Good Bye, Old Friend

Sorry for the delay in my "Good-Bye, Old Friend" post.  Sadly, I have a job that requires my attention.  I also have a family and had to re-acquaint myself with my wife after a two week affair with the best athletes in the world.  An unexpected trip out of town caused more delay.

For two weeks and a couple days I gave everything I had to the party in London.  I watched all of the swimming finals, most of the track and field finals, the triathlons, some of the marathon swimming races, some of the marathons, a little synchro, a lot of gymnastics, a lot of volleyball-both indoor and outdoor, some water polo, a lot of women's soccer, very little men's soccer, a little badminton, a little table tennis, judo, BMX, cycling - road and track, trampoline, rhythmic gymnastics, archery, basketball, shooting, canoe and kayak, diving, field hockey, tennis, handball, weightlifting, and, on the final day, a decent amount of the modern pentathlon.  I ignored my wife, blew off my children and generally treated the rest of the world, except for you, as an unnecessary distraction.  Then, in the middle of a very random British concert, it was over.

The end of the Olympics, whether summer or winter, feels to me like an old friend who came to visit has now left.  This is a close friend, who came to visit alone, and is from college, or just after college, when I was still young and single.  We spent much of the time trying to re-live those college or early post-college days, acting like we were once again young and single, with no cares or responsibilities.  We did add a few new things to our repertoire, but generally we acted like the idiots we once were.  After two weeks of this, I need a break.  I am sad my friend left, but I need a little more sleep, a little more routine, and, honestly, a little less fun.  I need to become the 40 year old me with a wife and three kids again, instead of the 23 year old me who could drink until 3 am and sleep until noon.

Although I needed my friend to leave, there is definitely a void in my life now.  Monday night was spent wandering around the house trying to figure out what to do.  (I love my Cowboys, but pre-season football just doesn't cut it for me.)  I am glad for the respite, but I already miss my friend.   The better part of me knows that I can not live with this friend anymore.  He takes too much time and effort, and I just don't have that much energy.  I know he will return in 18 months.  In many ways, I can't wait.

With that said, we do need to wrap things up, so let's get to it.

Reflections on What Has Happened For the Last Day and a Half, see Below for Awards on the Games as a Whole-

1.  Meb got 4th in the Men's Marathon.  It seems to me that the Americans earned a lot of 4th places.  Meb had the right attitude, saying it was the worst place to get in the Olympics, but 4th in the world is pretty good.  I think earning a bunch of 4th places and winning the medal count is kind of like Jack Nicklaus's majors record.  The 18 majors is incredible, but when you combine that with 19 second places, Wow!  That guy was good.

2.  The Marathon is just incredible.  I could hang with those guys for about 30 feet.  Then they run 26+ more miles at the same pace.

3.  When you watch team synchronized swimming, you can't help thinking "This is the dumbest thing in the Olympics."

4.  Until you change the channel and find Team Rhythmic Gymnastics.

5.  Then they show the race walking, at which point you have to turn the TV off, because race walking is the dumbest thing ever created.  Just ahead of the Pet Rock.

6.  The Modern Pentathlon is a combination event that includes fencing, swimming, horse riding, running and shooting.  It is supposed to be the skills a soldier stuck behind enemy lines would need to get back to safety.  I think this is an interesting concept.  This year, they made it even better.  All five disciplines were contested on the same day, and the shooting and running were combined into one event, biathlon style.  I saw the women's competition and it was awesome.  The run/shoot event comes at the end and the competitors start in intervals based on where they stand after the first three events, so the winner is the first person to finish (unlike the decathlon).  The run is cross country style over a 1000 meter loop and the competitors run three loops, stopping before each loop to shoot.  It was exciting, dramatic and fun.  Of course, an American finished 4th.

6.  Nice gold for David Boudia in 10m Platform Diving.  Any time we can get a gold while simultaneously taking one from China is a good time.  For some high quality entertainment, watch bronze medalist Tom Daley and his teammates performing "I'm Sexy and I Know It."

7.  Closing ceremony was pretty good.  A little weird, but fun.  Brits did well.


Predictions Wrap Up -

1. I will sleep well Sunday night.  WRONG  - I was tired, but didn't have a great night of sleep.  Probably felt bad because I hadn't written this Post.

2. Jamaica blows our doors off in the 4x100.  Correct - But this was a fabulous race.  The US 4x100, which has had a myriad of problems in recent events, broke the old world record, but came in behind the deep Jamaicans.  Second relay we lost to a Carribean island nation with a fraction of our population.  I thought we ran well, though.  Jamaica was just better.

