OLYMPIC FEVER! CATCH IT!

I'll throw this out there and I won't even cringe as I do it.  I dig gymnastics.  I dig swimming.  Team handball might be one of the best sports ever to watch.  The Olympics are so wonderful.  I have quite a few friends who have played the "too cool" card when it comes to watching the Games, but I love it all.   Even if it means watching the same bloody lame commercials 10 times in a night but not yet once seeing my former role model Shannon Miller's Claritin commercial that everyone is raving... never mind.  I'm fine.

Let's run down my love in ranked form, from 5 to 1.

5.  Niche announcers - Seriously, that guy who is RAVING about how Mariel Zagunis is the best in the world at finding openings to exploit after setting up her opponent with a left-right-left parry tactic... what does he do the other four years?  Have you ever seen fencing on TV outside of the Olympics?  The best part is the announcers sound so polished, like there is a pro fencing league they do games for all the time.  Awesome.  The best are the announcers who used to be in the sport they're calling, and every event somehow links to their gutsy performance in the '76 Montreal Games.  And the best part is that it was always just a little tougher back then in Montreal.  The heck with that.  I've BEEN to Montreal.  If it was harder, it was because everyone was trying to leave.  Fight me, Montreal... I'm daring you.

Sorry...

4.  Fluff pieces - I guarantee you that you've never heard as much soft piano on your television as you do when you sit down for a three hour session watching the Games.  If the competition isn't enough, NBC is right there to show you just how human these super-humans are.  It wouldn't be so bad, if they didn't use the glaucoma lighting around the edges of the athletes during the interview.  Nothing is so hateful to NBC as a successful athlete without a shattered, broken past.  If they create a sport called "Eastern European Bashing While Watching the Olympics", I'll give the networks the broken past they've dreamed about.  Even if none of what I tell them is true.

3.  Gymnastics - Let's put our cards out on the table.  In 1996, I was a HUGE Magnificent 7 fan.  As Shannon, Amy and the Dominiques fought and clawed and slapped their way to Olympic gold, it was Kerry Strug who right in front of me in the Georgia Dome, had one of the gutsiest performances I've ever seen on the world stage.  She landed off the vault on one freaking foot!  Hideous voice aside, that's unbelievable.  And it hooked me.  As we speak, I'm watching the Chinese take another shot at democracy by brushing aside the Americans in the men's team finals.  But know this China, we'll be back... shorter, buffer and more flexible than ever (butt slap).

2.  The Opening Ceremony - Every four years, it really is a game of "Can you top this?"  This year was a great example.  I'm pretty sure the head of the London Olympic Committee took one look at the Chinese opening ceremony and curled into the fetal position.  It was at this moment that he realized that the British.. are simply not  a visually creative people.  But I digress.  The procession of athletes is great, especially when most of Zimbabwe's team is white.  Go figure.

1a.  Niche sports - Where else are you going to see a sport called "trampoline"?  What about "flatwater canoeing", "synchronized diving" and "Womens pistols"?  It's just awesome to see such off the radar sport taking place that people all over the world have committed years of their life to perfecting (how two guys wake up and one day say they want to learn to dive in complete synchronicity is beyond my realm of understanding).  How about this for Olympic trivia?  Did you know that "tug of war" was a sports for YEARS in the Olympics?  How about roller hockey making an attempt to be a sport in 1992 or bowling in 1998?  My personal favorite was the event "surf livesaving".  Baywatch was simply 100 years behind the times.  As if it wasn't already.

1.  National pride - I don't care who you are or how cynical you are of your government or country as a whole, it is hard, nay impossible to watch the Olympics for long and not start to feel a little bit of that good old-fashioned turn-of-the-century nationalism start to well up in you.  I've been fully behind guys like Michael Phelps and I'm learning names that I'm cheering for out loud as if I've been going to their meets for years (go Jonathan Horton, go!).  The Olympic Games do that to you.  Because this is such an unbiased - usually- place to see people from around the world compete, it takes an air all of it's own.  I love watching it with friends because nationalism breeds nationalism (see War I, World) and you start blabbering about kids in their early 20's doing the most amazing thing you've ever seen.  It's my most favorite part of the Games. At some point, someone from my country is going to make my proud to be an American.  And make me hate the Russians just a little more.  Kidding!  (Not really, get out of Georgia).

So there it is.  Whoomp, there it is for that matter.  If you've been shrugging off the Games (Dan Miller, et al.), check them out.  You're sure to get sucked in.  Unless it's wrestling.  For the life of me, I still can't figure that crap out.  You've been great.