Go For The Gold

Mary Lou Retton once said, For athletes, the olympics is the ultimate test of worth.~ On 8.8.08 the 29th Olympic Games opening in the city of Beijing, China and despite starting off on a bad foot, so to speak, with the unfortunate death of the current coach of the U.S Men's Volleyball team and former Olympian's father in-law at the hands of a chinese citizen it hasn't diminished the stellar performances that have happened so far in the past two weeks of competition. A competition where many athletes from around the world not only are proudly representing their country as the absolute best in their particular event/sport through hard work and determination, but also set their sights on winning the richest prize in the game...an olympic gold medal. Let me ask you this question, what has been the highlight for you so far as you watched the olympic games?

Without a doubt, the opening ceremony is truly a sight to behold, giving the host city a chance to show the spectacular grandeur of what they're all about as they share their deep rooted history in the process. When it comes to the city of Beijing, they utilized the greatest resource they had in order to give the world a performance we would never forget and that resource is their people. You have to admit, when you witnessed the chinese characters being formed in such flowing precision you would have thought it was done electronically, but in reality it was done by precise teamwork of its people. Yet, the most memorable highlight other than the 4 year old earthquake survivor walking out with Yao Ming, came when lighting the olympic torch as China's former Olympain Li Ning "flew" around the aptly named Bird's Nest inevitably sending a strong message to the other countries.

The title of the world fastest man in the 200M can now be claimed by Jamaican Usian "Lightning" Bolt as he beats Michael Johnson's world record with a time of 19.30. It's a record that hasn't been beaten since Michael Johnson established the time of 19.32 as the proverbial benchmark that was set for other runners to reach for. As we all witnessed you watched MIchael Johnson reaction to Bolt reaching it with a seemingly strong confidence bordering on arrogance to where each race he was in produced a gold medal was in all intensive purposes a cake walk. It just befuddles the mind how fast one can run when you put your all into it and leave everything on the track. You have to give credit to a man that even though gives off a cocky attitude, he can back it up by showing his utter dominance leaving his competitors eating his dust, in a manner of speaking.

For the question can be asked, do you consider Michael Phelps the greatest pure athlete of all time? One can argue that dubious distinction and yet you have to agree Michael Phelps winning 8 gold medals with world records in 7 of them essentially surpassing Mark Spitz 7 is an accomplishment that may not be broken for quite some time. However, the road to 8 had some considerable challenges, one of them being in the 4 x 100 meter relay (2nd race) as a man named Alian Bernard of France said and I quote 'The Amercians? We are going to smash them.' It's a quote that he would later embarrassingly eat to the point of becoming speechless as he was beaten just barely by Jason Lezak who kept Phelp's quest for 8 alive. Let me tell you something, the 100 m Butterfly(7th race) was a fight to the finish and it was, in my opinion, an unbelievable race somehow narrowly beating out the Serbian-American swimmer Milorad Cavic.

In retrospect, this year's olympics have been worth watching to the point people like myself are invested so much I stay up all hours of the night losing sleep to watch events such as Beach Volleyball, Track and Field, Men/Women Gymnastics, Fencing, Ping Pong, and other events. Olympic athletes like Misty May-Treanor, Kerry Walsh, Michael Phelps, Aaron Peirsol, Jason Lezak, Phil Dalhausser, Todd Rogers, Dara Torres, Natalie Coughlin, Jenny Fitch, Nastia Luken, Shawn Johnson, Laura Wilkinson, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Jason Kidd and many others have represented the United States proudly. For its those same olympic athletes that have become fans themselves as they showed their support of their fellow Americans like Michael Phelps. In the end, The United States went to Beijing to go for the gold and so far they've lived up to not just our expectations, but their own as well.