Worth being Tired

I am generally a person that gets to bed at a reasonable hour on nights when I need to wake up early for work the next day. The next 15 days however, I will not be that person. There are a few circumstances that make it worth my while to be tired and the Olympics is on the list. The summer Olympics tops the charts.

Unless you live in a box, which would mean you likely do not check blogs you would know that the opening ceremonies for the Olympics were Friday night. So for the past 2 days I've stayed up until midnight when the prime-time section was over with no big need to get up early. Tonight was a bit different, but it's only every 4 years you can watch 3 hours of gymnastics and swimming with the best of the best, so I generally stay up even though I need to wake up in the morning. And tonight is a very very good example of why.

If you were not one of the millions watching the men's 4 x 100 meter relay last night at 11:35pm you need to get yourself to YouTube or some other place where you can watch it. And you need to watch the entire race. Most likely you will see the last 20 meters of the race if you just watch the morning news, but the last 20 meters does not really do the race justice if you see that only. I still am not calmed down, which is why I'm blogging and not going to sleep. Soon, I'm going to need to go to bed, but I need my heart rate to come down first.

The Americans, who were not favored to win (in fact the announcer stated before the race started that he has done the math over and over and he doesn't see how it is possible the US could beat France), pulled off the most incredible finish I've ever seen. Let's break it down. The top 5 teams, yes five, broke the standing world record. The leading swimmer for the Australians broke the 100 meter record with his first split. The final US swimmer swam the fastest 100 meter relay split ever in history. In doing, he came back from starting a half second behind the France swimmer (who by the way, said at a press conference earlier in the day that they were going to smash the Americans), who was the world record holder. People, if you are not one that follows swimming I can't really explain what coming back from a half second loss is - it's like coming back from a 5 touchdown lead...possibly more seeing as how you are coming back from that while going up against the world record holder. So, let's say it's like a high school football team coming back from a 5 touchdown lead against a pro football team, while all the while playing the best game ever in the history of the sport! You can't beat this stuff!

And this is why I will be staying up until midnight every single night. Because watching that when you already know who wins just does not make you leap out of your seat screaming. And there are few times I find the need to leap out of my seat screaming. Tonight was one. And I will very happily be tired in the morning from having seen that relay in real time. By the way, the opening ceremonies were a site to behold as well. That's another online video that would be worth a visit, but I'd go with the swimming video first. What can I say, I'm a sucker for underdogs.