Anybody over 60 can give you a dozen reasons why getting old is utterly annoying. I thought I knew them all, but I believe I have a new item to add to that list.
No matter how hard I try, I can no longer pretend I could be an Olympic athlete.
Oh come on. You can laugh, but admit it. For one or two decades, when you were a young thing, you had that thought tucked in the back of your mind. You didn’t share it with anyone, but it was there.
Those were the years when I still secretly thought, “I could do that! Well, I could if I had started when I was 5 … maybe. Shoot. That doesn’t look so hard.” It was an easy and pleasant delusion.
But this year, as I tuned in, the truth struck. Now it all looks really hard and really cold.
One of the commentators summed it up nicely. These are “not my father’s Olympics.” If I had any doubt, it vanished as I tried to watch the snowboarding competition.
I imagine snowboarding is a very, very exciting thing to do. Watching it is less so. They go up, they flip around, they come down. They go back up the other side, they flip around, they come down.
The subtleties are completely lost on anyone who has never owned or ridden a skateboard. That would be me.
I did love watching adorable Sean White gracefully give his best for the last time, But who will be the personality that makes me want to watch now? Ayumu Hirano is a phenom, but I haven’t heard anyone give him a goofy nickname yet.
This is a bitter pill to swallow. The Olympic Games — winter or summer — used to keep me glued to the screen, cheering every event. Eamonn Coghlan running the mile. Torvill and Dean steaming up the ice, Dorothy Hamill, Tiffany Chin, Tanya and her two-by-four, and those tiny Slavic gymnasts with the spotlight smiles.
And that American men’s gymnastics team in ’84 … they were so darned cute. Now it seems the intensity often kills the fun, with so much hype and drama.
Hockey might get exciting, as the US is doing great, handily beating ROC early on. But I can’t get too excited about a Canada vs. US playoff. No real villain there, despite the rivalry.
I’m always sad, too, that we don’t have the humor of the first Jamaican bobsled team story.
I’ll catch a few events as I wander through the family room between dishes and housework, but I fear it will never be the same.
I can’t picture myself on those slopes anymore. I can’t see myself in that cunning little ice-skating costume with the ripply skirt.
I can’t even see myself sitting on hard bleachers long enough to watch any of it.
It looks like I’m past my prime. It’s been a great run, but I believe it is time to hang up my TV schedule and call it a day. I don’t think Nike is ever going to call.
Jean Gillette is a freelance writer and pathetic competitor. You can contact her at [email protected].
