fullygoldy | Olympics!

In the past year, I've become pretty attuned to various ways we indirectly, unknowingly, or unthinkingly offer offense to our friends and acquaintances. I've probably got a whole post on this topic. So to realize that loving the Olympics puts me smack in the middle of a "priviledged" category is unsettling.

However, I love the Olympics! I love the ideal, the foundation. I love the Olympics the way I love my country. Because something fundamentally right was there in the conception, and a lot of people are continuing to keep that ideal alive even though a lot of the participants/organizers/leaders seem to have lost sight of the mission. It's not irredeemable yet.

Today, I learned about someone I would never have heard of if I weren't watching the Olympics. Florent Amodio is a male figure skater from France. Only he's originally from Brazil, and he was abandoned on the streets as an infant. A priviledged family (how can they not be - to have been in Brazil to begin with, and to support an ice skating careeer in the long run) from France adopted him and made him their son. He was "discovered" at age 4. He's had the same coach his entire career. He's the French National Champion, and he's got no chance in hell of winning a medal. But this 19-yr old kid just skated his personal best in his opening routine at the Olympics (and it was gooood). If he had not been adopted by the Amodio family, he would probably have died before ever being diagnosed with (and cured of) the debilitating knee disease that threatened his ice skating career for 18 mos when he was 12. Now he's an Olympian.

This year, we've got more "adult" competitors than I can recall from ever before. For a long time, this was an event dominated by kids/teens. It seems they've all grown up and decided "hell no, we won't go." There's an American female mogul skier who is 35 and put in a fine, fine performance. There's the 33-yr old (American) snow-cross gold medalist - just back from a severe injury which left him unable to *walk* for months. He was deemed too old and too injured to medal. He snaked past the lead (Canadian) to grab gold. There's Evgeni Plushenko, 27, the Russian ice skating champ, looking for back-to-back gold (after 2+ yrs of retirement). What about the Chinese figure skating couple? Married, but living in single-sex dorms, eating together in the cafeteria, and finally, finally! They realize their dream - Gold! More and more events that have been formerly dominated by youngsters are being staffed by old-timers. Awesome! (This is totally in addition to the traditionally older competitors in curling and biathalon).

My father-in-law spent several years dominating the Senior Olympics - he'd "throw anything that wasn't nailed down" according to his wife. So, shotput, and other throwing events, plus table tennis and running. You know what's cool about that? He didn't even play table tennis until my DH came home from the Navy in 1973 and gifted the family with a ping pong table. DH wasn't too thrilled to be upstaged until dear-old-dad started winning medals. :)

I pretty much cry for every single gold medalist who steps up to the podium. I don't care where they're from. They've achieved something huge through sheer force of will, grit, talent. determination and luck. Every gold medal, every silver, every bronze, every competitor is a miracle to be shared. It makes the loss of the young Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, even harder to take. Queens, Kings, and idiot politicians all pause for a moment to breathe in the Olympics. I believe that the reminder of this impossible ideal helps keep them in check - that every couple years at the very least, they see or hear something they'd never notice otherwise, and maybe this makes them give a little more attention to an area they CAN influence. But that's most likely because I still think Jed Bartlett is the best president we ever had. Jed knew about the ideal.

So. I'm sorry to my friends who may be offended by my squee, but I'm not going to apologize for loving all that is good and admirable about the Olympics. Nothing is perfect, and there is a whole lot more in this world that is worse.