My Thoughts on the Olympics

You might be thinking to yourself at this point "I don't care what she thinks about the Olympics!" Well, too bad. You are here now and I’m afraid you can’t leave until you’ve read the whole thing. You are mine for the next 45 minutes (longer if you read slower). So sorry. You may as well get comfortable.

If someone had asked me 2 weeks ago which country turned out the best athletes in the world, what would I have said? What would you have said? “USA”? “Canada”? “What kind of a question is that you racist scum?” I certainly wouldn’t have said China, but that is where I would have been very wrong. Obviously I am out of the loop. Obviously. The first events that I watched were diving and gymnastics, and the Chinese won the gold in every event. I never would have guessed. I’ve decided that diving is my very favorite event of all. And I like the gymnastics, but I like men’s gymnastics a lot better than women’s because I get so tired of the poses and hand flipping that they do. Is it supposed to be dancing? I don’t know, but it drives me crazy.

So, just when I was thinking that China would win the whole Olympics, I started watching swimming. I got kind of caught up in the Michael Phelps excitement. I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. In every race that he won (and he won almost every one) he also broke the world record. Every time! Doesn’t that seem kind of amazing? Almost impossible? But he was doing it.

The thing I hate is the commentators. I don’t need them to tell me it is bad when a gymnast falls off the pommel horse. I like when they explain what the judges scores are based on, etc, but when one announcer says to another “What is this gymnast thinking right now?” And the other guy responds “She’s thinking she is really going to have to do her best to pull this off” I start throwing things at the TV. Please! For one thing, how do you know what she is thinking, and for another thing, No Duh! Of course she has to do her best! Was it really necessary to tell us that? They seem so afraid of silence that they talk just to talk. It’s not like I am going to be lost in confusion without their words of wisdom. If I see a synchronized dive, I’m not thinking “Was that beautiful? It looked good, but I can’t be sure. Oh, however shall I know! Wait! The announcer says it’s beautiful! I guess it is! Thank goodness for them!” Isn’t that what scores are for? At this point I was going to go on about how unbalanced an Olympian’s life is. How this is all they ever do or think about and how do you come back from a devastating loss? What do they do when it is all over? Is it ever over? I was going to say all that, but then a friend said that he admired their passion and all that they are able to accomplish because of it, and I can’t help but think that maybe I could do with a little more passion. So anyway, I won’t bother saying any of that so you can just forget it. Forget the whole thing. I already have.