My Hero of the XXX Olympiad, Oksana Chusovitina

This may be first, a follow-up to a previous posting. Four years ago I wrote about the Soviet-born German gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, who at 33 was still competing in elite-caliber gymnastics, when most of her peers were teenagers. I was awe-struck by her story. I rooted for her, and deeply cheered when she took the silver medal on vault in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Before her set, I vividly remember the announcers commenting that history would be made today. She was an inspiration and left such a mark on me that I was still telling me about her prior to the start of these games. Surely nothing these games, I thought, could top a 33 year-old gymnast.

Except, of course, a 37 year-old gymnast.

Chusovitina is back, at 37, to compete in the 2012 London games - and she's expected to medal. She wants one more, with her son there to watch, before she retires to next coach for Uzbekistan's team. I'll look forward to cheering for her again.

#nbcfail

Give a Christmas present to somebody on December 20th and then there are only two kinds of people: the ones (like me) who will insist, religiously, on waiting until the 25th as Christmas presents are for not until Christmas morning.  Opening them earlier, moreover, will just leave you with one less to open on Christmas, a smaller pile, a little less joy that day.  Isn't the anticipation half the joy?  The other kind of people (for example, Roberta) will without hesitation rip into the wrapping paper, not being able to stand the anticipation, the waiting, the not knowing what the gift would be.

There is an equivalent for Olympic games which are time zones ahead (specifically ahead of me, by the way - it's always local time where the games are).  Atlanta (Eastern Standard) was the last "current" Olympics in 1996, but since then it's been Sydney, Athens, Beijing, and London.  For these, the main events we watch in prime time have already happened.  1996, Atlanta's year, was also the first steps of the Internet age, and I do not recall that the results then being easily available before the events aired.  Now, in 2012, I have to actively avoid most media during the day so that the results are not "spoiled" for me half a day before I'm able to watch them on NBC.  The United States men's gymnastics team is about to compete for gold now.  I"m not even sure I'll be able to stay awake to watch and see how they do.  It'd be nice to be able to grab video online, fast forward through, and see the results.  The results are there, of course, I could know them in ten seconds through a Google search.  I could, but I'm just not that kind of person, remember?

There are times when I would really want to watch online.  Today in women's volleyball the U.S. team beat Brazil and at best I could only follow on Twitter and get score updates every few minutes.  I would also love to see the sports they generally are not showing on television - wrestling, for example.

This isn't possible, this year, due to NBC.  I wasn't expecting how, in this age, live feeds would not be provided (I feel that they were for the Beijing games?).  NBC's website reads "Watch free video of the London 2012 Olympic Games on NBCOlympics.com". Well, not quite.  You need a cable subscription that includes MSNBC, etc., and then on top of that, only, access is free.  To a cable-less guy like me, out of luck.  The pangs of cord-cutting regret I felt on learning only through a cable subscription could I enter the kingdom, "fortunately", quickly evaporated when I heard about how poor the video quality of the are - often very glitchy, if they work at all - though the regular ads that come on it seems have perfect quality.  By the way, this has all been already summarized today already much better than here. A twitter hashtag, #nbcfail, has popped up and makes for fun reading, and gives some sense of revenge against those denying the people their Olympic access.

Anyways, those complaining of tape delay get a reprieve next time around: Rio de Janeiro's Olympics in 2016 will be almost Eastern Standard (one hour ahead in July).  For me personally, however if all goes as I hope, it won't matter: I want to be there in person.  It might be the best chance I have, until Norwalk, CT wins an Olympic big...

What the Candidates and Athletes Have in Common

Aside from a lot of sport, I've realized during the Olympics coverage that I'm also watching a lot of commercials.  Fortunately (or due to the expected audience), many have an almost Super Bowlesque quality.  However, I've also noticed I'm watching lots of political ads.  What cruel timing that years of the summer games coincide with presidential election years.  And I'm in Massachusetts, not even a swing state.  The one playing most often, supporting Barack Obama, features Mitt Romney singing "America the Beautiful" terribly off-key.  How do they expect us to support Team USA with that in our heads?

Another category of commercials relays how hard the athletes have worked.  Hitting the pool at dawn, alone with the weights, nursing injuries, etc.  Well, duh.  Honestly, I'm not fully sure of such ads' exact message.  The sacrifice the athletes have made?  Hopefully not that with enough hard work "anyone" could become an Olympic athlete (the more common non-athletic version are variations on "you, too, could be rich").  Certainly not true, that hard work, that total dedication every day over years  is necessary, but not sufficient.  How many unknown unnamed countless others have put in the same number of hours of those who will be standing on the podiums?  They are not in London this week.  Their times may be within seconds of the world record for all we know.  But there are just only so many spots on the national team.

