Olympic Spirit

Post #5

Madison, Wisconsin - After a week of sunny, 60 degree Seattle weather, I'm back in snowy Wisconsin.  Rowing out there was so much fun and it was great to catch up with my teammates from this summer.  Unlike the two summers that I have trained in Seattle, the skies were clear almost all week and it was just amazing to see the huge, snow covered Olympic and Cascade mountains while we were out on the water.   You can see mountains a full 360 degrees around you and it's pretty awesome.  One of the coolest experiences was getting to row at night while I was there.  I was rowing with Michelle, my doubles partner from last summer, at about 7 pm and even though the water and the sky were pitch black and calm, the city was alive with so many people and lights.  I tried to capture it on my camera but ah! it was just so much better in person.

Seattle at night from Lake Union with the Space Needle on the right

You can just barely see the Cascades in the background through the drawbridge

Since I don't have a TV in my mini apartment, I have been glued to either nbcolympics.com or my friends' TVs for the past two weeks.  I happened to be at a friend's house when the women's bobsled coverage came on and I saw ITA athlete Emily on TV taking her first run!!!  She went on to place 5th overall - very impressive. Her blog can be found here: http://in-the-arena-emily.blogspot.com/.

The Olympics is such an exciting time because you get to see the essence of sport for two weeks.  The world gets to watch the extraordinary highs of success and the incredible lows of defeat that athletes from so many different countries go through.  We get to see team sports and individual sports.  We get to learn about sports we know very little about and watch ones we already know a lot about.  But regardless of the sport, everyone gets to share the Olympic spirit for two weeks and that is truly inspiring and special.