Farewell Beijing!

I must admit that I'm a little sad that the Olympics are over. As a kid, I can remember crying when the games ended. I loved them that much and hated that I would have to wait 4 more years to watch them again. Thankfully though, they started staggering the Winter and Summer Olympics, so I don't get too emotional about it anymore. But I still get a little verklempt. What can I say? I love sports, and I LOVE the Olympics!

Below are a few of my favorite things. Since the games are about sportsmanship and pride, I'm going to leave out the negatives and only reflect on the positives.

1) Nastia Liukin & Shawn Johnson - I love that those 2 dominated gymnastics. We may not have the best team in the world, but we've definitely got the 2 best gymnasts!

2) Michael Phelps - His feat was truly amazing. I wonder if we'll ever see anything like that again?!

3) Jason Lezak - Best comeback ever. I heart him.

4) Men's Indoor Volleyball Gold - How fitting that they brought home the gold after the tragedy that befell their coach at the game's opening. I can only imagine what an extreme range of emotions he and his family have gone through in the last 2 weeks.

5) Men's Basketball Gold - We're back, baby! We better not ever lose that gold again!

6) Usain Bolt - I have never seen someone run with such ease. He is truly the fastest man I have ever seen with my own 2 eyes.

7) USA Softball - It was heartbreaking watching them lose the gold! Knowing this was their last Olympics, they embarked on a worldwide goodwill journey to drum up support for their sport in hopes of saving it. What should've been capped off with a glorious gold, turned into a disappointing silver. But maybe, just maybe, proved to the IOC that the world is catching up and gives me a glimmer of hope that this sport might be reinstated. I only wish I had a USA softball team to look up to when I was a youngster. But I've loved getting to follow them as an adult because it makes me feel like a kid again. Here's hoping we see softball back in the 2016 games!

Well folks, that's a wrap (and my cue to change the blog layout). Only a year and a half until the Winter Olympics!

Me = Sick

I think I've turned into Jolee. I'm sick for the second time in 6 weeks. I don't know what the heck is happening to me. I'm not supposed to get sick!! Argghh!!

Finally!!

Long awaited Olympic thoughts...

So I've been out-of-town the last few days for a wedding. Luckily, I was still able to obsessively watch the Olympics. The following are my thoughts...

1) Michael Phelps is sick! How awesome was it when he won by a fingernail?! I wasn't convinced he won even after showing 8 gazillion replays. I don't think the eye is supposed to comprehend a mere hundredth of a second. But I trust that those high speed cameras and touch pad sensors got it right. And don't even get me started on what he eats during the day. That's just insane!

2) We took gold and silver in the women's all-around. Only we took it in the opposite order I wanted. I'm not going to lie, I was rooting for Shawn Johnson. Nastia Liukin rubbed me the wrong way during team finals She just didn't seem very friendly or nice. But I warmed up to her during the all-around after I figured out that she just does some intense focusing during the competition. And who can fault her for that?

3) The men's basketball team is kicking butt and they better keep it up!
4) Dara Torres won a silver in her first individual event. She's 41 and the second fastest swimmer in the world! That's amazing! And her body is crazy awesome. I'm gonna work on getting some abs like that.



5) Women's Gymnastics event finals: Oksana Chusovitina of Germany winning a silver on the vault at 33...just plain awesome! Alicia Sacramone missing out on the bronze in the same event to a Chinese gymnast who fell (see #6 below)...just plain sucks! Shawn Johnson getting silver again on the floor. What does that poor girl need to do to get a gold?! Here's hoping she succeeds on the balance beam. And finally, Nastia Liukin getting second on the uneven bars because of a stupid tie-breaker just sucks. Her routine was better (again, see #6) and at the very least, they should both get the gold!

6) Women's Gymnastics scoring: What the heck is going on with the scoring?! I thought this new system was supposed to prevent stupidity and bias? But time after time I've seen our girls perform beautiful routines and get low scores only to be followed by other athletes with many more noticeable mistakes getting higher marks. I'm just glad Nastia and Shawn were still able to pull out the gold and silver in the all-around because it sure seemed to me that the judges were doing their best to prevent it.

That's all I've got for now. I'll be back with more later.

Gymnastics

Women's gymnastics is the one event where I'm disappointed in anything but the gold. Usually I'm elated to see Team USA take a gold, silver, or bronze. But gymnastics is our sport! We're supposed to win the gold! So, needless to say, I was disappointed to see our girls crack under pressure and hand the gold to the Chinese. That being said, silver is a great accomplishment and those girls have nothing to be upset about. They made it to the Olympics and now have a silver medal to show for it. Not many people get the honor of saying that.

As for the Chinese team, I don't need much convincing that those girls weren't 16. There's just absolutely no way a couple of those girls were anywhere near that old. However, the Karolyi's need to quit there bellyaching. Regardless of their age, the Chinese team was better. They didn't cause us to fall off the balance beam or stumble on the floor exercise. We did that to ourselves. The Chinese team was the superior team yesterday, and they deserved to go home with the gold. I'll just have to wait another 4 years until we can take that back from them!

Oh, and maybe we could work on adding some blue to our leotards. That's the conspiracy theory I want to start. We lost because we wore red and white. We could've been the Canadian team for all I knew. It took halfway through the meet for me to realize that at least it said USA in the stitching design. The leotards they wore in the prelims were much cuter with the star outlined in blue. Maybe we can work on something similar to that for the next Olympic games. Just a thought.

Michael Phelps...and other swimmers

Admiring Michael Phelps (and feeling a little dirty about it)

I just came across this blog that someone had written on CNN and it made me laugh. Mainly because this is exactly how I feel. I'm usually not a big admirer of the human body until it comes to the Olympics and in particular, the swimmers. All I have to say is it's very nice, and I ogle a little. But then, I get mad about guys who do the same thing (in everyday life), so I feel like a big ol' hypocrite. Oh well, I'm off to watch some more swimming!

Olympic Fever

I love the Olympics!! I thought I'd change up the layout to reflect that. I was trying to find an Olympics theme, but couldn't. So I settled on some American pride! Go USA!