An Olympic Spirit

For those of you who may live under a rock, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing started this past weekend. I've never been one to really enjoy the opening ceremonies, but this time I found myself excited to watch them. It was an amazing show. From the fireworks, to the 2008 drummers, to the people on the giant globe thingy, and the many shots National Stadium (aka "The Birds Nest"). It was a spectacular show. Unfortunately there weren't any actual sporting events on the day of the opening ceremonies.

Unless you're awake at 1:00 am. After the opening ceremonies it was just normal TV time for me until I saw a commercial saying that the first events would be starting after the current show I was watching. It made me kind of happy that the Olympics were happening 14 hours away so that I could watch them live. Even if it was at 1:00 am.

The commercial that came on to advertise the games made it seem like they were going to show a basketball game or something exciting right away. I was a little disappointed when the first event that they were showing was Womens Sabre Fencing. I thought to myself, "Really? Fencing? Who does fencing?" Aparently America does fencing. I watched several matches, and to be honest I found them almost comical at first. Probably because I didn't really understand what was going on. Not that I understand it now, but I have a much better idea. I found myself, after a while, actually enjoy the matches. Not something that I would have ever expected. It turns out that I ended up watching the three women that would sweep the medals for Womens Sabre Fencing.

It's funny how the Olympics changes the way one feels about certain sports. It takes a sport that is completely boring at any other time and turns it into an exciting competion. Now I'm not saying that the sports are not exciting, because I'm sure that they are plenty exciting. I'm just saying that I find myself not having much interest in those sports until the Olympic Games. I would never watch Sabre Fencing, Synchornized Diving, Badminton, Rowing, or Air Rifle Shooting or a ton of others without the Olympics. But I find myself excited to watch these competition and it helps me to have a new respect for the athletes.