Olympics junkie

As the Olympic season starts winding down, I look back on the last two weeks and realize that my writing output ground to a halt.  I admit it.  I'm an Olympics junkie.  Normally, I avoid watching sports - many a season I sit in bored disdain listening to people celebrate their favorite team's performance or anguish about the lack thereof.  But the sports demon in me erupts every two years for the Olympics regardless of whether it is summer or winter.

I am an egalitarian vicarious Olympian.  Whatever the event du jour is, I'm into it.  Never seen ski-cross before in my life but the other night I was bobbing and weaving with the turns and the jumps.  I never even knew this sport existed (this is the debut Olympics for ski-cross) and yet I'm living the moments like the most ardent gladiatorial spectator.  The commercial break comes and I roll my eyes at my own antics and the coverage comes back and I'm glued right back there in British Columbia.

There wasn't a US athlete in sight but I was rooting on the frontrunner, until she fell and then I rooted for the next one.  The Canadians, the French, whoever has a good story.  I'm happy that my egalitarianism fits the Olympics.  After all, the national rivalries are there, and yet not.  How many so-called foreign athletes are training in the US?  How many US athletes are training in Europe and elsewhere?  In reality, who cares?  (Besides the politicians, I should say.)  We've heard so many stories of strong trans-national friendships on the various competition tours.  Isn't that the ideal?  Make friends, be friends, experience what the world could be like....if only.

Oh, gag me.  Next I'll be humming Kum Ba Ya....