Quote Originally Posted by Logan View Post
I've had so much fun watching everything I possibly can. I've truly loved it all. I think it has been one of the most popular olympics in a long time.
IF you get a chance, go.

I have been to rowing/canoeing, wrestling and baseball.

It's one of the most wonderful, exciting things to experience. It's magical and there is nothing like it on the planet. The host city shines and it sounds really stupid, but, you can feel the energy in the air.

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One of the NBC affiliates is doing an Olympic replay on 9/8/08
I didn't get to see some of the sports that I wanted, track cycling, shooting, archery, indoor volleyball and rowing/canoeing.

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I am not a huge futbol fan, but I watched the whole America/Brazil game.
Field Hockey? I watched! Team Handball? Loved it! Archery? missed it!
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One of the announcers was talking about the 'drive' that the athletes have to win a medal. One team -think it was the men's beach VB team- talked about how it was a failure to go home with nothing less than a gold medal.

That made me kinda sad because of the fact that out of the thousands of athletes that go, a very few will ever make it to the podium.

India won their first medal, ever, in air gun, I think it was Pakistan that won their first medal ever in wrestling. THe stories of how one athlete from a country that you only hear about on a game show as the answer to "Which Pacific island country is the chief exporter of Komodo Dragon dung?" wins a bronze medal in 10 meter air pistol and becomes a national hero.

He gets a nice parade, a state dinner and a postage stamp with his picture on it.

Mike Phelps gets 10 zillion dollars, a pic on a corn flake box and never has to buy dinner in a restaurant again.

What is more impressive? Some 'amateur' athlete that makes 5 million a year in
endorsements to swim? Or a guy that works in a gas station for 12 hours, goes home and trains next to the pig sty behind his house lifting buckets of slop so he can compete in weight lifting?

I love my country and will get all goose-bumpy when we win and the National Anthem plays.

But I have to admit, the guy with the wacky name that consists of more vowels than consonants, the flag that isn't color coordinated or comes from country that has a name that ends in a vowel, ends in "stan" or can only be found on a map - if you know where to look - really impresses me.

I like the underdog. I like the country with a Jamaican Bobsled team, Eddie the Eagle, a one legged swimmer?

I do remember the Swiss runner that stumbled into the Los Angeles Coliseum at the end of the of woman's marathon. I remember her name -Gabriela Scheiss- not because she won or placed. She wobbled onto the track and I thought she was going to die. She looked like she had a stroke. But, she kept on trucking. Joan Benoit won that race, the first woman's marathon ever, but the gal in the red running shorts and shirt was the real winner that day-she's probably living a nice life in Switzerland now and get's embarrassed every four years when the Games start again. But she left an impression on me-and a few other people-it wasn't a real elegant, athletic way to be remembered, but there were four letters that really didn't matter to her that day.

Q-U-I-T.

Beijing may have not been the best place to hold an event like the Games.
But I'll follow them no matter where they are held.

I'll go back one day.

I figure four years is enough to find out all about Togo.