go for the gold

This post is intended to be somewhat of a rebuttal to my husband's Olympics post. While I understand that some people may not love sports (I generally categorize myself in this group), the Olympics isn't just about sports. It is also about the people, the dedication, the camaraderie, and the excitement. I'll admit that I mostly watch the summer Olympics for the gymnastics. It is the only sport that I bother to DVR.

Ever since I was a little girl I had a minor obsession with gymnastics. My parents signed me up for my first gymnastics class when I was 8 or 9 years old. I remember that the classes were taught at Timpview High School in Provo and our head coach was probably in her 30's and had blond hair down to her waist. I won 2nd place at my first gymnastics meet (mainly because right before I was about to go onto the beam, my beam coach decided to throw an unexpected cartwheel into the routine because she figured that I could do it, but it scared me to death and I almost fell off). A couple of years later my parents signed me up for another gymnastics class. Three days into the class I was warming up on the vault, hit my foot against it (this was back when the vault was still shaped like a horse), broke my toe and that was the end of my gymnastics career. However, just because my gymnastics career was over, that didn't mean that I didn't still love the sport. For several years I knew exactly who was competing at the elite level internationally, what skills were being done, and how well things were going for the future Olympic hopefuls.

This slight obsession with gymnastics started to fade after Sydney. I now usually only tune into gymnastics during the Olympics. Sure there are plenty of other international competitions where the same athletes compete in the exact same events as they do in the Olympics (and usually with the same routines as they use during the Olympics). However, the Olympics are so much more than just your average international competition. There is so much history behind these games; the first original Olympic games were recorded in 776 BC. Thousands and thousands of athletes have worked their entire lives to win these medals. People have sacrificed almost everything to compete there. These athletes compete not only for themselves, but for their teammates, their families, and their countries. And when one of these athletes shatters record after record, of course people are going to be constantly talking about him/her (especially people happen to already be very patriotic to begin with and the athlete happens to be from their home country).