Like others, I’ve spent probably too long recently watching the Olympics, which is strange as before I was quite ambivalent about them. I didn’t watch a single second of the Athens Olympics, for too long the summer games had made a dramatic shift from the greatest spectacle on earth to the biggest fraud in history, at least in my mind. But as news trickled out about the positively mind blowing opening ceremony, I thought I’d give this one a go.
And the opening ceremony was mind blowing, especially in HD… From there it rolled right into Michael Phelps obliterating any fool (except one) who dared challenge him. In fact, even though the Olympics is all about the track and field events, I’ve always been more of a fan of the lesser events that get some time to shine in the opening week, like archery, diving, weightlifting, gymnastics, handball, shooting, beach volleyball, cycling. There’s something strangely appealing about 48kg women hoisting 122kg in a clean and jerk, you watch it for the potential for anything to happen (read: nasty injuries) but it’s more amazement at the ease they do such things. Another event that if you’d never seen before, you’d just sit down and watch it for hours was synchronised diving, yes, really… Especially when they bust out the super slow high speed camera replays.
Anyways, that opening weekend we literally vegetated on the sofa for 48 hours straight, it was kinda awesome.
I think it’s been a pretty good Olympics, I haven’t heard much in the way of failed doping tests, and everyone will be talking about Michael Phelps 8 golds (7 world records) and Usain Bolt shattering the 100m and 200m records on his way to two easy golds for a long time. I’m pretty happy that Britain are 3rd in the medal table with (currently) 16 gold, should make the 2012 games in London that much more appealing for some people. Next up is Vancouver in 2010, and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve registered my interest in tickets for that event, they go on sale in October…