I can't even.

[ceebee_eebee]

The Olympics is going to be over on Sunday, which shall usher in another deep depression for me. I should be ready for it by now as it shows up every two years, but you know how it is. You never really get used to it. And my loving brother (I'm not kidding, I absolutely adore him in every way) just spent an hour berating me about how I could enjoy race walking and synchronized swimming but not have any interest in Penn State v. Michigan. Well...it's simple. I don't give a flying fuck about popular team sports. I don't care about anyone planning to make a million dollars and drive a hummer and have their face splashed all over magazine covers while fucking supermodels. I care about the dude from Togo who won the bronze in a sport that most people have no idea even exists, or the chick from South Africa who swam the women's open water race with one leg, or the Croatian chick who spent her entire life practicing taekwando and came through to win a medal, or Elvan Abeylegesse from Turkey who won a silver medal in the women's 5000m, or Abhinav Bindra who won India's first ever gold medal despite the fact that they've been participating in the Olympics since 1900, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.....

Women and men and boys and girls who spend hour after painful hour training for a sport that the majority of the world could care less about for nothing more than the love of the sport and the dream of one day being the best. I am choking up just typing this. I LOVE THE OLYMPICS MORE THAN ANY OTHER SPORTING EVENT EVER. Because at its foundation it is the purest, most beautiful, most globally magnificent sporting event ever devised. Excuse me while I go watch some kayaking...

Comments

[happydalek.livejournal.com]

So there *are* people like you out there! I don't think I've ever read a better declaration of why the Olympics is so laudable. I never really considered the human element of it like that. Put that way...it's kinda romantic. For the love of the sport. It's the same kind of mentality that underscores us sci-fi/fantasy geeks. Doing something we love, because we want to, regardless of what people think about it, or us. Indeed, thank you for putting it in this light.

[elyssadc.livejournal.com]

It's the same kind of mentality that underscores us sci-fi/fantasy geeks.

YES!!! I never thought about it that way! Maybe that's part of what I love so much.