Monday, August 13, 2012

Goodbye, London Olympics

These past few weeks have been so much fun cheering Team USA in so many events.  I will admit, I was hard-core Olympics Girls for about the first 10 days... and then I hit a little Olympic overload.  That is why it is so nice the the Summer Olympics are four years a part... I will have plenty of time to recover and be overjoyed for the 2016 Olympics in Rio in 4 years.

Its crazy for me to think back and think of the Olympics marking the passage of time.  Eight years ago I watched the Summer Olympics in Canada (it was much harder to get very excited about them when all of Canadian television was covering the Canadian athletes).  It was the summer between my Sophomore and Jr. year of college and I went to Canada with my college boyfriend to spend a week with his family at their summer cottage.  That was only eight years ago!

Four years ago I watched all of the Olympic action while I was working on my second Masters thesis at my parents' home in Michigan.  I was gearing up for my last semester at Vandy, and I spent about three weeks at home between my summer classes ending and the fall classes starting.  I wanted to watch every moment of the Olympics, so I told myself I could only have the television on during the daytime if I was also doing research for my thesis.  I got a lot of work done in those 3 weeks and I watched a lot of Olympics.  I remember watching all of Michael Phelps' eight gold-medal-winning races with my parents.  A few of the really close races had all of us yelling at the television and cheering out loud.  That was only four years ago!

These Olympics were the first Summer Olympics that I watched as a married woman.  These were the first Summer Olympics that I think my hubby watched more than an hour or so.  He didn't know the Olympics could be so addicting until I had it on all the time.  This is also the first Olympics where Olympic coverage was available 24-7, plus facebook and twitter and the internet... we had facebook four years ago, and the internet eight years ago (also, facebook was invented eight years ago... but my school didn't have it until later that fall), but I don't remember these social media playing such a role in news and in sharing the spirit of the Olympics.

Where will I be in 2016 when I'm watching the Rio Olympics?  Which athletes will be back?  Which new stars will appear?

Until then, Summer Olympians, thanks for a great two weeks.  Thank you for years of training all leading to a few days of competition.  Thank you for representing our country and for doing your best.  Thank you for those of you willing to do it again, starting tomorrow, preparing for 2016.

I'll sign off with some of my favorite Olympics commercials:













Did make it through those without crying?  I didn't.

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1 comment:

  1. Sooo soo sad they are over. I seriously am depressed. I told my boyfriend I might need a fun gift to cheer me up ;)!

    xoxo

    ReplyDelete

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