Saturday, August 23, 2008

My Olympics.

I've not watched a speck of the Olympics this year, until today, when we watched
  • synchronized swimming, and
  • some track and field events.
Synchronized swimming: no offense to any synchronized swimmers among my readership, but what the hell? It's kind of beautiful but also, well, absurd. Right? Am I wrong about this? On the one hand, each person is a terrific athlete, strong as hell, and can hold her breath for agonizing lengths of time. On the other hand, swimming in full makeup? with all that mess in the hair? And all the smiling? Well, there you go. Whatever that is, it's not a sport. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

We just barely watched Nancy Lagat from Kenya win the 1500 meters race, which I happen to think is one of the most agonizing track events, because you basically sprint for the whole distance. Ms. Lagat had a fantastic kick at the end, though, that put her well out of reach of the Bahrain runner, the heavy favorite. It was awesome to see. Even for a person who cannot be bothered to watch a second of the Olympics, until today.

6 comments:

  1. alright, a few things.

    1) it was so good to run into you at the movie theatre!

    2) I watched syncronized swimming on youtube after reading your post...it's mostly comical to me, hardly a sport of Olympic status

    3) I wrote a poem about going to the movie theatre that I want you to read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh the Olympic moments you have missed! I'm sad they are going to be over today.

    ReplyDelete
  3. synchronized swimming is so 1950s. i think the second most laughable event in the summer olys is the race walking. ridiculous. not to mention that all of the "athletes" are going to need hip replacements in their fifties.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My favorites have definitely been the swimming and the track and field.
    I share your feelings about anything with "synchronized" in the name, including diving. Yeah, it was cool, but how is it so different from regular diving?
    And race walking IS ridiculous, especially if you watch people doing it. Hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This seems so unlike the Mega I know, the one who has her finger on all things pop culture, who never likes to be left out of the scene. Hmm, I guess we can forgive you this one lapse given you are on sabatical writing poems all day. But another gaffe and you may have to rename your blog: hightouchMINIstore

    ReplyDelete
  6. watching the closing right now and there are two big wheels of synchronized smoked Gouda floating through the air--oh wait, those are drums!

    Seriously, I thought you would be totally glued to this spectacle.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails