2008 Olympics

My absolute favorite sporting event to watch is the Summer Olympic games. 

Unfortunately, I've never been (although I did attend the Winter Olympics in St. Lake City back in 2002). 

The Olympic games are so incredibly inspiring to me - everytime I sit down on my couch and crank up the Tivo, I get chills.  No, it's not the bulging muscles on the gymnasts or the lean torsos of the swimmers, although I'm certainly not complaining. 

It's the heart and determination of the competitors that really gets me.  Michael Phelps, for example, has trained six days a week for around six hours a day for the last four years.  He eats, sleeps, and breathes swimming.  Even more inspiring are the young gymnasts, many of whom left their families to move to Indianapolis (the U.S. team) or an obscure training facility (for many other countries).  The lead gymnast on the Chinese women's team was turned over to the trainers at age 3 to start training for her shot at the gold. 

If you watch the faces of the competitors before, during, and after their events, you'll see courage that's rare for someone so young.  In a world where school-age kids idolize clowns like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, it's good to know that some real teen heros exist out there.  

There is not really a point to this post, other than to give props to all of the competitors out there, especially to the Americans, and to the Chinese, who has a solid group of athletes to recon with.  Also, I wanna give huge props to "out" Austrailian diver Matthew Mitcham.  Here is an article about him posted on Outsports.  

Comments

[Bill]

Damn, I have yet to watch. Thank god for DVR

[Brian]

A much better picture of the gymnasts here:
http://www.towleroad.com/2008/08/us-male-gymnast.html
With your boy front and center showing some nice biceps. Crappy pic of my boy in the back.

[Shel]

It's good to see you're back!!!