The Olympics are over. So what?

Did you know that Canada tied for 19th along with 9 other nations including Brazil, New Zealand and Georgia?? Did you know Canada won a total of 18 medals? Did you know Kenya came 14th, with 5 golds and a total of 14 medals (all in track and field)? If you are reading this from Canada, then you might, but if you are here in the US, odds are you haven't heard much other than how the Americans have been doing...

Shawn & Nastia, Michael Phelps... sure they are the Rock Stars of the Olympics (and oh-so-marketable!) but I haven't felt so much like a foreigner here since 9/11!

Don't get me wrong, the US and China certainly dominated these Olympics, but there *were* a few other countries that fielded strong teams! Or so I hear. I tried to get into watching a few times, but after watching such one sided coverage, it was hard to get interested. For instance, we watched womens springboard diving one night, where a Canadian (I am sorry I don't recall her name) was in the hunt for a medal... they showed some of her dives, and NONE of her scores! We did see the focus on Shawn Johnson (as all American as she is) about a dozen times that night though. Maybe I am wrong, but seems to me that CBC at least let you know when someone else won!

In all honesty, I am not sure how much of the Olympics I would have watched this year anyway... there is something much more interesting to watch at my house these days, at least until 8 or so when she goes to bed, but it does make me think about how biased the rest of the news coverage we see here in the US is...

The other thing that struck me about the Olympics was the sight of the opening and closing ceremonies... (admittedly I didn't watch much of that either, but I did read about both) While the sight of several thousand drummers drumming is fairly amazing, couldn't the time and resources applied to such a feat be put to better use? Maybe I misunderstand the extent of the economic impacts on a host city, and within that, the impact of the opening and closing ceremonies. It just seems in these times of conservation, the increasingly over the top spectaculars are heading in the opposite direction.

Lest you think I am off my noggin, yes, I understand the vast dollars at stake in advertising, and also the National pride thing for China... my observations here are not very in depth, but rather my lingering memories of the Bejing Olympics.