A Short Track Mind

The Winter Olympics are over and once again curling will join the Detroit Lions as the butt of all sports jokes. Besides the athletes in the Olympic Village going through 100,000 condoms in a week, one of the things I’ll remember most about the Vancouver Games is short track speed skating. If you haven’t seen it before, short track is basically roller derby on ice. And it’s a sport dominated by Asians and Asian halfsies alike. But why does this cardiovascular activity favor people who look like me? To find out I consulted a few bottles of beer and came up with these answers:

Form. The preferred walking posture for many Asians is to have their hands behind their back while leaning forward: the same exact pose short track skaters use when racing. In contrast many Caucasians prefer to have their arms to their side when walking or dancing.     

Small Spaces. With so many Asians in the world and not enough Universities to house them, nations like Japan and Korea tend to be very congested. As a result they have developed this innate sense of how to navigate crowds in tight spaces while knocking down Canadians, perfect for short track skating. 

Number Two. Perhaps one of the best training grounds in the world for short track is the Asian restroom. You see, this is a sport where you really need to stay low to the ground. And in many Asian countries toilets tend to sit really, really low – some even at ground level. As silly as this may sound to some people, is there really any dignified way to do what medical doctors call pooping?

Leftists. Asians have a natural inclination to lean left, which, by the way, is the same direction short track skaters race. This tendency stems from the way Asians read. While western cultures read from left to right, Asian cultures go from right to left. Having their books spines on the opposite side of ours, however, doesn’t mean the opposite happens in Asian versions of western literature. For example, at the end of the Chinese version of The DaVinci Code you still find out that Dan Brown is an overrated author.