"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

short track
Feb 17, 2002 - 10:04 am

i think it's that line:

this could be messy, but you i don't seem to mind

i decided in the span of thirty something minutes that short track speed skating is my favorite olympic sport..and then that i never care if i watch it or the olympics in general again.

i first saw the short track stuff a day or two ago with the relay race, which was just freakin' cool to watch. i was amazed how seamlessly the next skater got in front of the current one and they pushed off. they hardly bumped or bothered the other racers...i know i would have killed someone. then last night they had the 1000m race, which is four or five guys at once. it's not like track n field were everyone has a lane. it's an even start and a mad dash of like 7 or 9 laps, i forget which. i was entharlled as they weaved and jumped in front of each other, with the top 2 racers advancing. it was fast paced and exciting.

there was one wipe out and the judges did what judges do and disqualified some people and advanced one guy to finals instead of another, or something like that. i didn't really catch what happened. then they did the finals. it was the first event i've been at all excited about watching. so round and round they went. that apolo guy from the usa jumped into the lead and was really gettin' pretty physical with a guy from korea. it was great till the final turn...when in short, even skater but the last guy got knocked down. this is the same skater who in the previous round had qualified for the finals cause again..he was like last and others feel. he wins the gold, the guy from last place. apolo, i guess you could say luckily, crashed nearest the finish line and was able to scramble across for silver.

i forget who was who, but the one skater pretty clearly caused one guy to fall, who took out another guy and that took out another...and then they all fell, but the guy in last place. it was a pretty cool crash, but i figured they'd have to rerun the race since people got pulled down. they didn't. they called it a good race and so the guy who was the slowest...did the poorest job, but didn't fall, won the gold. apolo got the silver cause he was able to scramble across next and the i forget who got the bronze. i was all annoyed last night. i wanted to see a rereace and a clean finish.

sitting here now...i take a different view. them's the rules of the game and you know what, that's alot like life. i'm rethinking, as i'm typing, this whole thing. my initital reaction was wrong. i think, if i get to watch more, i'd probably come to love the sport. it is like a metaphor for life. i guess he should win cause he didn't fall. he did the right thing, on purpose or not, but not being to close to the rest to get knocked down. the rest...well, shit happens and 'fair' shouldn't even factor in should it?