Loving Beijing

All photos, courtesy of the Internet. If I had a camera…

Men and women weightlifters, gymnasts, track and field, and equestrian events – I love it all. Whenever I have a few minutes I park myself in front of the TV and watch the competition to enjoy the vivid colors of China and its people. Good blog friend TR at From the Faraway, Nearby, has Olympic-related business in Beijing for several weeks. You must visit him and see his amazing photographs of a country most of us won't see. And, be sure to scroll to his post And Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting.

The sport closest to my heart is swimming but I miss most of the finals at the water cube because they air too late in the evening. After Gina stopped competing in college I haven’t been on a pool deck so watching Olympic swimming is a real treat for me.

If you haven’t heard of Michael Phelps, you’ve been living under a rock. Gina and Michael both swam in Maryland on different teams. We saw him at meets now and then and I remember him as a ten year-old. He was a silly, small, and scrawny kid - no different from anyone else except he rarely lost a race. His sweet Mom, Debbie, taught Gina home economics in middle school. So, I guess you can say we know the Phelps family, a little bit.

Kids in U.S. age group swimming (6-18) experience a lot of peaks and valleys during early years of training. Their bodies change and growth spurts happen at different times that affect their strokes and slow them down for a while, or those same changes can result in personal best times. In Michael’s case, he kept getting bigger and better. By the time he was ten or eleven, his freestyle times were faster than a lot of girls’ times who were three years older than he, including Gina.

At outdoor meets in the summertime, Gina and her teammates stood on the pool deck to watch Michael swim a race. Hands on hips, silicone swim caps tight around their hot heads, eyes squinting, wrinkling sunburned noses, they’d whimper with disgust, “Geeesh. How does he do that? No one is even near him!”

They liked Michael and cheered for him then as they do today. But…

(snitty remark) “Yeah! Look at him. It’s no wonder! Look at his duck feet. They’re huge!”

(another snitty remark) “Yeah! They’re bigger than our swim practice fins!”

(snitty and snarly) “Yeaaaaah! And he’ll never grow boobs or hips to slow him down, either.”

Giggle.

These girls were good swimmers. They forgot how good they were when they watched Michael. Gina knew of other girls who feared a breast or fly race with her being in lane four but that didn’t matter. They really wanted to know why Michael always looked like he was shot from a cannon at the start and left everyone in his wake.

Few people in this world have everything it takes. You can have the perfect body and natural talent but 99% of what you need is upstairs, and, in your heart. Medals are nice, but I’m much more impressed with Michael’s perseverance, attitude, and devotion to his sport for so many years. Kudos to all of the athletes from around the world.

Wow.