Olympic folly? Why are sports so important?

As I am like everyone else around the globe glued to the coverage of the Summer Olympics, I wonder why are these skills deemed to be so important that they are medal worthy? Why are athletes deemed to be so important?

So many of the Olympic skills developed are absolutely useless in propelling our economies forward, meanwhile we have severe shortages at critical technical skills where millions of jobs worldwide are going unfilled.

While we have field hockey, handball, skeet shooting competitions when we are really need troubleshooting, electrical and mechanical skill sets glorified and developed.

While i must admit I do marvel at the abilities of the athletes and amazed at their discipline and dedication to sport, but if our societies valued technical skills 367 million people in India would not be with out power and lives put at risk.

We have to change our social standards and re-prioritize our needs. Being skilled on a CNC lathe is much more important to the world than more becoming experts on pommel horses.

What do you think? With the Brazilian Olympics coming up next, what technical skills should receive Olympic levels of glory?