Bye, bye Olympics

I have been weaning myself off the Olympics during the last few days as it comes to an end.  It’s been such a fabulous Olympics though, hasn’t it?  Wow!  Stellar performances by the medal-winning athletes (Yu-Na Kim, Evan Lysacek, the Canadian ice dancers, and on and on), some surprises along the way (Gold in Bobsled for the U.S.!), new sports to fall in love with (snowboard cross — FUN!), and just mounds of smiles and tears and wonderfulness.

I have a deep love of the Olympics, and I bend my schedule every which way to make sure that I see as much of it as possible.  Every time, I fear that it can’t possibly live up to expectations, but it always so exceeds expectations as I get swept up into the emotion of all these athletes rising to the occasion and fulfilling a dream that they’ve been working so hard for.  It’s the Olympics!

Bravo Athletes from around the world!  Thanks for everything.

Olympic notes

Oh, the Olympics are such fun!  I’ve watched all the snowboarding events, which just look like way too much fun!  I’m thinking everyone should be able to do something that makes people go “WOW!” because the snowboarders sure have figured out how to get those WOWs and it’s just awesome!

I’ve missed more of the figure skating than I’ve seen, but I’m hoping to catch the men’s finals tomorrow and more of the upcoming events this weekend and next week.  Evan Lysacek was fabulous last night!

I have such vivid memories of the first time that I saw relay short-track speed skating, which has to be the most chaotic event EVER!  I remember my Dad and I watching it during Olympics in 2002, and I was just laughing hysterically at this sport — it has to be incredibly difficult, but it’s so funny to watch.  I don’t know how any of them keep up with what’s going on.  I saw part of the relays tonight and continue to marvel at the chaos.

As always, this is my favorite point of the Olympics, where we’ve had many exciting events — Canadian gold medals (finally!), some dazzling performances, some scary events — and we still have SO much more to go!  I love it!

Olympics!

Over a month ago, when I saw my ob/gyn, she started to ask whether I had any fun plans for this winter.  And then she remembered my love of the Olympics!  And she said, “Now if I’m remembering correctly, you usually take time off work during the Olympics.  Are you doing that again?”  I told her that, no, I anticipated that I would be starting a new job and would likely not feel comfortable taking vacation days, to watch the Olympics, when I was so brand new at the job.

I’m only really starting to know my co-workers at my new job, and we’re finding some things in common.  They really love movies, so we’ve talked about movies a lot this week.  One of them said she planned to see a movie tonight.  I thought, oh, she must not be a fan of the Olympics, because if she was, she would have surely planned her entire life around the Opening Ceremonies.  Right?  Doesn’t everyone do that?  Doesn’t everyone have their calendar filled with when the Olympic Events are?

So, I hesitated a little in asking her about the Olympics, but when I was leaving work at noon today, I said, “So…are you a fan of the Olympics?”  I was so happy when she said, “YES!  I’m obsessed with the Olympics!  I’m so ticked that the Opening Ceremonies are starting earlier than I thought, so I’m going to miss the beginning, but at least they are re-airing them at 1 a.m. so I can watch it then.”

Yes, she is a fan!  And she then talked about planning various grad school things around watching Olympics in 2008.  So, she really is a fan!  And she said the boss is too, and the boss is concerned about any of us being able to function for work in the next two weeks!

It is a joy to be surrounding by fun people who have obsessions like this! 

Ready to Tumble!

The NCAA gymnastics season will begin officially next month, and I’m so thrilled to have the local meets written on my calendar (right now, they are the only thing on my 2010 calendar!).  Tonight was the university’s intrasquad meet, and they looked incredible!  I could not believe how ready the girls look for the season, and they still have four weeks to improve.  WOW!  It felt so good to be in the arena, cheering “my” girls again!

Feels like life is getting back to normal.

Figure skating!

The U.S. Nationals Figure Skating competition has been going on this week.  The ladies finals are tonight!  Yay!  We have such a nice mix of very artistic skaters now — it’s a pleasure to watch them and I’m so thrilled that Alissa Czisny is having a great year!  I look forward to seeing who rises to the challenge in the year ahead to make the Olympic team.  The Olympics start in just over a year!!!!  I can’t wait.

Olympic Recap

The Beijing Olympics are pretty much over.  I’ve learned a lot about China during these Games, which is one of my favorite things about the Olympics.  I was startled to realize that beforehand, I didn’t even know how long the Great Wall is (4000 miles!).  So, clearly there was much to learn.

Here are a few extra thoughts about the Games:

1)  The Summer Games have a crazy amount of different competitions.  There are sports that I had never heard of or seen before in my life.  And all the track & field events, and the different classes of boxing, wrestling, weight lifting.  It is just a LOT.

2)  Speedwalking totally freaks me out!  It literally sends tingles up my spine to watch peoples’ hips wiggle that continuously.  That’s just not normal!

