I was quite excited when the Olympics started. I dragged Michael along to watch the opening ceremonies (which, thank you very much, he ended up really liking). I stayed up late to watch all the nations march in, amazed again at the number of countries I'd never heard of and those that have a smaller population than the city I live in.I watched at least three nights of gymnastics and lots of swimming and diving, but by last night, I couldn't watch any more. I still love the Olympic spirit and the competition drama and watching humans do amazing things, but I am absolutely sick of the commentators. I don't want to hear one more commentator try to guess who is going to win a freakin' gold medal or make another stupid comment about an athlete's mistake - just shut up and let me watch!! (I'm a little irate there - can feel my blood boiling again).
All that to say that I missed the individual gymnastics c0mpetition last night. I just had no desire to watch. I happened to catch the Today's show coverage of the competition this morning at my kids' daycare. And there was Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson with their gold and silver medals. I almost cried seeing them on the medal stand and then Nastia hugging her dad, who won an Olumpic medal some 20 years ago as a Russian gymnast. What really gets me, what amazes me again about our country is that our female gymnasts can compete against and win over (interesting that China won the team, and we won the individual) gymnasts who leave their families at age 3 and train their entire life in gymnastics. I heard an NPR story about former Chinese athletes, and the wreck their life was after sports without any other training or hope or career. While our elite gymnasts and other athletes may not have an entirely normal life (and no doubt they have priveleges not available in other countries and valuable things to learn from other athletes), they certainly have a better one, more opportunities with their family, opportunities for school and career, and, if they want to leave their sport, opportunities beyond being an elite athlete (China's lead gymnast once called her parents because she wanted to come home, and they told her to stay - because they new what her athletic career would do for their family). And they can still be major competition on the world stage.
I can berate my country and cry over injustices we have created, but once again, I am so proud to be a part of a country that has such amazing top athletes and platforms for athletes to excel without destroying childhoods.
(Note: Photo from www.nbcolympics.com, home of an elite band of annoying athletic commentators).
3 comments:
Amen on the commentators! I have only watched a few events and they drove me nuts. During the synchronized diving event they were harsher on the American team; I don't think I heard one positive word about our team come out of their mouths. Granted, they did make mistakes but it was still amazing to watch!
I confess I burned out on the Olympics years ago. It seems the worse that it ever got was that we commented that Jim McKay was wearing the same seater, again. I didn't watch the opening ceremonies, but did of course hear they were wonderful...and that the girl actually singing wasn't pretty enough and the TV pyrotechnics were computer-generated... I tried two or three times to watch but was thoroughly discussed by the thin slice of sports between the mega slices of inane commentary, idiotic commentator cultural experiences, and adds. I even tried at 3 a.m. one sleepless night and there was Mary Carillo being insipid all by herself. While I'm ranting, I'm also not gaga about Dara Torres. Isn't there something else a 41 year old can do with that kind of time and money? I mean, it's just the friggin' 50 free, not even a 400 IM--now that, I might actually have had to concede impressed me if she'd attempted that! OK. I'm done.
Wow! I was totally impressed about how much "live" coverage we got to see and how little the commentators, for the most part, got in the way of my watching. Wonder what Olympics I watched. I gotta agree about being from here though. No where else I would rather live.
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