My Musings on Olympics Week 1

I am a total and complete sucker for the Olympics.  If you're looking for me during the fortnight, I am most likely watching the various events. Or watching fabulous videos like this one related to the Games.  Well done, swim team, well done.  It has always been a tradition in my family to all congregate around the TV and watch the Olympics, and, partly because I love sports and general and also thanks to the intense patriotic spirit of the Games, I get REALLY into it.  I will gladly watch things like volleyball and table tennis, sports that even I, the sports-lover, would not ordinarily watch.

As I think I have said before, I loved watching Olympic swimming even before I met Dan, but I was looking forward to watching swimming with him so I can hear some of his expertise (in terms of pace, strength of form, etc.).  Well, it has been so much fun, because we both REALLY get into it!!  Unfortunately for the Americans, Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte have both been huge disappointments, and I would like to attribute it to the fact that they both seem like enormous douchebags and that this is just them getting their comeuppance.  The 4x100 relay was absolutely heartbreaking, and, while Agnel swam an incredible anchor leg of the relay (and is generally having a fantastic Olympic showing), it was a shame that our boys couldn't pull off the win, particularly because everything up to Ryan's anchor leg was very impressive.  To turn to the women for a minute, I love watching Missy Franklin swim.  She seems like the sweetest, most genuine person on the team, and I was beyond thrilled to watch her win her first-ever gold medal last night in the 100 back.  I absolutely teared up when she won.  Not even embarrassed.

I'm just going to hate on NBC for a moment here.  It is nearly impossible to avoid results for the late sessions (which, thanks to the NBC-mandated tape delay, don't air until 8pm EST), particularly since the results are plastered on the landing page of their website.  I knew ahead of time that Missy was going to win her race last night, because, when I had been trying to look up the story about the American tennis player (Ryan Harrison) who threw an embarrassing temper tantrum, I couldn't avoid the huge picture of Missy on the NBC homepage in all of her Olympic glory.  However, I watched swimming last night while trying to pretend that I hadn't seen the result (especially since I didn't want to ruin it for Dan, who had consciously avoided news outlets all day so as not to have the results spoiled).  However, in the commercial break moments before she was set to race in the 100 back final, NBC just had to ruin everything by airing a commercial for today's airing of the Today Show in which Missy is reunited with her parents post-gold medal swim.  The viewer knew that the 100 back was the only final she was swimming that night, and so the end was spoiled.  Dan was livid, understandably so, and I admit that I was pretty peeved too.  If you're going to make us wait hours afterward to watch a race, NBC, DO NOT ruin the result for us two minutes before the race.  That was just uncalled for.

Rant over.  Other than that, we have been watching some women's beach volleyball, indoor volleyball, men's and women's rowing, synchronized diving, some women's soccer (we saw the play where Abby Wambach was sucker-punched by a Colombian player.  Luckily, I read today that the latter was suspended), gymnastics, and even a few moments of fencing. My goodness, these few weeks are just so EXCITING!!!!!!!! I'm looking forward to more swimming for the rest of the week, and mildly anticipating the start of track and field next week.

I will hopefully post about our jam-packed weekend sometime in the next few days!  Again, this week has been really hectic in terms of trying to wrap up loose ends before my vacation (which happens to coincide with when our web updates will go live).  I hope you're all having a good week and enjoying the Olympics!  U-S-A!! U-S-A!! U-S-A!!