But I have to admit, after years of alternately rolling my eyes and shaking my head, there came the Rio 2016 Olympics. And they broke my resistance.
Thing is, this place is so remote that very few fans crossed the pond.* Those who did, especially from my home country, tend to enjoy acting loud and obnoxious during volleyball/handball games. Everywhere else, it's mostly just the coach, the physio, some members of the given federation (they do enjoy their free travels), a journalist/photographer or two, and yours truly.
* - Another side effect: random people I talk to often turn out not so random after all. Please remind me to make a tape about this!
Also, the Brazilians really don't care much about anything not called football or volleyball, so the arenas are empty-ish and the security - quite sketchy. Thus far I've managed to sneak in and watch almost everything from the very first row, plus a couple of times I've even charged the area reserved for journalists without raising too much suspicion.
As a result, I'm closer to some of my favourite athletes (and retired/accompanying sports personalities) than ever before, and decided to - when they seem relaxed enough and maybe even pleased to hear my congratulations - ask some of them for a photo together. By the way, most of them immediately strike me as quite charming people in fact, which forms a beautiful added dimension to the blood, sweat, and tears you get to see on TV.
So here's how the science works. We'll rate each photo according to a number of criteria in the pursuit of the best selfie of Rio 2016:
Greatness: how accomplished the person truly is. Phelps gets a perfect 10.
Coolness: Boris Diaw, Albert Einstein, and the Dude score a 10.
Place, aka your local dumpster vs. the Olympic Stadium.
Timing: have they won or lost? Were they in a hurry? Were they on the toilet?
Recognition: extra points for spotting them if most people wouldn't. More extra points if you know their first name and/or speak their language. Usain Bolt = 0. Anybody sporting a fake moustache = 10.
Photo quality: my horribly weak spot. My front camera is crap, thus no preview available. So like my man Eminem says, one shot. One opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment. Would you capture it or just let it slip? Well, thanks for asking, but I'm often so star-struck I'd just point the camera straight at them, effectively cutting off half my face. (Probably, in my mind at that moment, my face is not worthy anyway.)
The final score will then be translated into the SI system, which - as every kid knows - scales from zero to one Baron Davis. Let's establish the baseline then, shall we?
Greatness: 9. Big NBA star.
Coolness: 10. I could talk for hours about the Beard and his white twin brother.
Place: 9. Staples Center is the Mecca of basketball, but you can't see it.
Timing: 6. November 29, 2015, the Clippers have just won a random Regular Season game. He's a retired Clipper.
Recognition: 7. Street clothes, but hasn't changed much since his pro days. Many would recognize him.
Photo quality: 9. Luckily I had Pedro with me to take it. Bonus points for the gang sign matching the badass necklace. I was slightly bummed that even a reflex camera can make a moved photo like any other, but if you scroll down you'll notice I'm the only human capable of making flash photography moved.
Total: an unbeatable 50 = 1 baron [B].
Ready? Play.
Coolness: 8. When other athletes eat lettuce and rest, he drinks beer and plays games.
Place: 9. The Olympic Stadium, but you couldn't tell.
Timing: 0, horrible and embarrassing, now that I think about it. His best friend has just lost gold with the very last throw of the discus competition. The man is probably trying to just blow off some steam right now. Still smiles for my picture though!
Recognition: 2. Twice as big as fellow humans.
Photo quality: 0. Forgot a ladder, taken against the sun, and obviously I'm barely there. (Have I mentioned the dude is GIGANTIC?)
Total: 28, or 0,56B.
Coolness: 1. Nothing to report.
Place: 7, outside Olympic tennis courts.
Timing: 6, their double girls just won. He's happy.
Recognition: 7. Bonus points for not actually competing at that point. Minus points for the t-shirt clue, and for the other dude who also asked for a picture immediately before me.
Photo quality: 6. The majority of my face totally in. I'm so getting there.
Total: 32, or 0,64B.
Greatness: 9. Toni Nadal is the brother of a legendary FC Barcelona footballer Miguel Angel Nadal, and Rafa Nadal's uncle, coach, and mentor. The brain behind the best player of all time, if it wasn't for the injuries?
Coolness: 0. Not an actual athlete.
Place: easy 10 for the Centre Court of the Olympic Games.
Timing: 6. Rafa about to play in ten minutes. The guy just wants to sit down and watch the game, I suppose.
Recognition: 4. Been on my TV for a decade now. Nobody around us knew him though. Gotta be a tennis fan, a Spaniard, or both.
Photo quality: 9. Horrible light, but luckily a Nadal fanatic at hand happy to take it.
Total: 38, or 0,76B.
Greatness: 8. Monika Pyrek is a three-time pole vault world championships medallist. Comes from my neighbourhood too, but I've never seen her in person before.
