Olympiad

Two of my closest friends (Talia and Alex) moved to Chicago on Monday. I’m currently in denial and doing anything I can to distract myself. Bob Costas has come to my rescue.

Side note: Did you know that this is the SEVENTH TIME Bob Costas has covered the Olympics for NBC since 1992? Madness.

Even though I love watching the crazy stuff like synchronized diving, I live for beach volleyball, swimming, and gymnastics. I could watch Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh all day. They are so damn good at what they do and always look like they’re having fun. And I think I speak for just about every American girl when I say that gymnastics and ice skating were my gateway drugs to the Summer and Winter Olympics, respectively.

But swimming has become particularly interesting to me recently. Not just because of Michael Phelps and his amazing feats, but also because of people like Katie Hoff, Natalie Coughlin, Jason Lezak, Ryan Lochte, and Dara Torres. The other reason is because my cousin Kevin has been assigned by the Baltimore Sun to follow Katie Hoff and Michael Phelps (native Baltimorans) and all of their gold-medal-seeking adventures. He knows more about Michael Phelps than I may ever want to (including his eating habits), and even had to take a break from our family golf tournament in Waterton to call Michael’s mom Debbie from a pay phone to get some insight and hopefully a few quotes.

In every screen shot of the Water Cube, I’m looking for Kevin in the crowd, wondering if he’s sick of the smell of chlorine or the echoing cheers yet. Or if he still finds the whole thing interesting and surreal, even though this isn’t the first time he’s covered the Olympics for the Sun.

But at this point, I have to share with you my favorite part about Kevin covering swimming. And that is the following two videos (which I apparently can’t embed in this post).

ChloriNATION Episode 15

And the follow-up episode:

ChloriNATION Episode 16

U-S-A! U-S-A!