Stars, Stripes and Maple Leafs

Every two years, I become obsessed with the Olympics. I love watching them, hearing the stories about how someone overcame severe injury to race for gold or even how an entire poor city pitched in to buy their Olympic hopeful a pair of shoes. I’m a total sucker for all things Olympics, from the clothes on the athletes and spectators to Bob Costas (anyone else think his hair is looking unnaturally dark this winter?).

I always thought it would be an amazing experience to go to the Olympics as a participant. During the opening ceremonies, the commentators talked about how the majority of athletes there don’t have a chance or hope to medal, but are simply hoping for a PR. I would be perfectly happy with that. Alas, I’m one of those people who is athletic enough to be average at almost all sports and don’t excel at any one in particular.

While watching skiing the other day, I noticed a few skiers who had dual citizenship and were skiing for the country they had not grown up in. In this case, they were skiing for Australia and New Zealand rather than Canada. I always thought my dual citizenship would come in handy when the Middle East got their nuclear weapons together to bomb the US, I never considered athletics! That’s not entirely true, I have a friend from college whose brother wrestled for the Canadian team in Beijing since they also have dual citizenship. But who wants to be a wrestler?

All of this led me to wonder what could have become of my Olympic dreams if I’d been a dual citizen of say the US and Ethiopia. Or some other African nation that isn’t known for their winter skills. Instead, I have to have citizenship in two countries that are huge and always produce a ton of athletes and medal counts. I’d be quite an Olympic anomaly representing Egypt in the winter Olympics!

Alas, the Olympic dreams of my youth are gone. I’m content to be a spectator and watch people with amazing athletic skills dominate. Lindsay Vonn may win an Olympic medal, but I went to my high school prom. While it’s fun to wonder what it would be like be a participant, I’m quite happy to be at home cheering on my Stars, Stripes and Maple Leafs.