Olympics 2010 - Vancouver

So tonight was the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. The day had a slight pall over it because of today's tragedy during a luge practice: a member of the country of Georgia's luge team flew off the track into a steel support and died. This is only the third person to have ever died in modern Olympic history. It's a sad way to begin this Olympics...my heart goes out to his family and teammates. However, despite this tragedy, the opening ceremonies went on pretty much as planned.
I love the Olympics. It always has an air of excitement about it, of the world's best athletes coming together to compete over a two week period in an atmosphere of PEACE! Even North Korea and Iran have athletes competing in this incredible biannual, international cooperative event. Iran even has a woman competing - she got to carry their flag! The Olympics is truly a beautiful thing, showing the beauties of the host country and the beauties of the strength and dexterity of the human body. Hopes and dreams will be accomplished and dashed over these next few weeks. Being there is an incredible experience, I'm sure. Those participating get to "fraternize with the enemy," and get to know those of other nations more than they could any other way. Two weeks of peace...incredible.
Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to be from a country that isn't...well...the US. We win all the time! We have 316 athletes competing; many countries only have one. Something like 32 of the 38 countries competing have never even won a medal at the winter Olympics. Unlike in the Summer Olympics, we may not always get the most medals at these Olympics (I think something like Sweden usually does...unsurprisingly), but we come in second in that respect. What would it be like to not have anyone to root for? Or for my country's only athlete to not even have a chance at a medal? What they must think about us Americans...but I'm proud to be an American! This is the land of opportunity, after all. We have the population and the means to have all of these medalists in both the Summer and Winter Olympics. My roommate was wondering why India, the largest country, population-wise, in the world had only a handful of athletes. We have what they're lacking: money. We have the means to become whatever we want to be. Aren't we lucky? We can have people like the flying tomato and Apollo Anton Ono. We can do anything!

Go Team USA!