These Beijing Olympics were the first that my two oldest were actually old enough to appreciate. We have watched a number of the events and I have enjoyed watching Abby and Nathan cheer on team USA and be inspired to want to become great! They especially loved the gymnastics. In fact, they loved them so much they have been downstairs in the unfinished part of the basement for a week jumping around on an old mattress. At first they were just jumping and rolling. However, yesterday they both came running up and asked me to come watch. I was surprised when I went down to see Nathan and Abby doing little front flips. They are still working on landing on their feet or "sticking the landing" as they now call it. I think they will master that soon however. Nathan is now asking me to teach him a backflip!! Maybe I'll try to put that one off for a little while.
For me, I have my usuals I watch. For summer Olympics it includes swimming (especially this year with Phelps), diving, gymnastics, track and field, and volleyball. Much to my delight I was able to watch two new events I had not previously watched. I watched the rhythmic gymnastics this year and was completely mesmerized by the beauty and grace not to mention dexterity these gymnasts had. To be able to basically do a rythmic dance/floor exercise while throwing a hula hoop around or a 19 ft ribbon was awesome!! I loved it!! From now on I will definately be tuning in to more of this!!
I also watched synchronized swimming. I know, you are thinking of the old 1950's movies with women in hokey swimsuits with floral headdresses. However, this was completely different and cool!!! These swimmers are in amazing shape! I loved it and really enjoyed the obvious athleticism these women posess to be able to swim/dance/dive/tumble in unison is awesome. Most amazing, one of the rules says when performing a lift (like the one below), swimmers can't touch the bottom of the pool!!!!! Wow!!! performing a precise and strict choreographed performance like that would take some serious skill!!
2 comments:
We are definitly Olympics junkies around here. At 7 pm every night the kids are racing to turn it on. Today, Braden was jumping off a wall to the ground, holding his diving stance before making the leap. Love it!
All those athletes are so amazing. The ones that really stick out to me though are the really young olympians and the older ones. Like that little chinese girl who was 14, And the swimmer for USA who was 41... I cant remember names. :)
Post a Comment