~Yevgeny Plushenko~
One helluva skater! Just as exciting to watch as Elvis Stojko was, back in the day, in his own way.

I love the Olympics, always have since my wide -eyed initiation to them during the '72 Munich Games. Maybe that love grew from being a part of the Cold War generation, where it a matter of pride ( and fun, too!) to root against the nasty CCCP Commies and those scary, scary East German women, and I use the term women loosely!. (Strange as it may sound, I do miss those Cold War days, at times.)

Maybe..but I just think that the love of the spectacle that is the Olympics, whether they be the Summer or Winter ones, was borne from the unjaded innocence of childhood, from a time where it was fun to watch people from so very far away participate in sports never heard of or seen before, to be able to 'be' in places like Munich, Montreal, Innsbruck, Sarajevo. To see the different flags, the tears of joy, the strain of not momentarily living up to a short lifetime of high expectaions on a myriad of faces, and not quite understanding the magnitude of those mixed tears, but somehow in a limited way getting it , just the same. To dream of one day being an Olympic speed skater, or gold medal swimmer, to prance around the family living room, ungainly feet keeping pace with Dorothy Hamill on that awful light orange carpet...

It's a long time past since I pranced upon that orange floor, but I still get excited as that 1972 eight year old did when I know that the Games are coming up. I am careful not to catch the morning sports report, as I don't want to spoil that night's viewings. I high-hosey the t.v. at night for about two hours or more, sometimes much to the chagrine of my kids, but too bad. I need to get my luge and sky jump fixes, need to watch some guy from one of the many -Stan's come back to kick butt in a skiing competition, need to for a two week period become thoroughly immersed in the (insert number here) Olympiad. I don't necessarily always root for the Americans,( what fun would that be?) and also, I don't care if the Games aren't a mirror image of what they were wayyyyyyyyyy back when; why would they be? Times change, civilisations progress, and ergo, so do the sports offered up. And yes, I consider skiing, luging(sp), ice dancing et al to be sports. There doesn't need to be a ball/glove/court involved for a sport to be considered a sport. Perhaps some of us Americans need to broaden our narrow views a bit, and stop thinking that the world revolves around us.

But I digress, and also I need to get some stuff around the house done before I settle in with my wide -eyed offspring to catch some Olympic action. And yes, I am sure to watch the rebroadcast of anything I missed in the wee's of tomorrow morning. Gotta love it!