OLYMPIC CURLING CHAMPION Matt Hamilton has one of the greatest mustaches in sports history. It’s a fact. At least, it’s a fact according to Wikipedia, which at one time or another has also claimed the Wisconsin native was a long-lost relative of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., a true American hero, a cougar hunter, a viper, and for a short time, well, married to his sister. (He was most definitely not. Although the mustache and the hero thing check out.) Every four years right around the time of the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, Hamilton and his curling compatriots get to experience one of the stranger sides of sports stardom when, for a fortnight, they become targets in the fascinating, frequently insipid — and occasionally clever — secret world of Wikipedia sports vandalism.
For curlers that can mean anything from having the proper definition of their sport temporarily replaced at the online, community-generated encyclopedia with “for old people who can hardly move” — or worse. Sometimes it means entire Wikipedia articles filled with just the phrase “curling is not a sport. curling is not a sport. curling is not a sport.”
In Hamilton’s case, his personal favorite was the claim that he was “very involved with his charity to cure irritable bowel syndrome because he suffers from it himself.” Although, the mustache claim is a close second. “Robin Yount? I mean, I’m not even the most famous Wisconsinite with an awesome mustache but I love that I’m even in the conversation, so those Wikipedia edits are cool with me,” says Hamilton during a training break in Los Angeles just days before flying to Beijing. “Most people know it’s all peer edited so anyone can go in there and tinker with it. It’s the Internet, it’s gonna do what it does and say what it says, so the only way to beat the system is to ignore it.”
That has become increasingly difficult, however, with the growing onslaught of Wikipedia sports vandalism. Outside of an Olympic year,…
Source : espn
