2008 Olympics

It's rolled around again...... probably the most costly and overrated sports event ever. That said, my family has always enjoyed the Olympics. We watch the swimming, diving, water polo, gymnastics and anything else except women's weight lifting and women's beach volleyball. *cough, choke*

We were going to update from our regular basic cable to standard just for the Olympics... but, amazingly enough, our cable provider canceled our order for us. (Apparently they canceled it because we ordered a faster internet connection at the same time and our modem won't support the faster internet, so they canceled the entire order.) I was all for ditching them all together and getting another company in time for the Olympics.... but the higher powers (my parents) were unenthusiastic.

So we've been watching what we get on NBC and USA. We really enjoyed watching both our men's and women's water polo teams beat China. That was cool. The diving was neat, but we were disappointed that both of the synchro teams that we've seen so far haven't medaled. Especially since Ariel Rittenhouse is our friends' cousin. The gymnastics has been fairly uninteresting so far. Probably because we've only seen the prelims. The swimming has been the most exciting.

Last night my whole family was gathered in our living room to watch the 4 x 100m Free relay. The last 50 we were all shouting, and when Lezak just out-touched the French guy, we were all screaming along with Michael Phelps. Winning is really exciting. Winning that close is extremely exciting. Beating a team that planned to "smash" you is crazy awesome exciting! And they didn't mess up our anthem for the medal ceremony. *pumps fist in air* *realizes that girls always look pathetic fist pumping* *claps enthusiastically and jumps up and down*

I think what I've personally enjoyed most so far though, (besides screaming like a maniac when Lezak nailed the gold medal) is watching Natalie Coughlin swim. I guess she's my favorite because her main stroke is my favorite: backstroke. She's kinda become my swimming "hero" and that's saying something since I usually don't make heros of celebrity types. Notice that I said 'kinda' and 'hero' is in quotes.... which denotes something closer to admiration than hero worship. Mostly my estimation will be displayed in my attempts to emulate her strokes.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of this week, hopefully seeing Natalie Coughlin and the rest of the Americans taking some more medals... preferably gold. :D

~Lizzie