My latest obsession is watching the Olympics. Even now, sitting in a coffee shop waiting for my friend to come get me, I'm worrying that I'll miss the men's long jump. please, God, no. I've seen quite a few lists of TOP 5 or so Olympic moments from various commentators, and since I'm about as qualified as they are, having seen every John Tesh soapographic (made that word up, HAHA Jeff) tele-moment (that one too), maybe I should try my own list.
1. China's response to the scandal about the little singing girl in the opening ceremonies--the best (7 year old) singer wasn't pretty enough, so they picked a prettier 9 year old to lip sync in the ceremonies. When confronted, the Chinese said (paraphrasing), "Yeah. We did do that."
Now, as a wanna-be anthropologist, it fascinates and amuses me to see how one culture obsessed with the individual sees so much evil, where another culture obssessed with the social sees common sense. What I see is, both ways suck.
2. The Kenyan woman's trail leg over the water jump in the steeplechase. This is crazy. She steps on the top of the barrier but unlike everyone else, she doesn't push off with her push-off leg. I don't know how to explain it, but her knee stays right under her armpit, she jumps over most of the water, gets just as far as anyone else, but her second stride must be a lot quicker since she doesn't have to pull that trail leg all the way through. Probably saves a lot of energy, too. I had taped this race accidentally, trying to get the 400 hurdles, so I kept rewinding it and saying to my housemates, "Look! Look at her trail leg!" Unfortunately, they were more interested in laughing at the poor woman who fell and hit her head, then stumbled around all disoriented for awhile. We worked out a deal, so I'd let them watch the fall one more time if they watched the Kenyan. Anyway, she ended up silver. Good job.
3. That stupid Morgan Freeman commercial with the track guy who pulled his hammy a couple of Olympics' ago and finished the race with his Dad's help. I say stupid because it makes me almost cry every time. And it's a stupid commercial.
4. Nastia Liukin Gymnastics All Around gold. Yeah, its not too original, but at least my reasons are. I chose her because a) she just came off a string of failures, and b) she and silver US gymnast Shawn Johnson overcame ridiculous judging biases toward China's gymnast's. Oh, and she doesn't have what I call "gymnasty hands"--she's more ballerina-like.
5. Michael Phelps' "condor stretch" as narrated by the commentator: "Bam. Bam. Bam." I LOVE sports commentators, which brings me to my final, number 6 moment:
6. Bob Costas. That's right. I know you all hate him and think he's evil. I'm really not sure why. Bob Costas IS the Olympics.
3 comments:
I never saw the crazy trail leg woman, dang! I like all of the rest of these, and that VISA commercial IS stupid. Stupid like a fox. I'm pretty sure if you don't cry during that commercial, you're a robot with a heart of ice.
I didn't know they had turned that limping guy and his father scene into a commercial. I probably hate the commercial too because I would probably still cry. My favorite Olympic moment this year was Japan winning bronze in Men's 4x100m relay, which was their first medal in track+field in 80 years. All 4 of them were crying at the post-race interview, and it turns out the starter was pushing through an injury and the anchor was a 36 year-old runner and this was his last race. *SOB*
Oh, Rieko, drat you! I'm tearing up just reading your moment. Just so I can be a little off-topic, I'll tell you that I nearly sobbed in the parking lot of a Walgreens today after hearing an excerpt of Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter's speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Johanna, don't make an "ass" out of "u" and "me", please. I like Bob Costas. He IS the Olympics. What will we do when he's gone? We will have to have a mime interviewing the gold medal winners. That's the only way.
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