Those "Other" Olympic Sports

Today is a happy and sad day for me. It’s two days after the lucky day of 8-8-08. First the sad part: the Olympics have now been in progress for two days in Bejing, China and finally I have just now gotten a chance to settle down and watch the world’s finest athletes compete with other nations. I’ve already missed 48 hours of some of the world’s most intense competition and even one of American swimmer Michael Phelp’s gold medal races!

But there’s a happy part to this, the fact that I finally do get to see the Olympics. Today, I had planned to watch Team USA’s basketball squad try to get back on top of the world scene (we finished with a bronze medal in 2004). But basketball wasn’t on any of the five channels I checked that were carrying the Olympics. Instead I saw a bunch of sports no one ever says anything about: rowing, synchronized diving, rifling, badminton, and gymnastics. But these sports made today an even cooler day to tune in, and for good reason.

I thought I knew what Olympic sports were really worth watching and which really interested me. I thought that today would be no different from four years ago, when I watched the Games from Athens, Greece. Instead I ended up having a totally different experience and getting a chance to see some sports I had never given a second thought. For me, and really all true sports fans who admire the fact that people are competing, seeing new sports was an even bigger thrill because I got to learn something and still get that thrill of others vying for a win. To me, that learning is bigger than getting anything I expected.

What sports have you watched in these Olympic Games? Were there any new ones that inspired you to learn more about them?