You don't need me to tell you this was a great Olympics track meet for the good old USA.
There were highlights aplenty. Watching the men’s marathon on Sunday morning, I
could not help but be amazed and proud of the way Meb Keflezghi – the old man
of the marathon at age 37 – ran himself up to fourth place. What a great way
for him to end his Olympic career.
Of course, it was disappointing to see the other two
Americans in the marathon – especially Ryan Hall – with bummer DNFs. Hall
succumbed to a hamstring injury, which may well have been caused by his
favoring a plantar fascia injury for several months. It just goes to show you
the vagaries of elite level marathon training and racing. It was Hall’s first
disappointing performance at the distance. Meb, however, proved his pluck with
his fourth-place finish. He, too, had sub-optimal training leading up to the
race. His mental toughness carried him to one step away from the podium. Pretty
impressive.
I have not posted in a few days, so I did not get to comment
on some of the other races. The women’s 1,500 was particularly difficult to
watch, as American Morgan Uceny was poised to make a move with a lap to go but
got her feet tangled in the pack. She went down in a heap; the scene of her
angrily pounding the track is one we won’t soon forget. We’ve seen feet get
tangled in races – especially tight and tense middle-distance races – all the
time. But for it to happen in an Olympic final … what terrible misfortune for
her!
Anyway, I will miss the Olympics. I have grown accustomed to
watching whatever was on and enjoying the usually obscure sports get the
spotlight for a few weeks. The whole family got into it: Heidi and Natalie
loved the gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, diving and synchronized swimmers
(side note: one grizzled, cynical old newspaper guy once referred to that sport
as “water-logged” cheerleaders; nice). Joey watched track with me, but also
enjoyed team handball and actually watched table tennis streaming live on the
computer (side note: I really don’t know what to say about that). James liked
anything that involved hitting or spiking (no surprises there), so his sports
of choice were judo, wrestling and volleyball. Both boys also asked why curling
was not in the Summer Games. Hmmm. No ice in London?
And with that, it is now time to focus on the suddenly
crumbling New York Yankees starting rotation …
No comments:
Post a Comment