When does it ever work? It wasn’t successful during the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Olympics were only delayed, not stopped-and rightly so. It wasn’t successful during the marathon during the same Olympics when an imposter jumped in front of leader Frank Shorter as he entered the stadium.

We’ve seen various protests at other sporting events, some are clowns, only a few have a real agenda. And even then, it’s not justified to interfere with an Olympic event.

In the entertainment business, we’ve seen it’s not even successful during the Academy Awards. All it garners is attention for the self-centered.

Then there are the advertisements for gambling establishments, the Bible and anything else one can think of.

But what brings this all to mind was the recent Olympic Marathon in Athens. Vanderlei De Lima of Brazil, was leading when the defrocked brain of a former Irish priest decided that his cause was more important than what De Lima had been training for.

This is the same clown, as you might have already heard, that ran onto a British Formula One Race course-and I mean right down the middle of the track to the astonishment of the drivers traveling upwards of 200mph.

And for those of you who might have a little sympathy for the “holy” one, he picked the leader in that marathon to interfere with. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Now this lowlife is being charged for child indecency stemming from incidents within the past 10 years.

And he sure picked the right time to run De Lima into the crowd-just three miles from the finish. What a way to break an athlete’s heart. Of course he knew what he was doing.

He didn’t care just like all these “protesters” who so disrespectfully interfere with an athlete’s performance. After all, it’s all about “me,” right?

If you take a good, long hard look at this interfering behavior, it makes one wonder if people all over are having a hard time with competition, not just in the United States, but especially in the U.S.

And if “fans” run out of protests, we have the taunts, beer-throwing or the occasional threat on an athlete. It’s as if the fan feels cheated-not only for feeling underpaid compared to the athlete-but that he, or she, can’t compete with the attention, endorsements and most important, the athletic skills being shown in these world class events.

The longer it’s “in the game” the more the athletes will be put on pedestals and the more Joe Public will feel inferior.

And there’s not much officials can do about it. Society, maybe, but then they’d have to take a long look at themselves and as we can see, the presidential candidates are too busy blaming each other to tell us what they might be able to do for society.

The self-centered prevail and I have no sympathy for them. What is needed is a De Lima, if a guy like that could even muster the strength, to knock the smack right out of one of these punks-and keep right on going to victory.

Filed by J.D. Long