The X-Factor

With the Olympics just days away, everyone is looking forward to the stories of huge sacrifices, competition, and overcoming adversity but until then, I dare say you can already find this going on.

When I say skaters, many of us think of those stupid punk kids (man am I starting to sound old) who hang around movie theaters or malls, or anywhere but the skate-parks cities often build for them. We don't generally think of olympic quality athletes. Let me share with you what I saw recently while watching the X-Games. The video is of Danny Way, a skateboarder who in this particular instance is competing in the "Big Air" competition in which he skates straight down one side of a quarter pipe, ramps over a large gap, then skates straight up another quarter pipe where you would try to get "big air" and do a trick. On his way down from 20+ feet of air, he clips his leg on the wall and tumbles down the quarterpipe. After spending some time with the paramedics, he is able to limp his way out of the stadium but decides he is still going to compete in his final jump. He literally limps back to the top of the ramp to start his final run! Talk about determination! He goes on to win the silver in this competition after what was described as the "second worst fall in x-games history".

Sex Tests Mandated for Olympics

When a woman looks a little too manly, we usually assume steroids, right? Well, have you ever considered it actually is a man? Beijing officials have been designing special laboratories for well over a year to determine the sex of any athlete competing in the games. "Suspected athletes will be evaluated from their external appearances by experts and undergo blood tests to examine their sex hormones, genes and chromosomes for sex determination," according to Professor Tian Qinjie who has helped to develop some of this testing. Though, not everyone will be inspected, anyone can be.

This comes to the biggest surprise and may hurt most the American Men's soccer team who will now be without their star forward, Amanda Bynes.

Link to the full article here, which also has a list of famous past Olympians who were literally "playing for the wrong team."

My First Celebrity Crush

I've actually been wanting to blog all day but have been suffering a little from "blog constipation" (every time i sit down to write, nothing comes out).

I'm now watching the 2008 Women's Gymnastics Olympic Trials and I'm reminded of what was probably my first celebrity crush. As I write, I'm actually starting to recall very well watching the 1996 Olympic Games (I admittedly had to look up the year) from my Grandparents living room in Rogers, Arkansas. I watched very intently to both of the Dominique's (Dawes and Moceanu) but particularly paid special interest to Dominique Moceanu, whom I found incredibly hot, or whatever a 13-year old boy called a cute girl in 1996. This was also the year Kerri Strugg stuck her famous landing, or more remembered by me, Chris Kattan parodying it on SNL.

Back to the actual show, I'm curious as to how old some of these girls are. They look 13. I know a girl who was a pick for the '96 Olympic Team for Rhythmic Gymnastics. She wasn't a part of the "Magnificent Seven" but she was still pretty stinkin' great! She declined her spot on the team and was 16 when she retired from gymnastics (she would have been 17 or 18 by the Games.) I remember hearing stories of her eating disorders and the birth control they put her on to prolong the onset of puberty. I just can't imagine that life. Not to mention that these pre-pubescent 16 year olds can probably bench press me. And if not, they could use me as a springboard to do a triple flip twist mounted ollie off the hook... or something. Still, it is pretty impressive the amount of agility and talent these girls... and all the athletes that I have yet to see, possess. Besides the horror stories of the eating disorders, I've also heard amazing stories of extreme training schedules, diets, and levels of commitment and determination I could only dream of.

I think I just got myself excited for this year's Summer Games.

Go America!