Sangat Pedas

How the Dutch change the odds for #winning

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Yeah, we Dutch are fond of winning, thus we hate losing. Well, you might say, that’s normal, everyone likes winning and losing makes no one happy. True but we Dutch really really.. REALLY hate losing and we like to change the odds in our favor anyway possible.

The people that were with Tokobagus when we were still on Bali, especially Anom, will probably vividly remember our paintball outing. Because my business partner Arno isn’t what you call a Rambo kinda guy he decided to change the odds by arranging some protection, extra pressure on our guns and 5 times the amount of bullets… and I must confess, it worked: #winning!

More recognizable for a larger audience is the World Championship finals where Holland decided to change the odds my mixing our football talents with some martial arts skills against Spain. This almost worked but the International press screamed “Shame on you Holland!” while our own press was convinced it was Spain that was unsporting.

Now everybody knows Dutch people aren’t specifically talented in running marathons. We’re just not really build for that and training is ok but we would like to be home at 6 for meatballs and potatoes and enjoy our beer on the couch while watching football.

So that’s why all marathons held in Holland are won by mostly Kenyan or Ethiopian athletes who simply work harder and obviously are more talented at running. But since both the Dutch athletes as well as the organization of the Utrecht Marathon are tired of Dutch athletes hopelessly running in the back they came up with great a plan. The organization decided to “slightly” change the formula of the event just to make it more interesting: if the winner is Dutch he receives a cash price of € 10.000,- but in case the winner is foreigner like our Kenyan friends the price is only € 100,-, which is just enough for a pair of new sneakers. Since a ticket from Kenya to Holland and a hotelroom  are slightly more expensive than € 100,- the organization doesn’t expect too much foreigners.

Discrimination? Nah, apparently there’s a flaw in the law (coincidence?) which only makes it discrimination when our foreign friends would be blocked from competing. This is just slightly changing the formula of the event so the winner will be Dutch to make it more a National event. No surprise that our own Dutch athletes are pretty enthusiastic: “It’s nice to be able run in the front and compete for the first price” while on the other hand the hotline for discrimination is hardly amused.

Great idea guys! The next Olympics all US athletes will be blindfolded, Spain has to play with at least 5 professional bull fighters during world championships football and the Chinese will have to use tennis rackets during all major badminton tournaments just to help my Indonesian friends. And now don’t start wining about cheating, it’s just slightly changing the formula of the event to make things more interesting, nothing personal.

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