Olympics

Once every four years the Olympic games come along and suddenly I am spending 2 weeks glued to my TV watching athletes I've never heard of participating in sports I normally would not watch. Suddenly names like Shawn Johnson, Michael Phelps & Nastia Liukin replace Albert Pujols (St. Louis Cardinals) & Alex Smith (San Francisco 49ers) as athletes that I follow closely.

I'm on pins and needles every time Michael Phelps races. Will he win a gold and get one step closer to the 8 he needs to pass Mark Spitz for the most gold medals in one Olympics. Currently he's at 7 and I think he can do it. Swimming is not a sport that I would watch, but suddenly since it's the Olympics I have to see it.
I will stay up to midnight just to see the Americans embarrass the French, not that that is hard to do, I mean they are the French after all.

Gymnastics is another sport that for some reason is an absolute must watch for me. Maybe it's because back when I was in high school during the Atlanta games I thought some of the girls were pretty cute and so I became obsessed with it.But now here I am at 29 and I find my self blown away by what these men and girls are able to do. I actually understand how this sport is scored now, though I'm still certain you have to have a computer from NASA to get it. One I thing I don't get is why these girls put with wedgies like this. That would drive me crazy. Some one needs to invent the wedgie-less leotard.









Now some of these sports I do watch on a regular basis. Take basketball for example. Up until the Athens games this was a sport we just dominated. Now the rest of the world has caught up to us and it's a little more interesting.
Plus having Jazzmen Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer gives me another reason to watch. Hopefully this team that they call the "Redeem Team" will be able to restore USA Basketballs former glory.





Other sports I will refuse to watch, like badminton. Any thing that most normal people would play in their back yard with their grandmother just doesn't belong. I refuse to watch a sport that uses a shuttle cock.







Something I wonder is how on earth did we get so bad at baseball? This is our sport, much like basketball we've slipped in international competition. Unlike basketball though this doesn't appear to be resolving itself any time soon. I know that since its right in the middle of the MLB season we're not going to get guys like Derek Jeter and Randy Johnson. But other countries are sending their best players while we suffer through minor league rejects. How did Taiwan, Cuba and South Korea become power houses in Olympic baseball?





So I will continue to tune in every morning and evening to watch more of our athlete "Go for the Gold" in sports I probably wont watch again for 4 more years. frack and field anyone?