The Olympics In A Foreign Land

Posted by Ms. Babble

August 14, 2008

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing have me entranced. One of the many perks of being in Israel during an Olympic year is that I can see it live. Relative to other countries, the United States is in a geographical position that places it far from other time zones and makes live events from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East painful to watch. (Thank you Atlantic and Pacific oceans.) Who wants to stay awake until 3am to see the women’s 400 meter butterfly competition?

Of course, under normal circumstances, we Americans pay little (or no) attention to international television programs unless they involve Americans directly, like the Olympics, anyway. Of course, this post isn’t intended to argue America’s egotistic seclusion from the international community. (sigh) I’ll save that for next time.

Instead, I simply want to brag that I can turn the t.v. on at 7am and see the Olympics live. They’re live at noon too. And also at 4pm. No editing. No special highlights. Simply raw Olympic goodness. Go Michael Phelps!

Speaking of bragging, it’s never been clearer to me how dominant the United States is in the Olympics until now. In fact, we’re almost embarrassingly dominant. After the first few days of watching the Americans consistently win one of the top three positions in any given event, I started to get bored with our success.

It didn’t take me long to notice that smaller countries were receiving a lot more fervor from their fans and from the announcers. Take, for example, Israel.

They have quite a few athletes competing in the Olympics. 39 athletes to be precise. It’s a good sized number especially for a country about the size of New Jersey. And whenever one of their athletes win (even if it’s just a qualification round), I can’t help but yell and screem and high-five with E or S. It’s hands-down much more thrilling to see one of the 39 Israeli athletes compete.

The United States on the other hand has sent 596 athletes. (!!!) It’s a small army.

It’s been hard watching the U.S. athletes win a medal in nearly every event while sitting next to non-Americans. I have to bite my tongue from being overly enthusiastic with nationalistic pride because if the tables were turned, it would be a little irritating to me also.

Instead of following all of the BILLIONS of American athletes, I find myself getting really excited over watching the Israeli athletes. (Besides Phelps of course. You gotta love that guy.) It’s not simply because they’re members of my host nation, but also because they’re underdogs. It’s much more thrilling to watch them.

Just another eye opening experience for yours truely, I suppose.

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