Every four years, we watch. We marvel at badminton, wonder about the modern decathlon and proudly pause for synchronized swimming. With more than 300 gold medals awarded across 37 disciplines, the next two weeks of our lives should be impressively unproductive. To aid in your immersion, we continue with our new series: “know your Olympic sport.” It’s part reminder that people actually get medals for this stuff (see: trampoline gymnastics) and part introduction to the science behind the sports.

In our second installment, we leave the ping pong balls on the porch and head to the track. Inside you’ll find shoes that don’t match, a suit not made by Speedo, an excuse for why you never won races in high school; along with a plea for some better technology. Andalé!

To spend our precious time here together moaning about how royally screwed up our cellphone companies are here in the States would at this point be too easy. You know the drill: Half-assed handsets, crippled functionality, spotty signals, dumbfounding user interfaces, outrageously priced call plans, incomprehensible outsourced customer service reps from a far-off land, and lets not even talk about the indentured servitude contracts. No, the topic is cliché at this point, so today Id like to take a positive spin on things.