Watching the Olympics has been part of each day for a week. I love the stories of the athletes and their families as well as learning new things about host cities and countries. The strength, commitment and ability of the young new names and faces is amazing and sometimes breathtaking -- yet always inspiring. There are older athletes back again for these games and several have shown amazing stamina well into their 30s -- another first for these games. For example, Anthony Ervin (USA) became the oldest to win Olympic gold in swimming at the age of 35 years. I love those special moments, when something unexpected occurs like the Danish woman winning the 50m Freestyle -- she kept shaking her head and rechecking the board in disbelief. It was a wonderful display of humility from which others could learn <smile>. Seeing parents' reactions can be wonderful, too. I've sat in bleachers at pools and cheered on family members and friends. It is an amazing experience even when at a lower level than Olympics.
One disappointment of these games is the coverage of all sports involved. I'm a fan of equestrian events, particularly show jumping. These are on the CBC TV schedule online, yet seem not to be broadcast on the main network channels or narrowcast on the many sport channels of the network. It seems the only way to see these is to watch online when the event is live, which is during the workday, making it difficult to do. My hope had been to pvr the events for suppertime viewing. I've complained to the network every four years. The events were on obscure sports networks for London and Beijing games, but most others have been impossible to find. The US networks may have parts of these, so I'll have to figure out their network schedules with the hope that the finals next week are available.
One of the fascinating aspects of the Canadian team has been the personal bests and national records of the younger team members. There are many who will be in full form at the 2020 games. Some newbies have seen stellar results with several medals. Penny Oleksiak became the first athlete born in the 21st century to win an Olympic gold medal in any sport. She has also won a silver and 2 bronze medals in the past week. In fact, all 11 medals for Canada in the first 7 days were won by women. It is my hope that this will help to shine a brighter light on the amazing Canadian female athletes at home. I've known varsity teams and individual women athletes who have won national titles, yet they seem not to be feted in the same manner as male teams and athletes. That does need to change. I'm not alone in this realization <smile>. We should be able to celebrate athletes regardless of their sex or gender. The selection for today is a montage of the past week with a great anthemic lyric overdubbed. Enjoy!
Unstoppable -- Sia (from CBC)
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