How I love the Olympics! Where else, during prime time no less, do we get to see extraordinarily chiseled bodies swaddled in spandex leaving precious little to the imagination? I dub thee SPORN (sports + porn).
The games do weird things to people. You find yourself tearing up when you see the lone Algerian cross-country skier cross the finish line even though everyone has moved on to the luge. How often do you get to say, "luge"? Olympic games are a time of unbridled, if unnecessarily vocal, displays of patriotism - Go Canada Go! U-S-A, U-S-A!...but everyone still agrees that Swedish chicks are the hottest, and every girl wants the bad boy snowboarder, but will take the nice biatholete home to mom. You find yourself looking up Uzbekistan on a map. Competitors look as though they'll eat each other for breakfast, but will high five one another once the battle is over. Lots of yelling, hugging, fist pumping, crying...good god, it's every emotion, good and bad, magnified and it even has an official song (for the Americans out there, the Canadian network airing the games has a theme song "I Believe" which plays every milisecond. There is a bounty on the heads of the writers...)
For some of the atheletes, this is the moment they've trained for, sweated for, bled away their youth for. For others who've been on this stage before, it is the last kick at the can, the last hit they will get from the Olympic Bong. But look at them at the starting line, the gate, center ice - they all have the same look in their eyes. Focused, determined, ready...and praying to please, please, please don't fuck up.
I've never participated in sports. Well yeah, did all the gym-y like things in school: some track (could run ok, and strangely proficient at hurling myself over a high-jump bar), gymnastics (uneven bars - YIKES, IT'S HIGH! Balance beam - YOW, IT'S NARROW!), and failed miserably at every team sport imaginable. Put a base/basket/volley ball in my hand and you might as well hand me a grenade. WhatdoIdo? WhatdoIdo? There was one "sport" that I did excel at and only one sphere that was my friend. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...
DODGEBALL!!
Why hasn't this been recognized as an official sport?? It combined two of my few strenghths: my inate sense of bloodlust and the ability to duck. (Bloodlust, you may ask? Remember how I told you of my temper? Dodgeball was a way of getting it out of my system. I never aimed for anyone's head...I don't think). I could whip it at an opponent with crazed accuracy, but I could also take and absorb a hit to the middle no problem. We'd play other schools and I'd stand cocky as all hell, tossing the ball between my hands, looking for potential victims. I wouldn't aim at cowering guys or girls. That wouldn't have been "sporting". I'd take out my fury on the equally cocky, the preeners at the other end. I was deadly and dangerous and fiercely competitive. And admired. Bit of a rockstar, actually. And man, that felt good. Yup, those were good times...and then my girlfriends told me boys didn't like girls who were good at sports. Or more specifically, better than they were at sports. I put down the ball and picked up a mascara wand. My sporting career was over. Grade 7 was just around the corner...
I love the Olympics. I have a mad bunch of admiration for all those guys and dolls who have sacrificed so much, who's families have done without so that they may attain their aspirations. They lay it all out, they take the occassional foolish risk, but only because they want it soooo much. They are wonderful to watch and there is something poignant about their young faces, so driven and hopeful. They live with the pain that their sport may inflict because they know, they've heard, that when you stand on the podium you don't feel the pain anymore. All you feel, they say, is the medal resting on your chest.
LiliLaLarge
No comments:
Post a Comment