Sports are Sportsing...

Are you an Olympics fan? 

I usually watch a little bit of a handful of sports during each set of Olympics. I catch a bit of the gymnasts, a little swimming, a tiny bit of track, maybe some beach volleyball. I try to see all of the USWNT's soccer games, and this year I'll watch the men's team for the first time in 16 years. In the winter I watch most of the US and Canadian hockey games, a little curling, some speed skating and skiing events but not usually enough to be able to tell you who won anything.  

At different times in my life I've watched more.

When I worked for USA Boxing I watched almost all of the boxing events, for instance. I had seen a lot of those boxers at different events leading up to the Olympics and of course I knew our boxers, and wanted to see them do well. I can't remember the last time I watched boxing though, maybe 10 years? But working for the US Olympic movement it was, obviously, a much bigger deal. I saw the athletes at the training facility during training or competition or photo ops. Had lunch in the cafeteria where I saw the weightlifters put away GIANT plates of food and the figure skaters do the math in their heads on how much each bite would "cost" but once you've talked to Apollo Ohno in line for a burger you feel like you are rooting for friend when he hits the ice, so it makes sense that during that stretch of time I was a lot more interested in The Games as a whole. 

And at different times I've watched less.

I know there were lots of years growing up where I probably didn't watch a single event. TV wasn't really big in my house growing up, and we didn't sit down and watch as a family. It wasn't until I was a teenager that we each had our own TVs in our rooms and we would watch TV by ourselves. For me that mostly meant MTV. 

Oddly though, even though I cannot remember ever really paying attention to the Olympics growing up we still all know who the Olympic athletes were. Especially the gymnasts. Though that could have been because a friend's father was a world class gymnast and gymnastics coach, so maybe it was just through osmosis...

We didn't watch the opening ceremonies last night and it sounds like we missed a doozy. But we were at an exhibition soccer match between the Thorns Academy and Wrexham's women's team. The game was fun. Crazy to think how much of a fan base a team from Wales has here in the US but they do. Our young Thorns won 7-0 so I feel a little badly for Wrexham, but it's preseason and we were the last stop on their US tour so they were probably pretty tired as well. I hope they work on their defense and have a good season. 

But...anyway...

We missed the opening ceremonies. I've seen pictures and felt badly for everyone out in the rain. But it looks like they all still had fun. Which is sort of supposed to be the point, isn't it? I mean medals and winning and all that, but getting a large group of people together to play is supposed to be fun, right? It's supposed to increase world camaraderie through sport. I'm not sure that's what it does, but I think that's what it's supposed to do. 

Or it's supposed to have something to do with satanism if you listen to the far right, but I mean, according to them, what doesn't?  

So for the next little stretch nothing will be on TV that you are expecting. People will be talking about things like they are experts when they have no idea what it takes to actually do that thing. A few athletes will rise up and capture everyone's attention. For a few weeks. And the far right will complain and say it's all Biden's fault that it rained during the opening ceremonies that you shouldn't have watched anyway because they were all woke and satanic and stuff and, by the way, we should also blame Kamala because Australia is asserting their dominance in the pool. 

And the news will focus on the games and ignore that Trump said the part about destroying democracy out loud last night. 

Happy Summer Games, everyone!