Olympic Fever

08.08.08 What an awesome date! All day I've been packing for my trip to Costa Rica. I got all the mini shampoo bottles and charged up my camera batteries and iPod. I'm ready to go... except for one thing. The Olympics. When I signed up for this trip, I did not realize that it would overlap with the first week of the games, and I'm that girl who records every sport so I can stay up all night watching and gets into all the sap stories. I love, love, love the olympics. When I watched the games in Atlanta in 2000, I fell in love with gymnastics, and I started that year.

I'm watching the opening ceremony right now. There is something so great about watching the world come together. So, maybe it is perfectly fitting that during the games, I will be with people very different from myself, in a different world. Yeah, that may sound cheesy, but I like cheesy.

No surprise to anyone, I'm most pumped for gymnastics: men's and women's. My favorites: Raj Bhavsar and Shawn Johnson. Raj wasn't originally on the team; he was the alternate, a spot he knew all too well, for he was the alternate at the 2004 games when everyone, including Raj, expected him to make the team. Once again in 2008, he rocked the olympic trials, being the only male gymnast to almost get automatically nominated to the team. He missed it by a few tenths. He waited, only to find out that he was again an alternate. However, the captain of men's gymnastics, reigning all-around gold metalist, Paul Hamm, removed himself from the team recently due to his injured hand that would not be ready for competition. The door flew open for Raj. It is his time. To learn more about him, watch these videos...

Fluff about Raj from the Olympic Trials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T53lZyDQw1Q
Raj on High Bar from the Olympic Trials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ci15wDTuSo

and just for fun, because she is amazing, watch Shawn Johnson's beam routine and floor routine from the trials.

Beam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qQq9lhNwHA
Floor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbd67f9wK0s&feature=related