On the podium at the Winter Olympics

I love the Winter Olympics, and they'll be starting in just a few weeks.  Woo Hoo!

I enjoy them more than the Summer Olympics because the events seem much more exotic, at least to this Texas boy.  I mean, I can swim, just not as fast as Michael Phelps.  And I can run, just not as fast as that gazelle from Jamaica.  I've thrown a shot put, and somehow avoided squashing my own feet.  Ride a bicycle....check.  And I've been on parallel bars, too....I even managed a non-lethal dismount.  Been there, done that.  *thank you....thank you very much*

But I've never been on a bobsled. (I've never even seen a boblsed.)   I think that would be a hoot!  I'd be happy just to be the #4 guy, sitting back there holding on for dear life. 

Or the luge.  I'd love to give that a try.  Even if I couldn't steer, I would think you'd just bounce off the sides of that chute a little and let gravity do the rest.  Right?

Skating....OK, I have done that. ( We have ice skating rinks inside malls here.)  But I didn't go very fast.  In fact, if I'd been going that slow on a bicycle I would have fallen over.

Oooo....downhill skiing!  I can't imagine what it would be like to be going 80mph on skis!

The one event that most appeals to me, though, is ski jumping.  It combines my fascination with flying and my love of mountains and (no offense Yankee friends) snow.

Imagine stepping out onto that incline thing and getting up a head of steam and at the end, giving it a supreme spring and....

....then you're flying.  :)  How cool would that be?  I wonder how those guys got started?  Think I could do it?

Sure, I doubt my form would be all that good at first.

I'm sure it's not easy.  Still, how hard could it really be?

 I mean, gravity will see to it that you get to the bottom, one way or another.

*gulp*  Or, I could just sit in my den and watch the Olympics on TV.  

 Just like I've been doing ever since 1960.  Yeah, let's go with that.  They can just mail me my medal later.  (Besides, I don't think I'd look very good in Spandex.)  

I can't wait!  :)

S

They didn't think this through very well

We're days away from the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.  I personally prefer the Winter Olympics because to this Texas boy, ski jumping and bobsledding and downhill skiing are pretty exotic sports.  The Summer Olympics with its running and swimming and spear chucking is something kids around here do from the age of 3 on.  Well, we don't start chucking spears until 6, but...it just doesn't seem that exotic.   With a couple of notable exceptions:

Gymnastics....I love watching the girls and guys jump 10 feet in the air flatfooted, then do 8 flips with 6 twists before they hit the ground standing up.  Dang....that's impressive!  And swinging around those uneven parallel bars, bending themselves into shapes that would put me in the hospital....again, impressive!

Women's Beach Volleyball....I love watching tall, svelte, tan girls wearing bikinis bouncing a ball over a net.  Actually I love watching tall, svelte, tan girls wearing bikinis just standing there!  


Unfortunately I don't think the International Olympic Committee thought things through very well when they awarded the 2012 Games to London.  Not because it isn't a great city.  It is!  It's a magnificent city I'd love to go back to again and again.   No, because it's too cold for the women's beach volleyball players to wear their traditional bikinis.  I've heard that instead of bikinis they'll be wearing the beachwear equivalent of long johns.  The athletes say with temps in the 60's they'll need to keep their muscles warm to prevent injury, hence the cover up.

I'm sorry, but this just ain't right!

S