The Olympics are almost over for another four years. If there is any silver lining in being cooped up in a hotel/hospital room is that there is not that much to do. I would never sit down and watch hours on hours of TV especially not day after day. But yet here I am with the TV on most days. Sometimes it is background but sometimes I watch glued to the TV.

It should come as no surprise that I am a fan of the Olympics. I wrote about it as I was traveling in 2022. That was another occasion where I didn’t have much to do except flip the TV on at the hotel. This goes all the way back to my first exposure in 1984. While I didn’t see much of it for various reasons it sowed the seeds for a lifetime of fandom.

Here is what I have seen so far. It appears to me that the United States has lost its complete dominance of the summer games. If you go back a few years ago to the golden era of Micheal Phelps who won everything that he entered, it seemed like the US could not lose. These games, I am watching gold medal favorites land Broze medals.

The media likes to skew the overall results by posting the US having the most medals of any country. When you look at the breakdown of medals, the US does not have the the most golds, They have triple the bronze to gold (side note: I am writing this a week before it posts). I see a much more equitable distribution of talent than I have ever have in the past.

Of course I am always going to root for the US first. But, part of what I love about the Olympics is the human interest aspect. There was a story about some divers from Mexico that paid their own way to get there and promised to auction any medals as proceeds to repay debt on the trip. Fortunately, somebody stepped up on their behalf but this is the will and the drive to sacrifice everything for a chance.

I have already watched so much that I have seen events I have never seen before. I caught fencing for the first time. I watched equestrian riding, triathlon, water polo and rugby for the first time. My son played rugby one year. I told my wife that I have forgotten more about rugby that I currently know. I won’t say that I get it totally know but seeing teams that know what they are doing kind of make sense now. It always seemed like sort of senseless melee when middle schoolers were playing.

I don’t know if I have a favorite event. Like a lot of things in my life, I admire people that are passionate about what they do. At this point, I am more than double the age of most of the people that have dedicated their lives to a specific pursuit. That means that I have been out of shape longer than they have been alive. But, perception is reality and to them, this is everything.

I used to have infinite will power. I could set my mind and sacrifice until the end of the earth. Some of that is still buried in my somewhere but unfortunately for me, I have never been much of an athlete no matter how much I willed and sacrificed for it. What that process taught me was that anything reasonably achievable could be accomplished with a plan and work. That part I still have. I just had to go after the right goals that fit my abilities.

As the Olympics wrap up, it seems like our banishment to Portland is going to end as well. The trends and motions that the doctors are making leads me to believe that we are a few days from going home. It may not feel as good as winning a gold medal but I am feeling like a million bucks in anticipation of this experience being over. I will take this change in perspective that is watching the Olympics to pass time to really enjoying it while it lasts.

End Your Programming Routine: I am actually surprised that my wife has had the Olympics on nearly continuously. It certainly is something different than binge watching all the shows that she normally watches. We haven’t talked about it, but I think that we kind of feel the same way about the human interest. We are not 100% different, but pretty close. Finally something that we can agree on.