I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
— Jane Wagner
Talk about difficult. And, no, I’m talking about the gymnastic routines performed in the Olympics…Actually, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Have you seen those men and women? If they didn’t so closely resemble the human skeletal structure, I would be certain they were aliens—Roswell solved.
Just looking at their muscles, speed, dexterity, poise, athleticism, twists my mind in contortions equal to their flexibility.
Granted, give me a few years, and I could be at their level (if you haven’t seen, I can do a pretty mean cartwheel), but as they stand—or jump—now, I can’t imagine my body ever having the possibility to function at such a capacity.
With biceps larger than my thighs, and thighs larger than their biceps, these athletes make me look like an inferior species preparing to be conquered.
Just imagine if Napoleon had been a decathlon coach—he would have an army of the greatest 100m sprinters, long jumpers, shot putters, high jumpers, 400m sprinters, hurdlers, discus throwers, pole vaulters, javelin throwers, and 1500m runners at his disposal. He’d be unstoppable!
(See, you did learn something from this blog—now go show off to your friends by naming those ten events).
There is something inherently addictive about watching these athletes perform. For instance, my Dad was about to fall asleep in his room last night, when he turned on the Olympics for two minutes. Immediately, he returned to the living room and tried to work the DVR to show my sister and I a gymnastic performance.
(And let’s just say my dad is no Olympic athlete with the remote—my sister had to spend five minutes trying to disarm the sequence of buttons he hit to initiate the television’s self-destruct mode).
Or even my Uncle, who started watching the games at eight in the morning, before calling my dad at five in the evening to come over and help him turn the Olympics off (which, if it involved a remote, was a probably a bad idea).
…But actually, now that I think about it, maybe this weird Olympics addiction is just related to my family…
Naah. That would ruin the point of this post.
Seriously, though, one of the reasons we like the Olympics so much (besides every American’s desire to crush the cheating Chinese in the gold medal count) is the chance to watch humanity at its physical pinnacle.
It’s the chance to watch the closest thing to materialized superpowers, magic without top hats and rabbits, the essence of beauty showcased through the human body.
And for that, crazy nude Grecians who invented these games, I thank you.
Olympically,
jdt