T - 36: Gold! Gold! Gold!

I had lunch with my friend Jon today. He reads this blog, and he told me he was surprised I hadn't written anything about the Olympics. Figuring this blog has an audience of about, oh, four or five, that means Jon represents at least 20% of my audience. I guess I had better write something about the Olympics even though they are now over.

I hadn't written about the Olympics because I really wasn't into them very much this year. Oh sure, it was impossible to ignore them completely. I did check out Australia vs Montenegro in water polo, the finals of team rhythmic gymnastics (loved the ribbons, Ukraine) and women's taikwondo (heavyweight division), but apparently that barely qualified me for the minnow division of Olympic viewers.

We had some people in the office who kept running off to the boardroom to sneak a peek at whatever was on the TV. I only went once during the work day - to watch one of Michael Phelps' later races - and I really didn't watch much more at home.

Some of this was due to Linda's decision that reruns of last year's Masterchef competition were more intereresting than greco-roman wrestling, rifle shooting or archery. It's tough to get some women to develop an interest in sport.

The main reason I didn't watch much, though, was that most of the Olympic sports really are pretty boring. There's a good reason I didn't set my recorder to capture the latest matches in field hockey, badminton, trampoline or handball. And those are, at least, more interesting than such sports as weightlifting, yachting and whatever they call that bicycle race where the two contestants try to go as slow as they can for most of the race. Actually, I like that last one because I am pretty sure it is one of the few Olympic sports where I could be competitive for at least the first half of the race. Assuming I didn't fall over.

This does raise a good point. As we Boomers grow older, we need to start lobbying for the inclusion of sports in which we can excel. The modern biathlon - lawn bowling and 10-pin bowling - would be a winner. Or how about a new pentathlon - sudoku, bridge, no-limit Texas hold-em, Scrabble and freestlye standing still. If it came down to an Aussie versus Yank for the gold, I don't even know whom I'd cheer for, but I know I'd watch it.