More Goals and Gold

Any Olympic dreams I may have had are now completely satisfied since the U. S. women's soccer team won the gold medal in a very entertaining game with Japan.  Whatever the United States has or will win, this one made the whole Olympics for me.  I don't know why.  I've never been a soccer fan, only watching it when the American women are in the world cup or the Olympics.

Tomorrow the American women's volleyball and basketball teams go for gold, luckily not at the same time, so I'll be able to see both games.

NBC's live online streaming of events can present challenges to one's patience, what with interrupted reception and cutting away for 15- or 30-second commercials right in the middle of someone's race or dive or throw, but I endured it all yesterday to watch a boxing match on my computer.  I sort of get the manly art of self defense; I don't get the womanly art of punching another woman in the head, but I was curious enough about women's boxing to tune in.  I was rewarded with a gold-medal win by Claressa Shields of Flint (practically a neighbor).  Good for her, bringing another gold for the USA and Michigan.  But why she does it, I'll never know.

Having seen a little of the rhythmic gymnastics, I'm rethinking whether or not synchronized swimming is the stupidest activity masquerading as a sport.  Rhythmic gymnastics consists of routines that are sort of similar to the floor exercise part of regular ("artistic") gymnastics, only without tumbling and with props such as balls, hula hoops, Indian clubs, and long, narrow ribbons on a stick.  All done to music, with leotards and makeup borrowed from synchro swim, and all having the general ambiance of a hallucination.  I don't deny it takes some skill to throw a softball-size ball into the air, roll around on the floor, and catch the ball between your knees while flat on your back, but that belongs in a circus, not the Olympics.

I hate to be what Jane Austen called "severe upon my sex," but what does it tell us that only women participate in synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics?  Can it be the glittery eyeshadow that turns men away?

Day 13 Quote of the Day (Usain Bolt of Jamaica, after becoming the only person to win both the 100- and 200-meter dashes in two successive Olympics):  "I am now a legend.  I'm also the greatest athlete to live."

And the least humble.