Olympic Dreams

Jumping for our Olympic Dreams in Liechtenstein!

(The following article is for my German column on LAOLA1.COM.  I was dared to write about Liechtenstein, so I decided I should finally reveal my post-season plans...)

There are many good things about playing American football, especially here in Austria. However, there is one particular drawback that has been bothering me for a long time: American Football is not an Olympic sport.  No matter how good you get, you will never have the opportunity to compete for your country.  This is troubling to a patriotic person like myself.  Therefore, I have a solution, and it does not involve me begging the International Olympic Committee to consider making American Football an official sport before the London games in 2012.

 

After the season, I’m moving to Liechtenstein.

 

Yes, you heard me correct.  I am moving to Liechtenstein – the tiny, landlocked country that is sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland.  You may know it as the world’s leader in false-teeth production or as the country whose total landmass is equivalent to a Big Mac.  I look at Liechtenstein as the key to my Olympic future.  For what Europe’s last “hereditary monarchy” lacks in military might (the last soldier to serve for Liechtenstein died in 1939, and he was 95 years old at the time) or accessibility (there are no airports in the entire country), it more than makes up for it all in a surprising amount of Olympic prowess.  Let me bring you up to speed: 

 

When Liechtenstein participated in the 1936 Olympics, they realized their flag was the same as Haiti, so they were forced to add a gold crown.  This was a good omen – the country has now won 9 Olympic medals, making it the most successful country in the world in the Olympics in per capita medals. For a country of only 35,000 citizens, this number is a MAJOR accomplishment.  (For the record, my hometown of Puyallup, Washington – a small suburb of Seattle – had 36,605 people the last time someone counted.  We have 3 Olympic medals.)  To put this in perspective, there are 79 IOC countries that have never even won a medal!  Come on Malta.  Where you at Monaco?  There are plenty more people in Fiji, Nicaragua, Madagascar, and of course Haiti – yet none of these countries have ever won a medal!  Bottom line: Liechtenstein is an Olympic power.

 

Here’s my plan: there are reports that Liechtenstein is preparing a bid for the 2018 or 2022 Winter Olympics.  If a country hosts the Olympics, they get a free entry into every single event.  With so few people, they will practically be giving Olympic spots away!  There will be luge tryouts at the local coffee shop.  Radio stations will offer a spot in the bobsled to the 9^th caller.  Little girls will be given rifles and cross-country skis at Christmas time in hopes that they will grow up to be a biathlete.  (Weirdest sport ever?)  That gives me just enough time to move to the country, become a citizen, and get just slightly better than one of its 35,000 residents at curling or figure skating to become an Olympian.  It’s almost too easy.