Olympic Fever

Judging by the shouting coming from my apartment, you would have thought a Steeler game was on. Except that it was after 11:30 on a Wednesday night, and I was on the couch in my pajamas. Thirty minutes earlier, my athlete of choice for the evening, American gymnast Paul Hamm, was in 12th place. All had seemed lost, his dreams, and mine (at least for that night), of first-time American male Olympic gold in gymnastics, had been squashed like a bug. And he seemed like such a nice guy, too. But a lot can change in 30 minutes. (Well, that's 30 minutes where I set up residence—in an NBC-edited-world, where I live avoiding internet headlines by day, and pretending it is all unfolding live at night.)

After some luck and a fantastic performance on the parallel bars, Paul was now in fourth place and about to compete in his last event. Seeing as how my calculator wasn't handy, the commentators did the math for me. Numbers appeared on the screen as they laid out the possibilities. Gold wasn't impossible, but it was a stretch. Bronze and maybe silver seemed like a goal more easily within reach. Paul began to do his thing, flipping around like a monkey on the high bar. I could tell there were no major hang-ups, but I let the commentators assure me that he was giving the high-bar performance of his life. One last critical ingredient—the sometimes elusive, always nerve-wracking "stuck landing." I held my breath, and as he nailed the landing, I pumped my fists in the air and shouted my support for Paul—my now seemingly close friend. The scores came up and as his coach yelled out to him "Olympic champion!" Paul couldn't wipe the look of ecstatic disbelief off his face. He was grateful, surprised, thrilled, and gracious—everything you want in your Olympic hero.

Congratulations, Paul. This is why we love the Olympics.