I know that it’s all over now, and I have once again missed the boat with this post because I have… well see the other post about the Olympics for my list of excuses, but I never in my wildest dreams thought I would say this, but when I got to the beginning of week 2 I was really glad that the swimming was over.

I love all things Olympics and in the past the swimming has been my favourite bit.  As a kid, swimming was my sport of choice, of course I wasn’t all that great, but I loved it all the same, my heroes were swimmers like Kieren Perkins, Michael Klim and Suzie O’Neill and while these swimmers have now retired, I have still loved watching the next generation swim much faster than I could have ever imagined.  In the past I have been glued to the swimming, but I think I think I am just a bit over it.  When it came to the Olympics, week 1 with the swimming was my favourite week because we won lots and didn’t have that many competitors in week two, so it got a bit boring, but this year I was glad to see it go.

Now, before you jump to conclusions it has nothing to do with the results… I had just had enough to be honest.  I think I knew there was lots of other stuff happening and just felt like we were watching swimming for the sake of watching the swimming… and replays of swimming and interviews of swimmers and listening to commentators talk about our performance in swimming, which was apparently average, despite the fact that we were still up there with the best of them.  Silver is pretty good you know!

I think perhaps because, as a country,  Australia has been good at swimming for a long time, we get to see a lot more of it on TV regularly.  At least once a year there is some kind of swimming championships that gets broadcast across the nation, so I don’t have to wait for 4 years to see it.  So by the time the Olympics came around this year, I had already had my swimming dose.

As I have gotten older I have learnt to appreciate the skill involved in some of the other sports, and because I no longer pretend that one day I could be as good as the swimmers, that dream died long long ago, I realise I am rubbish at all of them so it’s incredible whatever the sport, whether the Australian’s are there or not.  I don’t see the purpose of repeating a race 8 times when we could actually watch something different… and perhaps a little more exciting.

I am really proud of our swimmers, but I am also proud of all the other Australians those that got air time and those that didn’t, just getting to the Olympics is an incredible achievement and once the swimming was finally over, I have been able to enjoy learning all about the equestrian, sailing, taekwondo, boxing, water polo, gymnastics of all types, wrestling, BMX and the aths.  And… I have to admit that I enjoyed week 2 of the Olympics heaps more than the first.  I think it’s purely because it was something different, something I don’t get to watch all the time, and something that I probably won’t watch at this level again for, well, 4 years.  In fact, I am sad that it is all over and that the XXX Olympiad is all done and dusted but I think my sleep deprived body will be rejoicing.