3)  Is it that hard to hold on to a baton?  Nuff said…

4)  I am perpetually amazed that world record times keep being broken.  Clearly, this cannot go on forever.  (Nobody will be able to swim or run 100m in zero seconds, for example.)  But one wonders when we’ll hit the actual human limit on speed.  There must be a limit, but what is it?  And will we know when we get there?

5)  The Vancouver Winter Olympics start on February 12, 2010!  That’s less than 18 months away!  Hooray!

Gymnastics & controversies

It’s hard to believe the Olympic gymnastics events are ending.  Overall, I’m fairly pleased with the results, the exception being Nastia Liukin not getting the gold medal that she earned on uneven bars because of a silly tie-breaking rule.  That made me angry.  And a similar thing happened to her at the World Championships in 2005, where because of a weird rounding situation with the scores, she ended up in second when she was actually tied for first.

I am pretty tired of hearing the commentators go on and on about the age of the Chinese gymnasts.  Most sports don’t have age requirements, and I don’t think gymnastics should either given that elite gymnasts train hard from a young age anyway so keeping them out of big meets doesn’t really protect them.  It’s fine for the governing sports agencies to recommend, for safety reasons, that athletes not train like that until they are a little older.  But especially in countries with centralized athletic training, I don’t see them holding off on the harder training just because of rules or recommendations.  So, in my opinion, if they are training like that, they might as well compete and perhaps earn some recognition that could help them have a better life down the line.  Some people in the gymnastics community agree with that, some do not.  It is certainly one of the hot topics in the sport all the time.

I’m looking forward to seeing the last night of gymnastics competition on NBC this evening.  I know the results already, which is just as well because watching live Olympic gymnastics is very hard on my nerves!

Olympics: Nastia Liukin wins!

Oh my gosh, that Women’s All-Around Gymnastics Final was AMAZING!  So worth waiting for and staying up for.  Nastia Liukin is absolutely exquisite — a true artist who works so hard on showing very precise, beautiful gymnastics.  She had a wonderful meet and has SO deserved this!  And little Shawn Johnson is such a sweet kid with big skills, and she handled the pressure of the Olympics with great style.

I was crying right along with the gymnasts last night as they earned their medals!  What a night!  And to see five of the top six qualifiers have near perfect routines through the whole competition was completely amazing.  I just can’t believe what a fabulous meet that was on the biggest gymnastics stage.  Congratulations (and Thank You) to all the gymnasts for giving the world a wonderful night to remember forever!

WOW!

Olympic Gymnastics!

I’ll write about something other than the Olympics sometime soon.  (Lots to catch up on!)  But I can’t possibly write about anything other than gymnastics today.

I didn’t plan to stay up to watch the men’s team finals yesterday.  I don’t really follow men’s gymnastics closely, and I knew the meet would run past midnight and I had to work a long shift today.  But when I saw how the U.S. men were competing and that they were in first place mid-way through their meet, I could not go to bed!  They were completely amazing.  I love when a team feels they have something to prove — underdogs rising to a challenge is the best story ever!  And my, how they did.  Congrats to the U.S. men on their fabulous bronze medal!!

And tonight, the women take center stage.  I will be very nervous for every routine!  I want everyone to do their best, to feel that they’ve risen to the challenge.  If all goes as expected, it will be a nailbiter.

These Olympics are great fun.  Did you hear that someone from Togo won that country’s first ever Olympic medal?  It was in whitewater kayaking, which looks incredibly fun to me.  Those kinds of stories make me fall in love with the Olympics all over again.

* * *

Congrats to the Chinese women on their victory!  I was thrilled to see them perform well so the world got to see their beauty and incredible technical skills.  It is rare to see both in a whole group of athletes!  I would have liked to have seen the U.S. women have a clean night, but it wasn’t to be.  I’m excited for the all-around which airs very late at night (in the U.S.) on Thursday.

Olympics!

I’m so glad the Olympics have started!  I’ve had nothing but Olympics on my TV since Friday (when I saw the best Opening Ceremonies ever!), and I had a chance to hang out with a friend and watch some of the Games yesterday.  Nice to have a buddy to watch with.

It was nice to see decent coverage of the women’s gymnastics competition this evening (tape delayed).  I was not really surprised to see the U.S. women stumble a bit.  This whole Olympic thing is new to all of them, so there were bound to be some nerves and over-excitement there.  Hopefully they will find their footing for finals in a couple of days.  I was thrilled to see Nastia Liukin qualify for all around, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor finals!  She is exquisite!  And it’s great that the Chinese are doing so well.  They have long been the most beautiful team but have not often been able to put it together in competition.  So, the finals will be amazing with these super teams battling it out for gold!  I’ll be happy no matter who wins — I just hope both teams have a good meet.

I’ve also seen a lot of swimming, diving, and beach volleyball, along with odds and ends of other sports (rowing, cycling, water polo).  The Olympics are fun.