Olympics

I don't know what it is or ever has been that has so excited me about the Olympics. I have always LOVED the Olympics in both summer and winter. It doesn't even really matter which sport, somehow I get sucked in. I can't remember not loving them and I can't remember what initially drew me into watching as many games as possible. (Mom, Mere, maybe you can help me out there). But if you've ever lived with me during the Olympics, you remember my passion for the games.

My two favorite memories of watching Olympics happened while at NC State. The first was during the Sydney Olympics in 2000. This was the year that they were actually in the Fall for us because of the hemisphere difference. I was living in 303A Bragaw Hall with Morgan Murden (now Young) and I think I got her hooked too. (At least she let me watch them often on our 16" TV/VCR combo). But one night, I was watching at Chris Miller and Josh Jones' apartment when this guy made his Olympic debut:


Remember him? We didn't even see the heat where he ended up swimming by himself because everyone else false started. No, we didn't see it live, we saw the Bob Costas version with Eric Moussambani's life story attached. Bob Costas may have the best job in media. Even my husband, who is crazy about sports sort of agrees with me. He can call anything he wants and he goes to every Olympics anywhere in the world. They make these "tear jerker" short films about different athletes from all over the world and the one about this swimmer from Equatorial Guinea was a doozey. Everyone in the apartment, let alone the world was crying during the video. I wish I could find it, but work doesn't let me use YouTube and that's probably the best bet.

On a side note, before the Beijing Games started, I told this story to Wes, who vaguely recalls sob stories during the Olympics. But then, we both felt the heart strings Bob Costas and Chris Collingsworth pulled on during their story/video on Michael Phelps' mom.

Anyway, my second memory is far less sentimental but always makes me happy. I watched the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics from Lake Park and an apartment favorite for us was curling.

Now, I know what your thinking. It was kind of a joke that we liked it but we would turn the mute on and commentate ourselves. Let's just say there were 2:00am commentaries in our best Swedish accents, "Go Lars, go! You're not sweeping fast enough!"

I look forward to this weekend of endless games.