Published: September 04, 2008 11:46 am            

Larry Penkava – Aug. 27, 2008

I’ve got the Beijing blues.

After two solid weeks of watching Olympics coverage from China, I’ve entered a period of melancholia. It’s like when you’ve been on an extended vacation and have to come back to the real world.

Except I don’t have to put up with the return trip home and I don’t have any China refrigerator magnets to show for it.

The past fortnight has been exciting. And that’s not just to say it was more fun than watching summer reruns.

There was the Michael Phelps golden touch, the Lightning Bolt that struck twice, slippery batons for U.S. relay teams and 60-pound Chinese gymnasts who evidently are preparing for the SATs when not perfecting their stuck landings.

I’ll have to admit to having stayed up past midnight more than one night watching NBC’s coverage. Which should explain my tendency to doze off and drool while staring at my computer screen.

But I never snoozed during exciting competitions. I’ve learned, for example, to admire beach volleyball, although my wife thinks it’s just because the women wear bikinis. I’ve had to explain that they couldn’t call it “beach” volleyball unless the players wore beachwear – a technicality taken very seriously by the International Olympic Committee.

Despite the flap over the Chinese women gymnasts who looked like they should be playing with dolls rather than doing acrobatic dismounts from the uneven bars, the United States’ own Nastia Liukin won the gold for the overall.

Meanwhile, her roommate, Shawn Johnson – who has a gold-winning smile – was tops on the balance beam.

The U.S. team had some stunning disappointments, e.g., the aforementioned dropped batons by both the men’s and women’s sprint relay teams.

But there were also unexpected triumphs. The men’s volleyball team beat Brazil, the No. 1 team in the world, for instance.

Dara Torres made a statement for the mature set, winning three silver medals in swimming at the ripe old age of 41. She could almost be a grandmother to those Chinese gymnasts.

There was one competition designed especially for millionaires. These guys run up and down a wooden floor (without the benefit of horses or motorized carts) trying to toss round balls into goals at either end – a particularly simple game for such opulent tastes.

I’m considering the purchase of memorabilia of the Beijing Games. I thought about a life-sized poster of Michael Phelps, but now I’m leaning toward Dara or Nastia.

A ringtone of the Olympic theme song would sound nice on my cellphone, or a screensaver of Jamaican Usain Bolt crossing the finish line as he set a world record for the 200 meters.

Or, I could get the DVD of the closing ceremonies when all the athletes merged together in a symbol of unity. That’s always the nicest part of the Olympics.

The melancholy part is when they douse the flame that’s been lighting the Games from the opening ceremony.

To me that was like hearing Dandy Don Meredith of Monday Night Football fame singing “Turn out the light, the party’s over ...”

The good news is, it’s only 18 months ‘til the 2010 Winter Olympics.



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, would like to see donkey basketball made an Olympic sport.

        

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