Olympic Fever

Over the past week or so, NBC has been starting to cover the Olympic trials on their sister channels like USA and Universal HD. Something that brings great joy to my wife who was a high jumper in college. The other night we witnessed one of the most exciting races in the Men's 800 meters.

Now let me preface this by saying my wife could care less about sports in general. When I am watching hockey, she rolls her eyes with every goal I celebrate, and gets peeved when I get upset over a blown call or a stupid penalty. Don't try talking hockey with my wife either, she could care less. When ever I have news or think something is exciting and I share it with her, I usually get a "I really don't care" stare from her.

But the roles were reversed the other night when we watched the track and field Olympic trials. She was on the edge of the couch, getting more and more excited as we watched the decathlon events high jumping and pole vaulting. Then we watched the Men's 800 meter race that feature 3 runners from Oregon, the home boys since the trials are being held in Oregon.

When the race starts the three Oregon runners were near the back for most of the race, until the last turn. Out of nowhere all three put it into overdrive and all three beat the field and will be going to Beijing for the Olympics. You can see the video here on nbcolympics.com. My wife was so excited she was jumping around the living room and screaming about how great a race it was.

I caught myself rolling my eyes. It was a great race, but I was never a huge track and field fan. But thinking about it, I get to see the Caps play every year for near 8 months out of the year. She only gets to watch elite athletes realize their Olympic dreams every 4 years. So I let her jump and scream and grunt with the runners and jumpers. It was fun to see the fan side of her emerge as we watched all of the events. She even gave me a few pointers on how to high jump using our bed as the "pit."

I guess our house has already caught Olympic fever.