Olympics

Every four years (two if you count the winter) when the Olympics rolls around I always start out pretty blase. Even when the Olympics were in my home town, in fact I may have even been more blase about them then. But then inevitably I happen to tune in just to see what they look like and suddenly I'm hooked. It's amazing how nationalistic I can get with just the slightest provocation. Last night the French who were favored to win the men's 4x100 freestyle relay told the media that they were going to "smash" the US. And down to like the last ten meter it looked like that's exactly what was going to happen (rather they were going to win, smash implies something more dramatic), but then in that last few meters the American anchor pulled back nearly a full body length, which is the kind of thing you don't even think is possible while swimming. And right at the end managed to slap the wall 8/100ths of a second before the French anchor and won gold. That was pretty cool.

But it's not just watching the US beat France that's exciting. This morning I was watching the gold medal game for the Men's Team Archery competition between South Korea and Italy. SK got out to an early lead, but then Italy managed to fight back and tie it up going into the final round. But then in the final round one of the Italian archers ended up getting a 7 (Bullseye is 10) and Korea won by 2 points. And you would think how exciting can Archery be? But it was really exciting. Of course now that I'm getting into the Olympics I'm heading to GenCon where I won't be watching any TV, but I guess that's the way it goes.

It's all the Chinese's fault for being so superstitious