The Flame Has Been Extinguished

The Olympics are over and surprisingly I am a little upset with that. I liked having the option of turning on the TV at any hour, any day and getting to see a sporting event that was not only some what interesting but occasionally compelling. I don’t know why it was compelling, there is no reason for it, I wouldn’t choose to watch fencing or water polo at any other time, but for 2 weeks I did, and enjoyed it as well. I guess I just gave into the Olympic spirit for 2 weeks and just enjoyed.
I am resigned to the fact that yes I am sure either within weeks, months or even years that there will be some sort of drug controversy or form of performance enhancing scandal and that yes the Chinese gymnasts were in fact not 16 nor even 14 and maybe not even double digits at all but that is OK.
There were a record number of world records broken, I believe in the neighborhood of 43. The pool was “juiced” the track was “juiced” the air didn’t seem to be as much of a factor as first thought.
There was a little bit of everything and there was a little bit for everybody, Triumph of a favorite winning the gold as everyone predicted like with USA’s Beach Volleyball and Basketball, the heartbreak of the favorite placing 8th like with Adam Van Koeverden. The tears of joy from a long shot getting on the podium like with former Russian-now German Oksana Chusovitina at age 33 (twice the age of some competitors and possibly 3 times the age of some of the Chinese gymnasts) who moved to Germany so her son could receive the health care he required. There was also the horrible sportsmanship of the athlete who took off his bronze and threw it to the mat claiming he was not there for 3rd place, or the Cuban who pushed a referee and snap-kicked a judge in the head after he was disqualified from a match-now under a lifetime ban.
After the terrible attack and early and murder of US Men’s Volleyball coach’s in-law the games went on without a hitch or reported incidents.
It is too bad that few will care about diving, table tennis speed walking and badminton for another 4 years but when it is London’s turn in 2012 lets hope for more of what we just got. The bar has been set high, but the athletes are probably high too so i guess it is fitting.
All I know is I enjoyed it and hopefully everyone else did as well.