can secure this city. (Except, perhaps, for an occasional pesky small plane that gets through, and ends up crumbled in a tree after bouncing off the west wall of the White House.)

We’ve got crack security in this city. Whoops, I guess I probably shouldn’t have mentioned “crack” in a Washington context either. But by 2008, Master Sergeant Riddick Bowe, USMC, WBC, WBA, HBO, will have all our security needs well under control.

We can do this. We’re an international city. We have people speaking every language known to man -- except, unfortunately, English when you get in a cab.

We’ve got airports. We’ve got hotels. We’ve got Starbucks on every corner. (Seriously, there’s a lot of things you can die from in Washington, but insufficient exposure to double mocha latte ain’t one of them.) We’ve got a subway.

I believe we should make every effort to bring the Olympic Games to Washington, D.C., in 2008. Either that, or major league baseball.