Olympic Awards (Based on my Personal Feelings):

1.  Best Athlete - Abby Wambach.  She is fierce, competitive, insightful, humble, arrogant, dominant, a good teammate, an awesome athlete, a mentor, a friend, the first woman to score a goal at Old Trafford and beatiful inside and out.  I can not say how much I love Abby Wambach.  She won her gold medal.  (She missed 2008 with an injury.)  She also did this while getting beat up by every team.  A Colombian sucker punched her, the Canadians knocked her around, and in the Canada game, she was everywhere.  All around phenomenal performance

2.  Best Olympian - Missy Franklin.  What's not to love?  She is everything Abby Wambach is and only 17.  I distinguish Missy from Abby because the swimmers, unlike the soccer players, get to experience the Olympics.  Olympic soccer is like the World Cup.  The team travels all over the country to play and give other cities the chance to experience the Olympics.  Swimmers stay in the Village and are the heart of the Olympics for the first week.  At least for Americans.  Missy did everything you could have asked and enjoyed every second.  She just seems like someone who squeezed every last drop of life out of her Olympic experience.

3.  Best Moment - Katy Ledecky wins 800 freestyle.  So much bias in this pick, but to see a 15 year old, from my area, who swims for my old team, go out and dominate an event in front of a crowd roaring for the woman next to her (Rebecca Adlington - the British defending gold medalist and world record holder) moves me every time I see or hear anything about it.  The Olympics provides so many great moments and stories.  Everyone has there own opinion, this one does it for me.

4.  Best Story - This is impossible to choose.  From Allyson Felix getting gold, to badminton players expelled for tanking matches, the Olympics give you stories galore and we really only know about 10% of them.  I have given many story lines over the past three weeks.  Some were little known, some were the big stories of the day.  I tried not to repeat, but I will now.  Here are some of my favorite stories of the Olympics:
Kayla Harrison
Badminton Scandal
Liu Xiang - watching him fall, then hop to the last hurdle, kiss it, and leave the Olympics, probably for the last time, was heart-breaking.
Misty and Kerri
Guor Marial

5.  Best Celebration - Mo Farah running off the track while slapping his bald head after winning the Men's 10,000.

6.  Most Dominant Performance - US Women's 4x100m Relay and Allison Schmitt in the Women's 200 Freestyle (tie).

7.  Worst Hosing by NBC - Women's Indoor Volleyball Final.  NBC "showed" the indoor women's volleyball gold medal game during their primetime telecast on Saturday night.  The US won the first set easily.  NBC then went to commercial and came back with the US down 2-1 in sets and losing the third set.  WHh-wha-wha-what happened?  How did we lose two sets?  Why did they cut it off?  I will generally defend NBC's prime time tape delayed coverage, but this was ridiculous.  I know Americans don't generally want to watch American lose, but I would have liked to have seen what happened.

8.  Worst Sport - McKayla Maroney.  This story is too big for me to go into it anymore.  She looks like a saucy minx, even when not sneering on the medal stand.  Keep her away from your boys.  Honorable Mention to Qui Bo, silver medalist in the Men's 10m Platform diving.

 9.  Hottest Sport - Women's Field Hockey.  I saw very little of this, but the New Zealand team's average hotness rating on a scale of 1-10 would be about 8.2.  When they played the Netherlands, the average went up.

10.  Biggest Non-Story - Women's Beach Volleyball Outfits.  This was a relatively big story pre-Olympics which was a nothing in the games.  They wore tight pants and/or shirts when it got cold.  It was still a high quality athletic competition, and the sexiness rating was basically unaffected.  Nice job by both American squads for wearing only long-sleeve shirts when not in bikini tops and not feeling the need to put their bikini tops over the long sleeve shirts.  The one complaint I would have is how stupid it looks to wear a bikini top over a tight long sleeve shirt.

Predictions -

1.  I will keep this up.

What to Watch For -

1.  New Sections of this Blog, as they become necessary.
2.  Fall soccer for two boys, winter swimming for one boy, winter basketball for two boys, what sports do they play in the spring.  Basically, I become a Dad rather than an amateur Olympic Blogger.
3.  Football predictions.
4.  Will I keep swimming?
5.  Will I actually sign up for a Masters Swim Meet?
6.  Wit and wisdom on all sorts of subjects.
7.  Generally, more Observations from a Suburban Sports Dad.

Fat Old Man Update-

Swam 2200 meters on Saturday.
Swam 1700 meters on Sunday before getting cut off by the mean lifeguard setting up for a party.
Went to Indianapolis, so no swimming since Monday.  Hoping thunderstorms don't cut off Friday.