Saturday, September 17, 2016

August 20

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Zinnia.



It's fun to have the Olympics on.  I never know what I'll see.  "Hand ball" -- which was basketball-soccer, rather than a racquet-less racquetball, "rhythmic gymnastics," various different sorts of bicycle races, or kayak competitions.........

It seemed to me that the rhythmic gymnasts were much more slender and attenuated than the "regular gymasts," who are more compact and powerful.



Our daughter was on an amazingly talented high-school swim team.  One of her swim "sisters" competed in Olympic swimming sprints in 2004, 2008, and 2012.  Another "sister" was on the US Olympic water-polo team in 2008.  This is the first summer Olympics in a long time that we have not known anyone personally who was competing. 

The people who dedicate their lives to their sports for many years, enabling them to compete at this level, provide a lot of interest and pleasure for dozens and dozens of people who know them, even slightly.  They make the Olympics much more interesting to watch.  We can watch for them when the teams go in at opening and at closing, and we can recognize them when they step up on the blocks for a race, because we have seen them do that, over and over....

I'm grateful to them for enriching my experience of swimming, and of the Olympics, and I surely wish them well as they move on into a world where their sport is not the primary thing they do.


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