Rooting for the Home Team

Like most people out there (I assume) I have been excitedly watching the Olympics since they began four days ago. The hard part is getting through the day without seeing an update of what's been going on in anticipation of watching the events in the evening. Being on the east coast of the United States, we are exactly 12 hours behind Beijing so some of the events that are televised in the evening have already happened and the live events we get to see are actually occuring the next day in China. It's fun to watch the various countries come out and compete and it's certainly exhilerating to see victories like the one the Men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay. It was a clear case of making the competition eat a piece of humble pie.

I think for the most part, most athletes these days are relatively restrained in their rhetoric but there are occasional instances (cough cough... France) where the athletes let the heat of the moment or the pressure of the interviewers get to them and they try to sell themselves far beyond their capabilities. Such was the case with France during the aforementioned event in which the Americans were heavily favored. The French team came out and said that their whole goal in being there at the games was to 'crush' the Americans. In the end, the stunning effort by 32-year-old Jason Lezak who swam the anchor leg of the relay. Pulling away at the last second to clinch the victory for the United States, it was a moment that will probably be used to define the desire and drive of the U.S. team for many years to come.

It's cliched I'm sure to say that you're inspired by the efforts being put out by every Olympic team but it is certainly a worthy cliche. The efforts of so many is put on world display and it is inspirational to see 'old' competitors like Lezak or 41-year-old Dara Torres come out and make such a difference against competition that is sometimes nearly half their ages. It's not an easy thing, especially considering the record number of obese and overweight people that are slowly taking over the majority in the world. As happens every Olympics, everyone seems to get that momentary boost of energy encouraging them to want to push themselves as well. Walk into any gym over the next two weeks and as likely as not you'll see lots more people on the treadmills and bikes as they attempt to reach their own goals.

It's always fun to see the team you want to root for win the top accolades but I think it's just as much fun to root for the underdog teams. So many countries from the world send teams and in many cases, these teams get little or no funding or have no resources to properly train their athletes. With minimal facilities or ill-equipped coaches, these teams still come out to the world stage and hope to have a decent showing in order to instill the same pride in their countrymen. I get frustrated when I hear commentators like Bob Costas sitting in their booths talking about how this country will never win a medal or how that country has never won a medal but that their national dresses are nice during the opening ceremonies. Countries that have a tenth the population of the United States, to say nothing of how much the GDP is, still manage to send athletes to at least try. They may not have the conditioning or ability but where would anybody's athletes be if they didn't have the proper training?

It's easy for us to show the overwhelming victories but I think NBC is doing a little better this time in showing the competitions from other countries as well. I can remember back in 1996 when the United States hosted the games in Atlanta how there was so much hype around some events and competitors and then if that competitor failed to even make it through the qualification rounds, that particular event would never be shown or mentioned again. It's great to see the tops of the medal boards but I want to see the countries that have won their first Gold's too. A big deal was made about the fact that Iraq and Georgia (two countries undergoing devastating wars at present) have sent delegations. I haven't seen a single one. Maybe it isn't in the interest of the majority of us out there, but they still deserve recognition too.