sportsblog

I have to admit, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of the Olympics. I always thought they were kind of cool, but mostly as a novelty, certainly not something that I went out of my way to watch. I really expect much of the same from the Beijing Olympics especially since I really am not a fan of watching tape delayed sporting events and given the 12 hour delay, there were certainly going to be some delayed events.

The Opening Ceremonies did little to change my mind. There were certainly parts that were very cool and the little boy walking in with Yao Ming really gave me chills. But, overall, they were way to long and again the delay factor bothered me for some reason. Still, I watched them and did think that there was some majesty and spectacle to the event and enough of my friends were talking about the Olympics that I decided to watch the first couple of events.

Then I got hooked. I’ve had the Olympics on basically every waking moment. Most of the time, they are just on in the background, but they are always on and I am constantly checking what’s on and what’s coming next. They have been truly exciting and I find myself especially excited to watch the prime time events each night and the live events each morning.

Of course, nothing did more for my Olympic excitement than the men’s swimming 4×100 freestyle relay on Sunday night. Not only was it easily the most exciting Olympic event I have ever seen, it was pretty damn near the top of exciting sporting event I’ve ever watched. There was jumping on the couch and yelling at the TV and waving Jason Lezak down those last 25 meters with more enthusiasm than a third base coach waving the runner home. The enthusiasm of the other three swimmers as their teammate barely clinched the gold medal was a inspiringly genuine and a refreshing change of pace from the posturing and contract demands of professional athletes. The rest of the Olympics will have a hard time measuring up to this relay, but that won’t stop me from watching. You never know when something like that may happen again.

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