Olympic Withdrawal

Our men’s hockey team bringing the Sochi Olympics to a satisfying and fitting close last Sunday is probably one of those events that every Canadian will proudly remember for years to come.  And now we can all let out a long sigh of relief and allow our lives to return to normal.  After so many athletic highlights, new records and thrilling close calls a period of well-deserved rest and quiet pride is definitely in order.  And I think our Canadian athletes deserve a little R & R and admiration too.

I know why I’m exhausted.  During the last two weeks my mental acuity, physical coordination, endurance and discipline have reached an all-time high.

With a dizzying array of TV stations randomly airing the various sports throughout the pre-dawn and sometimes even daylight hours my daily challenge was to figure out how to record the ones I wanted for our evening viewing.  I have now acquired the clairvoyance and mental agility to select the correct channel (as opposed to the one announced in the guide), the ability to determine if sufficient recording time was available, and the foresight to record the following program so that, unlike on the first couple of days, we would actually see who won the events and even catch a bit of the flower-presentation ceremony.

The major advantage of PVR-ing is that one does not have to endure the endless series and constant repetition of annoying ads.  But fast-forwarding over these and not cutting into the competition takes advanced levels of digital dexterity.  I now boast one of the fastest TV-remote control fingers on the planet.  I’m hoping this will become one of the demonstration sports in the 2018 Olympics.

The 30 km-long ladies’ cross-country ski in which a mass (that’s the actual Olympic term) of dismayingly fit (and inevitably blonde) young women chase each other up and down hills and back and forth through snow-covered forests for over an hour, or countless ends of curling with the only levity provided by the Norwegian men’s questionable sartorial choices, or hours of oversized bullet casings stuffed with 4 hairy-legged and hefty men hurtling down spiraling cylindrical ice-lined hamster-runs require high levels of concentration and the ability to remain seated for far longer than the average human anatomy can usually tolerate.  But I am confident I rank among the best in the world in the field of sedentary endurance.  And don’t even contemplate competing with me in the bladder-control event!

Loyalty to our Canadian athletes is a requirement that is easy to fulfill but every day brought new events, each with its own set of rules to decrpyt (does ANYONE who isn’t Dutch understand the intricacies of the speed-skating events?).  Each day I learned the names of yet another batch of bright young superstars whose success or failure depended on my unwavering concentration and support.  Like all true afficionados I prided myself on being able to refer to our medal-winners by name and inject arcane details of their Olympic triumphs into conversation even days after their event.

But I am most proud of the discipline I have acquired thanks to these games.  Watching a sporting event loses all of its drama if one already knows the results.  In preparation for evening viewing I would resolutely abstain from listening to the radio; all family and friends were warned at the outset of any conversation that I DID NOT WANT TO HEAR WHO HAD WON!  If I had to find a TV channel for my husband I would mute the sound and peek at the upper portion of the screen through fanned fingers.  I felt that I was at the top of my game in Olympic-result-avoidance until I made the mistake of attending the Symphony where a woman I had never met ran up to me, grabbed me by the arm and exuded:  How about those Canadian women winning gold in the hockey game!?!  If hadn’t become so well- disciplined I would probably have reacted in a rather violent manner.

So now I return to my pre-Olympic lifestyle. I’ll have to search for topics of conversation when I begin interacting with friends again; I’ll start going out of the house again (Where did all that snow come from?  I thought it was 15° outside!); and I’ll have to rely on my tai chi class and my computer keyboard for my athletic activity.