Omar’s Olympic Odyssey II
Now that the realization has sunk in that Paul Hamm won’t compete in Beijing, I was sad in a way that my existence at the Olympics was coming to an end too. You see when I interned for NBC in Athens, I was blessed with the good fortune of working in one of the utility positions at the gymnastics venue. I didn’t know much about high level gymnastics at the time, but quickly learned a great deal. Before the games started, I helped set up the miles and miles of cable connecting the arena and the broadcast operation center where we had set up camp. But during competition, I was on the arena floor, settled right next to one of the judge’s tables on floor exercise. NBC was permitted five cameras on the floor – four were wireless – one was cabled. That cabled cameraman was followed by another utility to make sure he didn’t trip over the cable when walking from one event to the other. I was at the base of that cable taking in or giving slack. A slacker, if you will. Lol. So, I - almost literally - had the best seat in the house during the entire Olympic gymnastics run. A couple of the highlights included when a greek athlete won the rings competition and the house went nuts. Shouts of “Hellas! Helllas!”(Greece’s version of U-S-A! U-S-A!) dominated the roar of the crowd. A Russian gymnast performed the greatest high bar exercise I’ve ever seen, it ranks right up there with any sports performance – it was truly amazing – but he wasn’t rewarded by the judges which resulted in controversy and an upset audience, fun chaos. The best part though, was witnessing Carly Patterson’s and Paul Hamm’s gold medal performances close up, and more importantly standing next to the medal podium stage, transformed from the floor exercise, when our national anthem was played. To see the United State flag rise to the rafters, in a time when anti-American sentiment was at an all-time high was one of the proudest moments of my sports fan life. All thanks to Paul Hamm. I was hoping to re-live my experience in Athens tied to the success or failures of Paul and Morgan Hamm in Beijing, knowing that once upon a time, I was right there with them. I wasn’t allowed to cheer on the floor Athens, but had no problem applauding on the inside. But now that Paul is out, I’ll watch in support and hope for the best by Team USA, all the while knowing that this magic carpet ride now belongs to someone else…
