Who knew there was an Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs? I love the Olympics. I do. I love the competition, learning about the athletes from all over the world. I love women’s figure skating and the memories of watching it with my now grown up daughter.
I was watching the Biggest Loser last night. Don’t laugh. It’s a great show. Really great. Anyway, they went to the training center in Colorado to train with the Olympians. But I was sad. I didn’t know there was an Olympian training village. While I recognize that US Olympic athletes no longer train in their backyards rising from training obscurity to the height of the three-tiered stand with a gold medal around their neck, it never occurred to me they train in an old Air Force Base at the expense of those of us who donated money to the Olympic Committee.
Do you think Kenya has an Olympic Center like ours? I will not feel quite as good about our gold medals now that I know there is a leg up that big being an American athlete. As I said, I’m not stupid, and I did realize we have assistance, but if I’d known how much assistance, I might have trained harder when I was a swimmer in the sixth grade. Ok, that’s a lie. My skin was wrinkly and dry when I swam, and the Lake Erie Pepsi Cola Swim Team never really singled me out as a winner the way they did Buzzy Haggerty, my friend who joined the same time I did. I never really loved swimming back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth. So I respect those that do it over and over and over and over again. Actually, that’s a lie too. I sometimes think they must be stupid. Michael Phelps? He swims eight hours a day, eats a lot (that’s cool but not exactly intellectually stimulating), sleeps and apparently goes to the bathroom. But if he’s honest he probably pees in the pool. Let’s get real.
I was talking to my Uncle yesterday, who is a sailor – a commodore actually at his yacht club of old, and he was saying that Jessica’s quest as the youngest person around the world is tainted by the fact that she’s not really doing it herself. She has people behind the scenes calling the shots, deciding her course, plotting the weather, and she is really just along for the ride. Not the same as days gone by without GPS systems. Well, he’s right of course, and it reminds me of the Olympics and our leg up that means we are really graduate athletes competing with sixth graders in some cases who don’t have the same base line from which they begin.
Ok, I’m not a Debbie Downer right? I will still watch, but I’m going to root for Jamaica’s Bob Sledding Team with a new knowledge that they probably came further than our guys.
Let the games begin.
i have always think the Olympics are far from fair having worked three of them. I remember being in Atlanta at the long distance running meet – the stadium was fill until the normal winners – china, US, canada, etc – they finished and the stadium literally cleared out. My friends and I stayed an extra hour and fifteen minutes and waited for the Kenya guy to cross the finish because everyone left and we felt so bad for him, cheering like lunatics when he crossed the finish and this guy had a grin from ear to ear because of the handful of us who stayed and cheered – he bowed, did a victory dance and threw us kisses. Later we learned he trained only on a beach and trained barefoot because running shoes are way too costly and he would go through too many training – no trainer….and of course his family could not come as the travel cost would have cost what they spend on food for a year. The Olympics are a joke. Money wins the Olympics which feeds personal ability – not the reverse. I won’t even watch anymore. It’s not fair game. But I thank my running friend from Kenya for teaching me a profound lesson in life that day and I think of him often – the winner may get the trophy but the true winner sometimes comes in last.