In keeping with the theme of gays as scapegoats, but moving deeper into Bizarro World, the head coach of Russia’s powerhouse Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling team, Vladimir Uruimagov, has blamed gay people for the Olympic Committee’s recent decision to drop his sport from the Summer Games. Seriously, Mr. Uruimagov attributes this sad development to the power of gay men on the Committee, because… if anyone would want to kill a sport that involves young, sweaty guys in close physical contact, it’s the gays. Indeed the opposite suspicion was advanced in some gay circles, namely that the expulsion was secretly or subconsciously homophobic. And yet, the coach is quite emphatic in this conviction: “If they expel wrestling now, that means that gays will soon run the whole world,” the R-Sport agency quotes him as saying. “It turns out this committee is headed by representatives of these minorities.” And his rhetoric grew increasingly apocalyptic as he warned that the fate of humanity could be at stake: “It is necessary for millions around the world to understand that this is a man’s sport and to understand the need to continue the human race to go out and explain their position to the Olympic Committee. We should prove and explain that in any other case there is no future.” Yikes! Greco-Roman wrestling is important, but either this guy has read too many Mary Renault novels or he’s deeply worried about his own fascination with manly men tangling on the mat.
