Behind the Athlete is great support

Now that some medals are being awarded, this brings me to my favorite part of the Olympic Games. The stories of these athletes unfold before our eyes and to see them achieve victory in something many of them have spent their lives working towards is amazing. I just finished watching some of the swimming finals. When you see the closeup of the athlete turning to look at their winning status on the scoreboard is just incredible. For anyone who has ever competed for something and won, you know that feeling. That’s the payoff. Its especially fun when an athlete medals who really wasn’t expected to. You can see it in their eyes when they step up to the platform to accept their medal.

The reason I love this element of the Olympics is it occurs when everything else is stripped away. Other than the logos on their uniforms, its just the competitors, the field or water of competition, and everything else falls away. Pure sport and the stories that unfold around it.

One of the elements that I love about being here to watch the games, is the feed that I get to watch is uncut. When someone wins the competition there is no commercial break. We watch captivated by the celebration of the athlete. For me personally this coverage allows me to see an image that brings back treasured memories. Behind most of the successful athletes here at the Games are dedicated parents and siblings. Sometimes you get to see this on network coverage, but most of the time they cut away to another sport or analysis. For me seeing that mom cry for joy because her son just made his lifelong dream come true is a vision of joy. That mother has spent a good part of her life shuttling that kid to and from practice and games and meets. And the payoff, watching that beloved child achieve Olympic Champion status and being able to share in that. The reason this resonates with me, is because my parents were incredibly supportive of me and my siblings in their endeavors. Every game and match they were there cheering us on. We weren’t always on good teams either, and they were still there giving us their undivided attention and support.

Having had that kind of support growing up gives me a genuine appreciation for the images of those parents cheering on their Olympic Champion son or daughter. Becoming the best in the world is too hard to do on your own. You have to have great coaching and great family and friends support.

On a totally unrelated note, yesterday gave us an Olympic experience we haven’t had to deal with since at least Sydney: Rain. It never rained a drop in Athens. But it rained yesterday. So much rain it postponed tennis, held up Archery, made the cycling road race very difficult, and otherwise wreaked havoc on fans at every outdoor venue. One of the Commentary Control Rooms at the center court tennis venue started flooding. A frantic manager informed us he was ripping up the false floor to drain water out of the room. After its rained in Beijing in the past weeks, the air quality has improved. We’ll see if that happens this time. Its been pretty bad thus for the Games. In a press release the other day, one official was quoted as saying that Beijing is going to have to figure out what their solution will be long term. You can’t keep factories closed and odd and even license plate cars off the road forever. The way this city is expanding and attempting to grow, these problems are only going to get worse. For the sake of the Chinese people I hope they can come up with a good lasting solution.

Finally, it was nice to see Team USA basketball at top form again. Last night while watching the game with the Chinese students in our Switching Center, I took the opportunity to teach them how to talk junk during an athletic competition. They didn’t understand how to do that. So I gave them some lessons on proper reactions to great dunks, bucket and the foul, and building the lead bigger and bigger. I considered it part of my cultural giving back. The students enjoyed the lesson, though it was at the expense of their own team. I don’t think they minded too much because the American players are almost more loved than the Chinese players are. Kobe Bryant could probably amass enough support to make a run at the Chinese Presidency. I’ve also decided that the sport of gymnastics can only be watched with expert commentary. If you try to watch any of it as just video with ambient noise, you have no idea who is doing well until someone falls and then you only know that they aren’t winning a medal. And they changed the scoring system. Great. Now a 10 stinks. I don’t have time for this, there are like 15 other sports happening at the same time, and they have clearly defined rules: put an object in the right place in the fastest or given amout of time, it doesn’t matter how you look doing it!