Olympic Games 2008
Aug. 15th, 2008 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartAs you probably already know, I'm utterly uninterested in sports. In any kind of sports. But the Olympic Games are a different matter. They're a matter of national pride, after all.
Unfortunately, we still don't have a gold medal to support that pride, so far. Have four silvers, though, which is not bad for such a small nation, in these days when money plays an increasingly strong role in who can get the best training circumstances, so that they can bring out the best of themselves. Our former Olympic champion in shooting is the best example for that. She didn't even have a shooting range of her own during the last year - small wonder she didn't manage to even get into the finale. So much depends on money... too much, actually.
We've got an excellent young swimmer, László Cseh, who had the exceedingly bad luck to have to swim against the nuclear-powered Michael Phelps in practically all of his numbers. He's earned three silver medals, of which we are mightily proud. After their second encounter, one of the American PR people apparently has warned Phelps the Great how rude it is not to shake hands with the silver medal bearer, because at the second time he actually lowered his standards enough to do it. [/sarcasm] Well, Phelps might be the best swimmer ever hitting the water of this planet, but that was very poor behaviour.
We won the fourth silver in wrestling - poor Fodor was in a leading position until the last 15 seconds! It's still great, nobody had expected from him to even get a medal at all, but it's frustrating nonetheless. He stood there with one laughing and one weeping eye, I guess. Oh, well, he's young. Hopefully, he'll get another chance yet.
We have some hopes still in the rowing department, and our hammer thrower champion got into the finale in the first place. We hope...
Unfortunately, we still don't have a gold medal to support that pride, so far. Have four silvers, though, which is not bad for such a small nation, in these days when money plays an increasingly strong role in who can get the best training circumstances, so that they can bring out the best of themselves. Our former Olympic champion in shooting is the best example for that. She didn't even have a shooting range of her own during the last year - small wonder she didn't manage to even get into the finale. So much depends on money... too much, actually.
We've got an excellent young swimmer, László Cseh, who had the exceedingly bad luck to have to swim against the nuclear-powered Michael Phelps in practically all of his numbers. He's earned three silver medals, of which we are mightily proud. After their second encounter, one of the American PR people apparently has warned Phelps the Great how rude it is not to shake hands with the silver medal bearer, because at the second time he actually lowered his standards enough to do it. [/sarcasm] Well, Phelps might be the best swimmer ever hitting the water of this planet, but that was very poor behaviour.
We won the fourth silver in wrestling - poor Fodor was in a leading position until the last 15 seconds! It's still great, nobody had expected from him to even get a medal at all, but it's frustrating nonetheless. He stood there with one laughing and one weeping eye, I guess. Oh, well, he's young. Hopefully, he'll get another chance yet.
We have some hopes still in the rowing department, and our hammer thrower champion got into the finale in the first place. We hope...
