I turned on the TV yesterday and chanced upon a judo match between the Netherlands and China at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. I instantly got confused. Do they have mixed-gender competitions at the Olympics now? Why is the Dutch girl going up against a Chinese dude?

Lizz told me that the Chinese judoka is a woman, but I found that hard to believe. I mean, look at him/her.

Chinese judoka Xu Yan, allegedly female

Of course, just like effeminate male pop stars, manly female athletes are a dime a dozen. I think that, aside from the strict drug tests, Olympic officials should also do penis checks for athletes that claim to be female. It's not that hard (har har)--just pull their pants down and look.

In fairness, maybe Xu Yan really is a woman, and she only looks so macho because of excessive use of steroids. If that's the case, she should be careful to not turn into a man like East German athlete Heidi Krieger did.

Anyway, I have an idea. Why don't we have all athletes compete totally naked like they did in the original Olympics in ancient Greece? That would clear up most gender ambiguity problems. As a bonus, steroid abusers can be easily identified by their funny shrunken testicles.

Taking away clothes and shoes also has the added benefit of making the competition a lot fairer. At the highest level of athletics, contests are routinely won and lost by mere milliseconds. Shouldn't those milliseconds be decided by athletic ability and not by the quality of shoes or aerodynamic suits?

And besides, nudity would make women's gymnastics even more fun to watch. Yay.