the thrill of victory, in and out of the water

Add comment August 11th, 2008

this morning, two different people have talked to me about the excitement of two different competitions.

first, i got a call from an acquaintance of mine and former co-worker, connie carlson. she’s the projects and event coordinator for the rockford phantom regiment.

she told me i gotta go check out videos from saturday night’s dci victory on youtube, like the one below. she said it was “pandemonium,” and you’d have to agree.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/eIoqgleZuBk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

connie marched in the regiment when it did “spartacus” back in 1981 and ‘82, so she still has her car marked up with “hail, spartacus” and other champ chants. besides, she’s too busy taking merchandise orders.

an hour later, i got a visit from former reporter geri nikolai. we were talking about the olympics.

i said maybe it’s harder to get kids excited about it these days now that we don’t have the cold war to spark the spirit (i was big on hockey in 1980!). she said, no, last night, the american 4×100 men’s freestyle swimming relay was an amazing comeback to watch. the french had said they were going to smash us. michael phelps opened up with a lead, but we lost it and didn’t win until 32-year-old jason lezak inched back into the game and showed the french we could do it.

the video’s at msn.com.

beyond the victory, the best part is when the announcers are basically writing lezak off and giving him the silver, saying there’s no way he can pull off an upset. oops. now that’s what makes it exciting.