I thought of a New York Times Magazine article a few years ago profiling, essentially, the machine that identifies basketball talent.  It starts with preteens.  Across the country, there must be - how many? - untold numbers of kids, spending everyday shooting baskets at a hoop, hoping its the start of a path that will eventually lead to a pro contract.  For most nothing will ever come of it.  Some will effectively win the lottery,  go the NBA, and will then be able for the camera to recall those long hours alone every day in the gym practicing free throws, and testify how worth it it was.  But we'll never see all the others who took the same number of shots and have nothing to show for a wasted youth.

So price of a even the possibility of Olympic success is, probably, the majority of a hopeful's young life in devotion to the perfection of their sport.

The price of a president campaign?  Presidential candidates spend hundreds of millions of dollars.  Millions even to lose the primary.  You'd better be prepared to spend an obscene amount just to run and most likely, statistically, it will all be for nothing.

For both athletes and political candidates, it's an all-pay auction.  Everyone is putting forward, above some threshold, an exorbitant payment.  Yet history won't remember most, only the few winners. 

The difference?  It's the athletes own time, their loss of a "normal" life.  The political candidates funds are usually largely donated - it's instead someone else's loss.  They're not really sacrificing.

Four Year Sports Famine, Two Week Feast

I don't watch professional sports.  I lose out on a great deal of social currency since I can't talk about how the Red Sox are doing.  Still, I prefer the hours, cumulative days - weeks? months? - of my life I'm saving.

I watch the the Super Bowl for the commercials, I'd go to baseball games only to eat hot dogs, pro basketball is probably fixed, I went to a college without a football team, I watched its basketball team only in what I considered for pay due to my pep band scholarship, golf is elitist - and boring, tennis is also elitist (though less so) - and elitist (though less so), I'm American, so soccer, cricket, rugby....well.....If I ever did I would only watch hockey for the fights, boxing is sleazy, MMA is ridiculous, almost two decades ago I came to terms with pro wrestling being fake, I'd only watch car racing for the crashes, demolition derby races don't seem to come out here, and spectators of professional video game or poker players need to seriously reexamine their lives.


I've regularly worn the apparel of teams for which I couldn't name a single player.


And with a passion I hate the smug, sportscasting analysts who, if they're not reminiscing of their past glory, are selling their product through insinuating your effeminacy if you weren't to buy in, since real men watch sports (specifically, in order: football, basketball, baseball, and sometimes hockey.  Nothing else).

But I love the Olympics, and during the summer games run every four years I make up for all the sports I pass on by completely binging during its two week run.  While there are some criticisms of the modern games, in general I believe they support the amateur spirit and dream of a united world.  It's far more satisfying to cheer on athletes out of patriotism than to give millionaires more money.  Most of all, its largely sports stripped down to their fundemental level, utterly purged of BS.  No abstruse, complicated rules.  See that line there?  Who ever crosses it first, wins.  That's it.

An Olympic Opening, 2012

Tonight, despite thick, under-conditioned air, I finished the 60 minutes at 7.8mph on the treadmill goal I set for myself at the gym.  I distinctly remember wanting to quit at 15, 20, 30, 45, and once I got to 50min, I knew I would finish.  Even at 53min, when my stomach was knotting, I pushed through (I wouldn't really vomit, would I?).  I counted down the last 90 seconds.  I thought of an athlete in the final 10 seconds of their gold medal hope.  When I finally finished, I was so happy I did it.  I immediately resolved to write this so I could read this again.  It's always worth it to finish.

The opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics is airing on NBC as I write this.  I've already caught the bug.  I know how I'll be spending the next two weeks.

Tonight on Facebook I posted Jamie McGregor Smith's feature in the New York Times Lens Blog, from her  work "Borrow, Build, Abandon", on the state of the 2004 Athens Olympics stadiums, which only eight years later have fallen into neglected decay.  How quickly splendid becomes forgotten.  I remembered my Latin, sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes the glory of the world).

Also: the opening ceremony featured Caliban's "Be not afeard" speech from The Tempest.  I love the line "...when I waked I cried to dream again".  I remember December dreams of my youth receiving an 8-bit Nintendo for Christmas, what I wished for more than anything, and what my mother would never buy, only to wake up to the creeping horror that I still didn't have a Nintendo.  So, five years ago, today, my youngest brother Scott died.  Regularly since then (and just again the night before last) I dreamt he was able to somehow "come back" and rejoin us the living.  It didn't usually happen, he said, but it did then, and we could hang out again and I'd be able to savor the second chance we were given.  We'd be able to just hang out again, talk, and I'd have my brother again, and I was so relived and thankful.  But soon I woke up.

It was a dream that was sad to wake up from.  I miss you, Scott.