I love the Olympic Games.

Being a Finn the winter Olympics has always been a big event for me. I remember so many things about the Olympics. I remember watching them on TV (black and white for many years) since I was a child. I remember when the Olympics were only for amateur athletes and I also remember when the rules changed and the professional athletes were allowed to participate. To me it seemed so enormously unfair for the first few years as not everybody could be professional athletes and therefore at a disadvantage.

I love all the small stories that emerge at the Olympics, many of which bring tears to my eyes (or have me blubbering uncontrollably).

There are two older stories that are etched to my memory:

One is of the Finish giant Juha Mieto, a great cross-country skier. Before the Olympics in Lake Placid 1980 he had all the colours of the medals except for gold in an individual race. At that time he was 31 years of age and getting “old”,  thus it was uncertain that he would ever compete in the Olympics again. He wanted that gold so badly and since he is a lovable big teddy bear and a Finish hero we all wanted him to be able to fulfil his dream. He had a great race and we waited, holding our breath, for him to cross the finishing line. It was obvious that the race was very close but the disappointment could be physically felt when the result was clear. He lost by 1/100^th of a second. Contemplate that for a moment, 1/100^th of a second.

When he realised how close he came he disappeared into the woods for a while, probably to scream expletives and cry. That’s what I would have done. I remember feeling so incredibly sorry for him and cried like a baby.  When he came back, congratulated the winner and happily received his silver I cried some more.

This close margin led the International Ski Federation (FIS) to round all of their times to the nearest 1/10th second in future competitions.

Another story is of the first Kenyan ever to participate in the winter Olympics, Philip Boit. That was 1998 in Nagano and he competed in the 10 km cross-country race. The first time he ever laid eyes on snow was two years earlier so he hadn’t much time to practice. He of course finished far behind everybody else and during the race it was a question whether he was actually skiing or running on the skis. But that didn´t matter, he finished. The medal event for the race had to be postponed since the winner, Norwegian Bjorn Dæhlie, wanted to wait and greet Boit at the finishing line. Boit was so touched by this that he named one of his sons Dæhlie.

Boit was going to compete in Vancouver this year but just shortly before the games (I think he was in Vancouver already) it became clear that he just missed the recently tightened cut by 2 points. Do you like a good (sob) story? Read this and this (scroll down to Kenya).

There are so many stories. Come-back stories about people overcoming injuries, serious illness or “just” after taking a few years off to have children, everybody just wanting to participate in the Olympics and so happy to be able to do that.  Tonight I was watching the biathlon and the narrators were talking about it now being hard for many athletes, especially from the smaller countries, to get the money to train and compete.  One of the competitors in the biathlon is trained by his father, who himself is a two time Olympics gold medallist. The father auctioned his gold medals so his son could participate in these games.

I’m going to watch the figure skating now, even if it is the middle of the night here in Iceland. I love the Olympic Games.

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