Towards the end of this summer, everyone at Chamblee, and everyone in the world, was watching the Olympics. I was only able to start watching the Olympics a few days before August started, but I still had just as much fun as if I started earlier. This year, I came into watching the Olympics with a goal: don’t be single-minded. I wanted to more or less branch out, find some new sports, and understand all the sports that make the Olympics whole. Below, you will find my ranking of my new top five favorite sports in the Olympics.
#5
Rhythmic Swimming
While many people have criticized me for it, my opinion is that rhythmic swimming is a good sport and it’s incredible to watch. Everyone says that diving is the gymnastics of competitive swimming, and I’m here to say you’re wrong, it’s rhythmic swimming. I never expected it to be interesting, but then I see fliers in the water. These teams have fliers in a nine-foot-deep pool. It’s exhilarating just watching someone do a double backflip just by being thrown up by other people in water. I couldn’t understand how they were able to do that, or really any of their tricks. I could never to do what they do individually, much less doing it with a team in a coordinated fashion. It’s seriously so fun to watch, and America also won a silver medal in it, so bonus points.
#4
Track and Field
Track is one of those weird sorts of sports in the Olympics where it has so many different events it’s pretty much just a bunch of different sports in one “sport.” Yes, I watched a lot of the trials for sprints in June, so I came into the sprinting part of it a little more prepared. This year, I only watched the semi-finals and finals for most sprints, and they were great. Watching people go fast is always fun, especially the photo finish in the 100-meter. While sprinting is an all time favorite for the Olympics, my favorite events to watch in track and field are any field or jumping event. So long as it isn’t discus, it’s just fun to watch. People say if something looks hard on camera, it’s ten times harder in real life. Hammer throw, long jump, shot put, pole vault, and high jump are all perfect examples of what I mean by they look so hard it’s probably impossible in person. The Olympics are awesome, but it sucks because of how humbling it is. When you see a casual Hungarian guy walk up, do the hammer throw, and throw it so far that within a quarter of a second you can’t even see it on the screen anymore? Yeah, too impressive for me. I’ll stay sitting on my couch with a bag of salt and vinegar chips with a Coke.
#3
Kayak Cross
For those who don’t know what this is, it’s pretty much a race in kayaks where they have to make a 360-degree turn around some poles. It’s so chaotic to watch, you see people smacking others with their paddles, you see everyone flipping their kayaks upside down to go under a barrier, it’s just so cool. If I had to describe it in a simpler way, it’s like watching Mario Kart in real life, but it’s with kayaks in the water. Simply incredible, but in a chaotic way.
#2
Boxing
While I normally love watching all fighting sports, boxing stands out to me above other ones. It’s something you don’t need to have 110% of your attention to know what’s happening. This is one problem I find watching mixed martial arts. With other combat sports, I simply don’t find them as interesting, although taekwondo is another event I like watching at the Olympics. Another reason I love this event so much is because it isn’t like how you would regularly watch boxing. First of all, there’s no pay-per-views in Olympic boxing. Second of all, each bout is only three rounds. I especially like this because I don’t find it as enjoyable to endure watching seven or nine rounds of one bout, and because it’s only three rounds, it incentivizes competitors to truly give it their all and go harder in their bouts, as they aren’t as worried about endurance here. The third thing I like about it is that they move through fights very fast. The transition from one fight to another is probably less than 10 minutes. The last reason I love boxing so much is more or less just because I love watching this type of competition. The fighters give off this aura of respect while they fight, watching them go all out throwing jab-cross-hook combos, and simply watching them show you the epitome of physical prowess.
#1
Sport Climbing
To anyone that’s had the pleasure of knowing me, it’s not surprising I’ve chosen this. I’m a climber myself, I rock climb in my free time, I climb on a team, I compete in climbing competitions, I watch other people compete in climbing, I even coach rock climbing. It’s clearly a huge part of my life. I loved watching people from America in the combined lead and bouldering events. I didn’t like how qualification outside of the Olympics worked, because they aimed to get everybody from all regions of the world. Because of this it made it a little tough to watch because there were some people from say, New Zealand, that were pretty inadequate at climbing, but I still liked part of it because I got to see completely new world class climbers. I loved the speed climbing discipline of it, because it was the first time it was featured as its own event at the Olympics, and it’s also my favorite discipline. I saw world records broken live twice, then it happened again, which made it even better. Even though speed climbing is the fastest event in the Olympics, with each run being about five seconds for men and six to seven for women, it’s the most exciting one to watch. I’m also lucky enough that I had the chance to meet one of the women competing there once, and that definitely added to the experience. I thought it was so cool getting to watch someone I’ve met in person on a screen halfway across the world competing in the greatest sporting event in history. It made it a lot more special to watch, having the inside scoop on all of climbing and being so experienced in it made it so easy and fun to watch.
