chelsea cookThere are many things, in today’s world, that are just too touchy to talk about. For instance: U.S. politics.  Years ago I told you that I wouldn’t go there but there are so many funny things that happen daily that it is hard to keep that pledge. (insert big sigh here) Our current presidential campaign is so huge that it even over shadowed the Olympics. being an Olympic freaky fan, I just find that hard to believe. Then after thinking rationally for perhaps 30 seconds, OK, I believe it.
But the US of A has won 84 Olympic medals; 28 Gold, 28 Silver and 28 Bronze. How about that for “spreading out the field.” There have been many highlights and will probably be a few more as, at this writing, the Olympics have a few days yet to run. Some athletes just totally dominate their field and it pays off for them. Ursain Bolt is the fastest (known) human as he has proved several times in this Olympics and in the World games (which are hardly mentioned over here). He is the most popular and recognized person in his whole country. There is one caveat to that, Jamaica's population is about the size of Kansas. Physically Jamaica would fit inside Kansas more than one time but I wouldn’t wish Kansas onto anybody..  However, Bolt is also recognized worldwide and will be a celebrity wherever he goes because it isn’t everyday one gets to see the world’s fastest human. And he will be celebrated for a long time - until he loses a couple of races and then the next runner will be a mega-star.
Michael Phelps, of the USA, had to buy a new suitcase to get all his medals home. Rumor has it that he was not going to be allowed to board a US bound airplane as his new suitcase would set off alarms at the airport. I shudder to think what it would be like for him if he had to return through Los Angeles. Oh, if he and Simone Biles tried to board the same plane, it probably could not take off for all the weight of their combined medals. I understand that gold is very heavy.
But not everything was gold for the US athletes. The US runner competing against Bolt in the one hundred meter race came in second. A certain public figure would castigate him severely as a loser because of his failure. After all, he was two one hundredths of a second behind. Hmmp, maybe he shouldn’t even have run if he was going to be beaten by one zillionth of an inch - or a centimeter. (I am an American, we don’t speak metric like the ret of the world).
But seriously folks, I have enjoyed every minute I could watching the Olympics. To see the incredible things some of these athletes can do just blows what I have left of a mind. The U S men’s gymnasts did not score very well and sometimes looked like they had partied hard the night before, but they were amazing anyway. A teeny tiny Chinese girl gymnast li=looked as if she had springs on her feet. She could do a double twisting triple turning quadruple somersault and when she finally returned to Earth, she bounced back up for another flip. AND- she didn’t even win gold.
Watching any of the gymnastic events always got my heart pumping. Yessir, even the Russian gymnast were worth watching. Vladimir couldn’t provide as many ways to trade altered samples for their samples so some of them actually hadn’t taken drugs for at least a week, Performance enhancing drugs, that is. When the female Russian athletes had to shave before a race or flipping around on the bars or pommel, one may become suspicious. But at this Olympics all the structors were not completed in time to provide the Russians with those magic doors they had at the Sochi games. Well, actually most of their athletes were banned and got in trouble because the officials got caught switching samples. Ah yes, this from a country which invaded another country and then said it was because the people of the invaded country wanted them to. Russians seem to follow only the rules they want to and then make up rules for them. Not a big fan of dictators.
But not even that could dim the joy of the rest of the world. Maybe part of it was the competing athletes and spectators did not have to deal with the total arrogance of the Russians. That may have been part but just getting together with the best in the world was a great reward for those participating. For us couch quarterbacks, we could cheer as loud as we wanted and cheer our athletes to victory. OK, loud only if it wasn’t late at night.