Over the course of the past two weeks, the world stopped (kind of) to watch the same thing, the Olympics. The whole first week was mostly swimming, as far as races go, and then the second week got more to what I was interested in, the running. The timing of these games was perfect. With Paris being six hours ahead of us, that made it easy to watch the important events, because once I finished work, anywhere between 1:30 and 2:30, and it was right around prime time, especially for the track events. All the finals occurred at this time, so when I got to the gym, I would just put Peacock on my phone and have a great time. It was like constant inspiration for lifting heavier weights, especially due to the fact that I could not use the extra emotion for running because I was hurt.
It was not just track that I found entertaining and inspiring. There were some sports that I knew nothing about that had me on the edge of my seat, like fencing or gymnastics, and sometimes it was not even America involved, it was just a championship match, so everything was on the line. There were two or three days in a row, where I got to watch a gold medal fencing match, and in each one, it came down to sudden death. There was a team competition where time expired when the teams were tied with points, so then the next point won. Then in an individual match they were both tied at 44, and they play to 45, and they had several reviews on the last point, before one finally came out on top. Then with gymnastics, I loved watching Simone Biles, so much so, that I watched her new documentary on Netflix!
Even with swimming, I was super invested in the Americans success, especially when the overall medal count was closer, but if I were to have a gripe with the Olympics, it would be swimming. They have a million events, but not in a good way. There are four main strokes: freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly. The problem comes in that each of these has a smattering of distances that they do. This is like if in track, they did sprinting, running backwards, bear crawling, and hopping. They also have more relay races. They have mixed relay races with different strokes. In track, they have the mixed 4x4, but imagine how cool it would be to see a mixed 4x1 with Sha'Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles on the same team, or think how funny it would be to see one person bear crawl a lap, one person run backwards, etc. The Olympics are really robbing us of some interesting track events.
The one weird aspect of the Olympics that I noticed is their strong ability to make me feel emotional. I do not consider myself an overly patriotic person (or emotional), but if the U.S was in an event, I was rooting hard for them, and depending on the event and the winner’s reaction, it would really hit home with me, especially for the running events. In the other events, if something cool happened like I might get goosebumps that go along with my cheering, but in the running events, there were multiple times, when I was almost moved to tears.
When you take the time to think about all of the hard work that goes into making to the Olympics, and that this is a culmination of years and years of effort, that alone is amazing, but then when the winner breaks down on top of that. I would just think about how vindicating of a feeling it must be to get that gold medal, and to see your name on top of the leader board after so much hard work. Obviously, I have never done anything to this level, but I would say most runners who have trained for a race and then given it their all, and done well have some idea of that feeling, even if they only get a participation medal after, not a gold one. So there were so many times when I would start to tear up watching these runners burst into tears after winning.
After Boston, I could not stop crying my whole walk to the brewery, and when I was sitting in the finishers tent after Pikes Peak, I kept trying to hold back the tears, before ultimately losing it. Anything that you put your all into is innately emotional, but when you add the physical drain on top of the emotion, then it just reaches a total release of emotion, which is awesome. I am so sad that this will disappear for four years. I watch Diamond league track occasionally, and I will watch marathon majors, but there is something different about the Olympics that brings out emotions even more. I rarely actively cheer that loud, but it was like day after day I was sitting there actively rooting on the edge of my seat with my eyes glued on the screen.
It was also great to see the team aspect from some of these countries too, even though it did not work out for some of them. The country that I enjoyed watching the most in the racing events was Ethiopia. They had such good team chemistry in the distance races. They would go out there, and they would take control of the race, and the three of them would share leading responsibilities to try and limit their fatigue by the end of the race. Sadly, it never really worked out for them. Despite leading for over 75% of the race if not more, once the moves were being made, they struggled to finish the race.
The American team effort that I loved was the women in the 10k. There were large swaths of the race, where they were right there together, and in that race, the team component was strong in general. The Ethiopians led, the Kenyans were the second group, and the U.S was third. It was a massive glob of runners. They kept getting mad at each other because they kept accidentally bumping, and I do not even know how they were able to run in that pack, but in a race that it felt like the Americans did not have a chance in, they helped keep themselves in it, at least until Parker Valby tried to take the lead and was immediately shut down, and none of them medaled, but it was still cool to see them in contention as a conglomerate. (I would also be remiss if I did not mention Team USA in basketball. It was so cool to see LeBron, KD, and Steph all play on the same team and win a gold medal.)
The one non-American that I rooted the hardest for was Sifan Hassan. She did what I think to be the coolest thing in all the Olympics, she ran the 5k, 10k, and the marathon. A massive undertaking to just race the three of those in the span of nine days, but not only did she compete in these three races, she medaled in ALL of them! She got bronze in the 5k August 2nd, then a week later, she got bronze in the 10k, and less than 48 hours later, she got gold in the marathon. This is almost incomprehensible, but she races so smartly. In every race, she just hangs at the back of the lead pack, not expending any more energy than she needs to, and then when it is time to go, she is always ready. It is incredible.
I woke up at 3:30 to watch the last forty minutes of the women’s marathon, and when I put it on, my first thought was where is Hassan, and I was so impressed that she was there hanging onto the lead pack, but I was also impressed that there was still a lead pack. Around the same time in the men’s race, it had completely strung out, but the women’s pack of five stayed together until there was less than two miles left, then there were four, and in the last kilometer is when it finally broke out into a sprint and separated, and Hassan was behind the leader, and they bumped when Hassan passed by, but it did not matter, at that point she was gone, and she got to break the tape, and as mentioned earlier, something about watching people do something great in running makes me emotional, and I was teary eyed in my bedroom watching her finish this great feat with my arms raised in the air celebrating with her. It made it hard to fall back to sleep after, because I could not stop thinking about how amazing it was!
As I finish writing this, the closing ceremonies have just begun, which brings the harsh realization that when I leave work tomorrow there will be no races or competitions to watch, it will just be back to normal unpatriotic life, and that is sad. I did not expect to fall in love with the games as much as I did, but the numerous moments where I got choked up show otherwise. I know the athletes I care about will be participating over the course of the next four years, but the ease at which the Olympics were available and the fact that the schedule was plastered all over my Instagram feed was awesome. Literally every time I got on Instagram the past week, it was just filled with track results and almost nothing from people I actually follow, and it was an amazing resource. Hopefully in four years in LA, the hype will stay this heightened, now we just have to wait.
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