Sunday, January 15, 2006

Olympics madness has begun

I promise this will be brief - I have way too much to do today. I've been watching some tv this weekend - football playoff games (disappointed that the Patriots flubbed against Denver and that Pittsburgh somehow beat Indy) and ice skating mainly. This is the first time I'm watching skating with the new scoring system, and while I'm not familiar with it yet, it seems to be fine, although listening to the commentators, you'd think it was some elaborate algebra equation or something! Still the skating is always fun to watch, and now that the US has the champions chosen, we all know who is going to the Olympics (in Turin, Italy as we Americans call it, or Torino as everyone else seems to call it). I find it interesting that Michelle Kwan didn't skate in the championships and yet is still named to the Olympic team. I LOVE her skating - don't get me wrong - but I don't think it's fair that she's too injured to skate this week but will be fine to skate in the Olympics, taking away the spot of the girl who got 3rd place at the National Championships (who, incidentally, was Emily Hughes, Sara Hughes' sister). Ice skating is one of a select few sports where the Olympic team selection provides an option for petitioning the judges without doing the national competition, and I wonder why. I think Michelle, if she is healthy, will do a wonderful job and I'd love to see her go out with an Olympic gold, but am not sure I would find it fair if I were Emily.

NBC has been airing their ads for the Olympics for about a month now I think (since the Christmas hype died down) but they don't start for another few weeks. I think the idea of an international competition that isn't tied to ammunition is nice to see, but are we perpetuating some of the animosity bewteen nations? Ideally, I think we should have some kind of global community, peace and healthy relationships - the kingdom (sic) of God, if you will. If we ever reach that, is there a place for the Olympics?

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