Ty Watches the 2020 Olympics
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With the Olympics all wrapped up I want to talk about my experience watching this year.
I never pay too much attention to the Olympics if I am being honest with myself. I watch basketball in the summer games, I like gymnastics because the people are so athletic and more recently I have gotten into track and field, pretty much since I became a runner. It is the same with the winter Olympics. I watch very few sports with snowboarding and skiing being the lone exceptions. But this year I found myself super into the Olympics.
I turned it on from day one and it was on pretty much everyday until the games wrapped up. I found myself really into swimming early on. Then I was devouring skateboarding, which was rad. I watched fencing and table tennis on a different day. I got super into highboard and synchronized diving. I was watching water polo. I followed the men's and women's gymnastics teams. I watched more volleyball than I have ever seen. I watched basketball, more on that later, because I love it so much. I'd say I tuned in to about 85-90 percent of the competitions. I do not know why either. It wasn't the lack of fans because I saw that in the NBA bubble and most pro sports last year. I seemed to latch on early this year and that seemed to be the key.
I think another reason why this resonated so much was because I did not think it was going to happen. I thought that the organizers were going to pull the plug at the last minute because of rising COVID cases all over the world. But when they started, I watched and watched and watched. I think it hit me so well this year because of the lack of sports in summer. I like baseball, but not MLB. I'm not a soccer fan. And there are only so many articles I can read on college football teams opening their fall camps. So these Olympics hit me at the exact right time. We also got some really interesting and neat personal athlete stories. I followed Simone Biles every step. I side with her and I am so happy that she took care of mental state over everything else. The super young skateboarders were so cool and seemed so thrilled to be in the Olympics. The diver from Britain that also knits was one of my favorite people in the games. There was the Cambodia gentleman who was adopted by an American man who was a diver and that story was so heartwarming. Seeing Katie Ledecky do what she does and then laugh at reporters when they asked if she was going to retire was stupendous. Watching Team USA baseball and softball come so close to gold was pretty amazing. Table tennis has some wild competitors and they are as focused as any other athlete I have ever seen. There was that crazy last second wrestling move that won gold. The marathon was astounding to watch. Seeing Alyson Felix become the most decorated female track runner was super impressive. Seeing all the field events and being blown away by what the athletes did will always stay with me. I was hooked.
With all these sports it should be no surprise that basketball was my big time winner. The women's team dominated like they do. They are so much further ahead than any other country in basketball. The viral picture of Diana Taurasi holding the ball up high and laughing in the gold medal game is so pure and so cool. Seeing Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe embrace after Bird won her fourth gold medal was joyous. The women's basketball team rules. And so does the men's team. I was hard on them after France beat them in league play. I was worried. I did not think they had it in them to turn it around. I was getting annoyed at the complaints. Then they found their groove. When they came out and demolished Iran they looked like a different team. They were more confident and better coached. They started to coalesce. KD turned it on and became unstoppable. Bam Adebayp became a defensive force. Draymond Green looked more like himself. Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard started to hit big shots. Jrue Holiday was the backcourt stopper they needed. Devin Booker and Khris Middleton were knockdown shooters. It all started to groove. They still had moments of concern, mainly letting teams stay in games a bit too long, but in the end they always pulled away. After dismantling Iran they beat the Czech and cruised by Spain. I was nervous for Australia, but they made easy work of them. Then it was France again for gold. The game was tighter than I wanted it to be, but in the end they won. KD became the men's all time leading scorer and Team USA won gold for the fourth straight time. I was wrong to doubt them and I'm glad they got the gold.
This was a good Olympics. I liked the stuff I watched and was floored by how much of it I was into and willing to watch. My hat is off to the people who put it all together . This could have been a disaster, and it is not without its bad moments, but they were able to get it done and accomplish a major feat.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.
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