My favourite biennial tradition

[awanderingbard]

Hello all! It's the last day of the month and therefore time for me to post! Happy Olympics!

I think I've mentioned before that my family are big Olympics people. Do any of us play sports? No. Do my mum and I ever watch sports in between times? Only figure skating if it's on at a convenient time which it usually isn't. Does my day spend multiple hours watching CBC sports some weekends? Yes, actually, but I think he naps through a lot of it. But when the Olympics come around, it is 24/7 dual-wielding TVs here at the Bard household. It's been that way since I was a kid. I have memories of even Barcelona 1992 when I was about six and we watched the opening ceremonies on the black and white TV at the cottage in PEI. I remember being terrified of the giant puppet things in the opening ceremony in Lillehammer 1994. I remember watching Donovan Bailey winning the gold in Atlanta 1996 when I was at my uncle's house in Vermont. And Nagano 1998 was the sort of definitive Olympics for me, the first one I really remember engaging whole-heartedly with. Ross Rebagliati won the gold in snowboarding! But he was disqualified for testing positive for marijuana use! But marijuana isn't a banned substance and so they appealed! And then he got his medal back two days later! Surya Bonaly did a backflip in the figure skating which is illegal! Drama!

So, anyway, we've all been glued to our TVs since Friday night's opening ceremony. Which I thought was really fun, but it seems like a lot of people didn't like it.

Hope everyone is doing well as we continue to live through major historical events. At least we have the Olympics to distract us.

Comments

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Our Progeny is a huge Olympics fan! They're watching basketball, football (soccer), diving (which they've done), and some other things.

We all watch gymnastics together, which Progeny also did in their younger days.

My parents weren't into sports at all; my mother said the one time she watched significant Olympics was when they had Progeny with them for a week during the Olympics. Brilliant Husband and I began watching gymnastics for summer and figure skating and ice dancing for winter many years ago, in grad school. They make me happy.

[awanderingbard]

I played baseball when I was a little, but I stopped when it got in the way of dance class. Trying to change into tights in the back of a moving car is a challenge! My parents were both sporty when they were younger, especially my mum. She played basketball and volleyball and loved hockey, and my dad swam and skied. My dad actually watches a lot of sports; I was being a little facetious. He watches pretty much everything, but he does sleep through a lot of it, lol.

Mum and I really love the diving, that's probably our favourite summer Olympic sport.

Also, fun fact: a few years ago someone got in touch with me through Ancestry who is my dad's mum's cousin (? I can't quite remember the relationship), but his daughter is an Olympic gold medalist downhill skier from Canada and was a commentator for a number of years. We had no idea when she was competing we were related to her.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Oh, wow! That's so cool, finding out that you're related to someone you'd seen in the Olympics!

My parents were not sporty at all.

If I had more time, I'd watch the diving too.

[awanderingbard]

It was very cool indeed! He is also a lovely man and I've enjoyed chatting with him, so it was a great experience overall.

We're very lucky, the CBC has tons of streaming coverage of the Olympics and on demand replay of events, so we've been using the app on the TV to catch things we missed when we have time to do it. Or see things they don't show. They even this year have commentary on the major team sports (football, basketball, rugby, etc) in Inutituk, which is pretty cool.