Olympic Thoughts

Like everybody else, I was pretty much wowed by those drummers and all the technology used in the opening ceremonies. Normally, I completely blow off those as I'm not much for the pageantry of it all...but I was into these. Well, until all the athletes started walking in.

I think there's a problem if you have to tell children & teens beating on drums with glow sticks to smile so they won't be intimidating to a world audience. They should be having so much stinking fun just doing it you'd have to have plastic surgery to get the smile off their faces.

I like to get into sports you don't normally ever see on television. In the Winter Games, I got into curling the last time around. This time I like water polo. I especially like it when the person gets a foul and has to swim to the penalty area. Although, I think a more appropriate penalty would be that they have to shamefully sit out on the edge of the pool like we did for either roughhousing or running in the pool deck area. Their friends could then mock them as an added punishment.

I don't like sports where the judging is primarily subjective. You know. Like gymnastics. I'm watching and thinking everything's going well and the announcers then tell me that some bobble I didn't see will likely eliminate the poor child from any medal contention. And don't get me started on diving. That moves so fast all you can do is look at the splash (or lack thereof) and still have no idea. And don't get me started on synchronized diving.

I truly believe that the women's beach volleyball attire is worn to maintain television ratings so when someone on the Olympic Committee wakes up and says, "Seriously, why is this an Olympic sport?" they can say, "Well, television ratings dominate everything else." What I think is funny is that there are only two women on the beach/court but they have numbers. I'm surprised they put the number on the back of the bra instead of on their butts.

I generally like for the Americans to win gold and pull for them, but every now and then I like the upset to happen. Except for basketball. We need to throttle the rest of the world just to say, "Calling Allen Iverson our best player and sending a bunch of NBA second teamers to the last couple of Olympics was wrong and now we're sending our best again, so go back to your corner, sit down and shut up. We're still the best in the world at this game. It was always thus. And always thus will be."

I'm not much to get excited and cheer at the television screen (unless it's Auburn football, but in that instance, I happen to be trying to help Coach Tuberville and hoping he'll zone in on my telepathic help...doesn't he realize I've won 6 consecutive national championships on NCAA 2009 video game?), but when the favored French swimming relay team said they were going to smash the Americans...well...I'm not sure how I got so fired up about all that but I was yelling for Lezak to hit the wall first. Everybody in my den got into it, big time. I was still yelling taunts at the French team when our national anthem was being played. It was America's biggest win over the French since Ricky Bobby dove over the line to beat Jean-Gerrard.

For some reason, I'm hoping Michael Phelps pulls off winning 8 golds in one Games. Generally, I'm a champion for the underdog, but Lance Armstrong cured me of that in cycling. Phelps has done the same in swimming.

And, speaking of swimming, is it me, or can you still win a medal without breaking an Olympic or World record? It seems like each race lowers the record in that particular event. I do like having that green line tell me if the swimmers are ahead of world-record pace or not, too.

The summer games are better than the winter games, if you ask me. And we haven't even gotten to track & field yet.