many nations

So the Olympics has ended, and part of me is kind of relieve as now I have less distractions in my day to day.

There is a good article about the "stats" of this Olympics: http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/37148372, and it talks about how US is still a powerhouse in the medals count, and how Great Britain did very well reaching second place. It also shows how certain countries have most of their medals on one type of event (e.g. Jamaica won a bunch in track and field). Canada also did pretty well.

It goes on with talking how Michael Phelps did very well, and as well Katie Ledecky (she is beast), and one of the best gymnasts Simone Biles winning many medals. Of course Usain Bolt is on a league of his own, winning the 3 golds (100m, 200m, 4x100m) in the last 3 Olympics. Probably it is not the number of medals that made him so good, but it's how he dominates the race and how he draw the crowds to roar for him.

These are all achievements that most people have heard about as they are the main starts of the past few weeks. There are other great achievements that might not appear in the main headlines that I would like to note:

• Anthony Erwin from the US, the oldest swimmer at age of 35 to win a gold medal (50m freestyle). He had won a gold in Sydney 2000 (16 years ago!), and then had a tough life of depression and even had suicide attempts, but he was able to recover, and even get a gold medal.
• Oksana Chusovitina, is the oldest female gymnast to compete at the age of 41. She is already a well accomplished athlete, but she never gives up. She participated on the vault apparatus, and even though she did not win any medal, she attempted the "Prudonova" which is the hardest level of difficulty of vault (and is very dangerous). Though she did not landed cleanly, the fact that she tried to such a high level routine with the ambition to clinch a medal is worth admiring.
• Monica Puig, won the very first gold medal for Puerto Rico in its history, by taking first in women's tennis. It is an achievement that brings much joy and unity to a "nation" that is going through a really bad economical turmoil.
• Juan Martin del Potro, Argentine tennis player who used to be in higher ranks a few years back, but due to injuries have not competed well in the recent years, had a wonderful journey of battles by defeating #1 tennis player Djokovic in the first round, and defeating former #1 Rafael Nadal, to get into finals and lose to Andy Murray. The silver medal is a fantastic prize for him on his comeback. He is even surprised to get that far, especially when he knew his first match was against Djokovic.
• In indoor volleyball, the relatively new nation of Serbia, went to its first Olympic final in women's by defeating the favorites, the US in 5 sets. Eventually, they did lose against the talented and very tall team of China in the finals, but their accomplishment is admirable.

There is probably a lot more of good things to talk about regarding the Olympics, and of course there will also be many negative things to speak about.


Rio Olympics started with great skepticism, because of many issues that Brazil as a nation is facing. From the economical issues, to political instability (its elected president had to stepped down, and she is getting prosecuted), to civil unrest (many people are really unhappy about the $ spent in the World Cup and Olympics), to the Zika virus (many health organization recommended to postpone it). Plus there are other concerns about how the clean the water is in Rio, about the unfinished residences (for the athletes), and the security (apparently a few athletes has reported robbery, some are true stories, some are not). Due to all this, there is a huge concern whether tickets will get sold as people might be deterred to visit. Despite all this, Rio Olympics went on, and seemingly it went relatively ok. Of course, that is from an outside's perspective, we'll still have to see how this will affect Rio in the next couple of years.

But for sure, there is also controversy when talking whether it is worth hosting an Olympics.

I found some youtube videos that shows top 5 interesting facts about the Olympics in general:

• reasons why it sucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUaLWYUe12c
• reasons why it can be good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp2OKrtxgeo

I was trying to think why I like the Olympics. What attracts me to spend a few hours a day watching many kind of sports event? In general I really like to watch sports, especially football (called soccer in North America), but I actually do not watch football in the Olympics (it's considered a minor event). 

There are certain sports that I grown to appreciate a lot like artistic gymnastics, pole vault jump, synchronized diving, and some of the sprinting events, some of the swimming events. There is actually World competitions that go on every year or two years for these sports, but I only follow them during the Olympics. So I think the Olympics does provide a "venue" to showcase all these great sports and athletes in set time, so that people can appreciate and admire (and learn the rules and points system about the sports).

One thing one of the major attractions about the Olympics that I like is to see people from many nations participating. My top favorite sports event is the Football World Cup, but there are only 32 nations, and most of them are European. Whereas in the Olympics, there are officially 207 nations (some of them not recognized by the United Nations, but who cares), and that is big number. Nations from certain geographic location tend to do better at some sports (e.g. East Asian countries are good for Table Tennis). Sometimes it is very nice to hear an athlete from a less known country winning something big (e.g. Fiji winning gold on rugby), It's very neat to witness many athletes from different nations, ethnicity, and culture competing together in the span of two weeks.

It is very pale, but really pale picture of what it could look like when all nations will gather together to worship God. Of course it is a stretched comparison. If I am elated by seeing people from all nations competing in a sports event, how much more joyful it will be to see all nations coming together worshiping God? 

A few other things from the Olympics that was nice to see/hear:

- David Boudia (silver in 10m synchronized diving, and bronze in 10m individual)  praying with his coach after his final dive.

- Almaz Ayana (broke the 10km record, and won gold) was accused of doping, and she defended herself with these reasons: "No. 1, I’ve been training specifically (for this event). No. 2, I pray to the Lord. The :ord has given me everything, everything. And No. 3, my doping is Jesus. Those are the reasons."

We should really be doped with Jesus.