The Olympics

I'm not obsessed with the Olympics, but do find it annoying that when I log onto the internet during the day, the first thing I see is Olympic results. It kind of ruins the plan of watching the competitions in the evening. My favorite summer event to watch is women's gymnastics and my favorite winter event is women's figure skating. Today when I got on the internet, the first thing I saw was the results of the women's gymnastics team results. It really took away the anticipation of watching tonight. It also made me laugh and made me think of my dad.

In February 1994, the winter olympics were held in Lillehammer, Norway. The women's figure skating was especially exciting that year. Only a few weeks earlier, U.S. skater, Nancy Kerrigan was hit in the leg with a police baton in a deliberate attack. It was later found to be planned by her rival, Tonya Harding. Kerrigan recovered in time for the Olympics and both she and Harding were skating there. Since the time zone in Norway is ahead of us by several hours, the results were known before the event was televised in the U.S. We didn't have internet then, so I did a good job of not hearing the results during the day. Eric and I were headed to the farm the night the finals were to be televised. As soon as we got there, I told Mother and Daddy that I didn't want to know the results and wanted to watch the finals on t.v.

The four of us sat down in the t.v. room to watch the finals. After the short program earlier, Nancy Kerrigan was in first place headed into the long program. Oksana Baiul of Ukraine was in second. Tonya Harding was in a distant tenth place. I (like most of America) was cheering for Nancy Kerrigan to win gold. Mother and Daddy told me that they already knew what happened. I reminded them several times that I didn't want to know. We watched some of the lower ranked skaters. It was just getting to the top skaters. Suddenly, Daddy couldn't contain himself any longer. He burst out that Oksana Baiul won the gold, all because of the German judge. Eric burst out laughing. I had done so well not hearing the results ahead of time. I was only minutes away from seeing the event play out, and Daddy let the cat out of the bag. I was disappointed, but we still watched the rest of the finals. After seeing such a controversial judging finish, I understood why Daddy couldn't hold it in.

Over the years, Eric and I have laughed about Daddy's blurting out those results more times than I can remember. I could be having the worst day ever, and remembering that night will make me laugh. So, when I saw those results on the internet today, I thought of Daddy and laughed. Lauren and I are now watching the women's gymnastics finals together and I am doing my best not to slip up and tell her how it ends.