Olympic Spirit
8/8/21 This year, our faculty retreat will be at a winery instead of some hotel conference center, lol. Ladies and gentleman, get some wine before going to fight with the covid :). A fully opened college campus during pandemic is like a front line. Good luck!
It was a very exciting last half a month — watching the olympics! Olympic did change my life! See, yesterday, there are 3 newbies joining me at rock climbing after watching the olympic climbing events 🙂 Rock climbing is kind of expensive and maybe a bit niche compared to sports like running and bicycling. So, for a long period of time, I have a hard time to find a stable partner for belaying. Hope the newbies can keep coming 🙂
Savory moments in Olympics: Philippine got a gold medal for weight lifting. The athlete has to lift water jags during pandemic for practice. The commentator said “those water jag turned into the gold medal” Haha. ROC high jump champion Maria Lasitskene was chill and elegant like a model after every jump. After getting the gold medal, she cried loud for a long time like crazy. Syria athlete got a medal in weightlifting and showed a picture of his friend who died in the war. Chinese diver Quan wanted to make money through Olympics to cure her mother. After she got the gold, all the rich relatives drove luxury cars to visit her family. St Paul Sunisa Lee got female gymnastic all-around gold after Simon Biles’ quitting drama. The camera gave many shots to her dad, who just fell and paralyzed in an accident.
I competed long distance running in high school. So I like to watch long distance events. I remember that in my first year, I was the second in 800 and 1500 meters. The dramatic thing is that our champion did not move to year 2 because failing in her academics. Then I was the champions for the two races every year since after. I think my best for 800 meters back then was a little over 3 mins, about 1ish min behind the olympic record. People had different styles to handle long distance. In 800 and 1500 meters female swimming, champion Katie Ledecky lead from the beginning to the end. In 800 and 1500 meters male swimming, champion (Bobby Finke , US) is more fun to watch. He was just tucked in the first group the whole time until the very last 50 meters. He would use the speed of a sprint at the end of a very tiring long distance. I never can do that so I am very impressed. Wow, so much power, Finke!
Teams China and USA: those are the two of my favorite teams. I am impressed by how China can keep dominate in those traditional events like diving. The female Champion Quan got so many perfect 10s in her 10 meters diving. She said, “there are only total 5 actions that I need to work them well” 🙂 Yes, making things simple is a way to success! I am also impressed that for so many variety of events, there are US athletes competing in finals. Although there are certainly many fat non-atheletic people in US, there are equivalently many people who love sports of different kinds. You can see runners on the street four seasons even in Iowa. The outlets and department stores are dominated by sporting clothes and goodies. I have a hard time to find a professional shirt, but the cheap sporting clothes are everywhere.
Competing in style: Athletes cheers for their opponents and congratulate them sincerely. For example, in female gymnastic balance beam, you can see how Sunisa Lee and Simon Biles cheered for Chinese athletes. I found this “competing in style” in my Frisbee leagues too. The Frisbee team is a mixture of men and women. One time, our team only came two female, and the other team had 4. But the whole time, they only used 2 same female. Another time, I was “flying” out to catch the Frisbee and fell. When I stood up, the Frisbee dropped out of my hand. I was ready to hand over the Frisbee, but the other team indicates that I should continue 🙂 There is also a time when a frisbee arrived at the person in front of me, and I was suddenly yelling something loud (are you insane, W :D). My team head found me and told me that I should not do this next time. I sincerely agree that I was out of style 🙂
Personal best: I first time see PB on the scoring board, which is cool. A 38 years old Belgian marathon runner cried hard after finishing at her personal best, achieving 28th place. The Aussie female high jump athlete was so excited after passing 2:02m, her personal best. Indeed, so much fun to pursuit a PB in sports. A few weeks ago, one person watched me to do rock climbing and said, “you never fall, so you did not push yourself hard enough”. I agree! Though I don’t plan to pursue extreme weights in weight lifting. Don’t need some big muscles, haha.
Globalization and nationalism: I think the two should have a balance. If you don’t have any nationalism, you will certainly lose some excitement to watch the sports. I found many people here don’t care much about the Olympics. The US basketball team shout to the Americans after their champion”to act like it (like Americans)”. The top US baseball players are now busy at the professional leagues and cannot compete in Olympics. Of course, I am glad to see that in the US forums, people had thoughts for those poor countries, countries that used to be weak in Olympics but improved. In the Chinese forums, most of the comments are about winning the matches for China. See the culture difference?!
Eye candies: It is pleasant to see so many beautiful athletes (Chinese new generation are especially looking good and promising :)). On the tracks, the movement is so charming, so do the trending hairstyles. Lots of people in US are the fans of watching beach volleyball. Team sports are indeed breathtaking. I was shouting loud to myself in the TV room late at night like a psycho 🙂
Some fun moments watching Olympics in Beijing: I remember Haruki Murakami wrote a book about Sydney Olympics. Maybe I should write something for Beijing Olympics?! which is ancient years ago 😀
Merci Tokyo, Bienvenue à Paris!