Olympics Memories:
My first viewing of the Olympics were the Lake Placid games in 1960. I was thrilled by all of it, but I really loved the skiing events.
After that, I pretty much watched summer/winter games. My most special memories included watching Janet Lynn fall in the women's free skate. She smiled, got up and finished. She won the Bronze.
I remember Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming winning.
I remember seeing Torville and Dean at Sarajevo in 1984 and feeling a bit underwhelmed at the Bolero because everyone had made it out to be such phenomenal skating and I thought it would be more magical. I was much more taken with their performances in the four years between World's in 1980 and 1984. The incredible event in that Olympics for me was Kitty and Peter Carruthers skating flawlessly and winning the Silver Medal (while the Russians, skating a more difficult, but flawed, program won the Gold). The Carruthers' weren't given much of a chance for finishing higher than fifth.
Mark Spitz was, of course, the major Olympics phenomenon of our time. An Olympics or two later, we had Shane Gould of Australia winning five Golds. While he should have been leading parades after that Games, the sad truth is that he flew directly home after winning his final medal because of the terrorist attack against the Israelies in the Olympic village.
And in the 1980s, we had Eric Heiden, that phenom of the oval track, winning 5 speed skating Golds.
For me, the Olympics are always about the amateur athletes who dedicate their lives to being as good as they can at what they do.
Their dedication and their performances, their humility (yes, some are quite humble) and graciousness under duress are certainly something the world needs to witness more of.
I can think of no finer example of this than Kerri Strug's heroic vault that earned the USA women a Gold team medal in gymnastics.
