Olympic Fever

I love the Olympics.

I can’t get enough of the games and the awesome athletes.  I don’t want to miss a single minute, so I tape everything.  There is so much coverage that sleep is not an option.

Haven’t we all dreamt of being in the Olympics?  Sports were a huge part of my up-bringing, and being an Olympian was as close to godliness as you could get.  They were the celebrities of my adolescence.  You couldn’t be more iconic or heroic than an Olympian.

Oh, how I wanted to be one!  If only there had been a “400 Meter Walking On Hands” or a “Hit a Dead Tennis Ball Against a Wall with an Old Wooden Racquet” event.  I know I could have represented my country and won gold.

Watching the Olympics every four years was a big deal in my house.  We’d all gather around the old Zenith, fix the antenna and sit as close to the screen as possible.  Little did we know then that my older brother, Andrew, would grow up to make the US National Under-19 soccer team.

He was 18 and playing for the USA in Russia in the 1980s.  He went behind the Iron Curtain!  He played for the U.S. against Germany, France, Russia and Belgium.  The team flew him around the world!  Oh, how I bragged and bragged about him every chance I got.

He was young and talented.  I, on the other hand, was young with no talent.

In high school, I got pretty good at skiing, but in my pursuit to be Olympic-worthy, I forgot to learn to stop and ended up like the guy in the “agony of defeat” part of ABC’s Wide World of Sports introduction.  There was no “thrill of victory” on that trip down the mountain, but there sure was a broken leg, three broken ribs and a cracked sternum.

Skiing for team USA didn’t happen.  But then again, I was nowhere near the level of awesomeness you need to be able to compete.

I can’t believe the stuff they are doing nowadays in the Winter Games.  I had never even imagined it possible to do a “Double McTwist 12” (Olympic snowboarder – and San Diegan – Shaun White’s new signature trick, the one that crams three horizontal rotations inside two vertical flips). That’s just insane.  But really, really cool.

As I watch the Olympics now, I’ll admit I still yearn to be an Olympian.  I indulge myself and imagine what it would be like being that kind of athlete, my body and my mind in sync, winning a gold medal.  But it’s not in the cards for me. And it definitely won’t ever make my bucket list.

Now that I think about it, though, I have other labels that make me just as happy.  I’m a wife, mother, daughter, sister, auntie, friend, and breast cancer survivor. It’s not the Olympics, but it’s awesome, anyway.

You can watch Shaun White and other Olympic hopefuls in the Men's Snowboarding Half-Pipe qualifications, semi-finals and finals on February 17.