I am just in awe of these Olympians

Aren’t the Olympics a thing of beauty and a joy forever?

I don’t care where they’re played, I marvel at the athletes every time. I really don’t get terribly upset if there’s accusations of cheating – be it from age, or from drugs – because in the end, it’s going to rear up and bite those guilty.

No Olympics is without politics. As a classic case, look at Jesse Owens in the 1936 Games in Berlin. A black athlete, he snubbed his and everyone else’s noses at Hitler and proved just in a mo’ that the “Arian Race” wasn’t going to win while he was around.

On a more personal note, my delightful ex-father-in-law led the British team to Gold in the 1936 Winter Games in Ice Hockey. The remarkable thing about that was that he was a native-born German. I’ve held the medal, I’ve seen the personal pictures, and  am in awe of every Olympic athlete.  Talk about snubbing your nose at the Fuhrer.

 But back to the topic. Naturally my already ample chest was swelled to busting it’s D cups when the Games were held in Sydney in 2000, and naturally that’s going to be the best ever in the whole world, ever, ever, ever. The fact that I wasn’t there is quite beside the point. I’m half Oz and half Yank, and I’m afraid the Oz will win out in this case.

As I speak I’m watching the swimming  with the threat of an Aussie taking gold in the women’s 200m something-stroke.

Now I used to be quite a swimmer in my time when I was just a slip of a girl. My brothers will argue the notion that I was ever a slip of a girl, but I say Boo Yah Bro, at one point in my life I was smaller than I am now.

But I look at these swimmers and all I can do is utter several expletives.

Just like the one I just uttered because the Aussie didn’t make it. But an American did, so half of me is yelling.

But back to my uttering. These gals have just made four laps of the pool. Have you looked at the length of an Olympic pool lately? I’m telling you it may as well be a mile than 50 meters. I could no sooner make it with any style or dignity down that pool than fly the length of the Great Wall of China without a small plane.

I swear Michael Phelps has a propeller secreted somewhere in a bodily orifice. He is amazing. 

He positively romps down the pool doing butterfly. Butterfly to me is a gorgeous insect, or something under which my darling Sir limbos. This is not a swimming stroke, this is  coordinated drowning.

I’m not overly sure if this was the race where Michael’s goggles filled up with water and he was thus rendered blind for approximately a million miles or not. The fact that he can make two strokes without looking like a beached whale astounds me.

The Green Line – a.k.a. the World Record Marker – has been made to look a complete idiot all week. I don’t know if the swimmers are just so remarkably fantastic or if their new swimsuits have pig fat on them, all I know is that the World Records are crumbling like an old bar of chocolate in the movie theater. You know the ones – they’re the ones who spill flakes of chockie all over your skirt in the dark, so that when you walk out you look like you’ve had a rather embarrassing interlude in the interim.

Then there’s the other pool sport which I like to call synchronized drowning. That’s Water Polo. Good Lord, how long can you tread water with a bunch of beefy Russians bearing down on you? There’s a classic photo going round on the Internet right now of a poor Aussie girl having her left eye gouged. I know it was just the luck of the draw, or the name of the game, or part of Life’s Rich Tapestry, but suffice it to say, she’s going to be wearing a patch for a bit. And she kept on playing and didn’t even drown. Now how’s that for achievement?

The American gals in Beach Volleyball are incredible. I so admire their skill, their poise, the fact that the wedding ring was found buried in the sand by a Chinese volunteer – but most of all that these (expletive deleted) mere slips of humans can prance round in the silica wearing little more than a couple of decorative handkerchiefs while pounding a ball at their opponents. I swear I would break a chin and a kneecap in the same movement while my boobs did what boobs were s’posed to do. Like – er – bounce. Mightily.

The gymnasts have me in complete awe. Sir and I watch the Games every night – consequently I’m wandering around at work looking zombie-ish like everyone else – and when we see the gymnastics we utter “oooof” and “whoaaaa” with monotonous regularity.

How do these guys not dislocate a shoulder with every spin, every turn, every release? I’m telling you, if I was up there – and you can stop rocking with laughter now at the thought – my arms would be left spinning maniacally on the high bar while the rest of me would be prostrate on the mat.

So – in closing – I don’t care really if you came first or last in your event. The fact that you’re there is just gobsmacking to me. Roll on next week, and roll on 2010 for the Winter Games.

I just love it. As we Aussies would say, “Good on ya.”