Coolness: a quick 8 for charmingly responding "but of course!" when I asked for a photo.
Place: 3 sounds fair for a non-tennis player inside tennis courts.
Timing: 3 - we just got kicked out in mixed doubles first round, after getting kicked out in all other singles and doubles too. Horrible Olympics for Polish tennis. Then again, I'm not even sure if she now holds any official role in any sports federation, so could have been a spectator just like myself.
Recognition: 9. Her being there made little sense, thus a quick self-five for successful face recognition, even though she's wearing the national colours.
Photo quality: 8 aka as good as it gets at a random location?
Total: 39, or 0.78B.
Greatness: 7. Elena Vesnina won three Grand Slams: two with Ekaterina Makarova, and another one in mixed doubles.
Coolness: very little information, so I'll give her a solid 7 for seeming like a genuinely warm person on top of being a very attractive woman.
Place: 8, Olympic tennis courts.
Timing: 9, just won, smiles all around.
Recognition: 1. I do have to admit I only watched because no bigger fish were playing, and it pains me to say I was only 92% sure which one is which. Being offline is the worst.
Photo quality: 9. Cool creatures on both t-shirts, partner in the back, but otherwise sucky background.
Total: 40, or 0,8B.
Greatness: 4. Maciej Bodnar is a sheer time trial specialist, thus he only gets to shine once or twice a year. His 6th place in Rio combined with excellent support of teammate Rafal Majka to a bronze medal four days earlier in the road race is the best result he could dream of.
Coolness: 4. I've heard some interviews. Genuinely friendly and humble person.
Place: 10. I should have gotten arrested for being the only fan sneaking into the mixed zone.
Timing: 9. The man finished 6th in the Olympics half an hour earlier. I patiently waited till he finished recording some interviews for the Polish press, then got to congratulate him on both races just before he rode away into the sunset.
Recognition: Tough one. None of you have heard of him before. Then again, he's riding a bike dressed in red and white. 6 sounds fair.
Photo quality: solid 8, you can barely notice the fence between us.
Total: 41, or 0,82B.
Greatness etc: Jonathan Castroviejo is a very similar case to Bodnar. Slightly faster (4th both in Rio and in last WC), slightly less Polish thus rather obscure to me. The fence is much more noticeable too, so I'll just go ahead and award myself a quick default half a baron here.
Greatness: 10. Don't believe me? OK, story time. See the girl in the middle? In Rio she is participating in her seventh Olympic Games. Big whoop, you say? Also,she's recently turned 27 years old. I'll pause here to let you do the math...
Impossible, right? Wrong! Meet Natalia Partyka, born July 27, 1989 in my home town Gdansk. More importantly, born without a right hand and forearm, she participates in competitions for able-bodied athletes as well as in competitions for athletes with disabilities.
At the age of 11, she competed at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, becoming the world's youngest ever Paralympian. In 2004, she won a gold medal in the singles event and a silver in the team event at the Athens Paralympics.
She competed in both the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing - one of only two athletes to do so, the other being Natalie du Toit in swimming. They were her third Paralympic Games, and her first Olympics. Competing in class 10 at the Beijing Paralympics, she won a gold medal in the singles event and a silver in the team event - she duplicated her Athens Paralympics result.
She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, and again became Paralympic champion individually, and won bronze in the women's team class 6–10.
Here, pictured with her partner Katarzyna Grzybowska-Franc (right), minutes after losing a very closely contested doubles game, and unfortunately getting eliminated in the first round of the team competition by the Japanese girls, runner-ups in the most recent World Championships.
Coolness: 10. I don't know her personally of course, but she's been a great Facebook follow for a while now, starring lots of nice pics from inside the Olympic Village. More importantly, she is the first athlete ever to personally thank me for the support - in a quite candid way too, literally telling me I was their best fan.* At which point I got so distracted that instead of reminding her how many people she inspires with her excellence, or at least pointing out how bravely they fought (winning one set, then barely losing the final one against opponents excepted to crush them), all that came out of my mouth was blah blah blah. Gonna have to rectify this in Tokyo.
* - It did help that I was the only Pole in the arena, battling an army of Japanese. Now I know how Pearl Harbor must have felt.
Place: 9. Inside the Olympic arena, and there are other games still taking place behind us.
Timing: 6. Just eliminated, thus the timid smiles. But seemed content to chat for a while.
Recognition: 6. Recurring pattern: you've never heard of them, but then again their names were on the board for the last hour, and I admit I had to google the other girl before going to Rio.
Photo quality: Do we have a 10? We're all dressed for the occasion and fit into the shot nicely.
Total: 51, and a new selfie personal best of 1.02 barons! Citius, Altius, Fortius :)
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