It's The Journey - Really !

While everyone else in Beijing seems to be focusing on Michael Phelps, the swimmer who, miraculously, STILL has a chance at winning eight gold medals, this writer and erstwhile weightlifter will be focusing on Olympic weightlifting, or, at least what little of it can be captured among NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, and USA. (I still can't find Telemundo).

Most impressive of all to me is the story of Melanie Roach, who took 6th in the Women's 58 kg. division. for the U.S. What's amazing to me about Melanie is that she equaled her amazing performance of April, 1998 in Flagstaff at the American Weightlifting Championships, totaling 193 kg. At 33 years of age, after a back injury, after marriage and kids and ten more years of life, Melanie took center-stage in Beijing, China. And, from the looks of things, she's still flashing that radiant smile.

I personally witnessed that Flagstaff, AZ meet. In fact, I still have the videotape. At that time, I was a master lifter, who, at a bodyweight of 77 kg, could snatch about 80 kg and clean and jerk about 110 kg. On that day, I witnessed a young woman surpassing my totals at a bodyweight of 19 kg. less (that's about 40 pounds less) and SMILING while she did it.

That day Melanie became the first American woman to clean and jerk double her bodyweight. I went home to Jersey with a renewed sense of determination and, thoroughly inspired by Melanie, who was a Pritchard-Kosoff at the time, eventually snatched and jerked about 15 kilos more in both lifts combined after another year or so of training.

Ms Roach hurt her back shortly thereafter, apparently, and had to quit the sport. Then there was marriage and children, and, by accounts I have read, she didn't lift a weight again until 2005, when she awakened one morning with a hankerin' to make the Olympics team of 2008!

Well, make it she did, and did herself and her country proud. Here is a person who perhaps most spectacularly embodies the notion that… it’s all in the journey. For, although her results have been spectacular enough, they are nothing compared to the trials and tribulations and life experience that took that sweet face to Beijing, China to finish 6^th in the entire world.

That’s the reason for my frustration with the news coverage of these (and every) Olympics. The focus is always on the results only and Americans only and the beautiful only; no one else need apply. We’ll cover the ridiculous sport of beach volleyball more than any other. And why? Because gigantic string-beans run around in bikinis!

We covered the heck out of the “Dream Team” in basketball four years ago and finished third. This year, all we hear is about Michael Phelps’s hopes for breaking Mark Spitz’s record of 7 swimming gold medals.

Well, Phelps was VERY lucky to win his second yesterday, and not for his efforts so much as for the effort of his teammate, Jason Lezak, who swam the fastest 100 meter leg in history to touch that wall a millisecond in front of the French anchorman. Instead of marveling that Phelps has now won two golds, we focus on the fact that he needs six more for eight. Ridiculous.

I still haven’t seen Melanie on TV; why should we see her? She only took 6^th. That the U.S. usually can’t compete internationally with the rest of the world goes unnoticed, that a 33-year old woman accomplished the feat is lost, that she did it despite injuries and all the rest-who cares? She finished 6^th. She doesn’t wear a bikini. She’s not a gymnast. She’s not a swimmer. She doesn’t compete in a sport in which we excel every four years.

Perhaps I’m taking a cock-eyed look at this whole thing. After all, I did get to see the magnificent Chinese 17-year old Quong in the 56 kg men’s competition and the 62’s were televised as well. And there is the companion web page. It’s the most extensive and comprehensive Olympics coverage ever.

So why am I so irritated? It’s the focus. The focus is always on the medal count. How important is that really when half the sports are those we don’t play at all? Badminton, beach volleyball, rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming, trampoline and water polo are sports, sure they are, but when was the last time you played badminton competitively? Or even SEEN it played seriously? Besides you and cousin Jackie beating Uncle Harry and little Jimmy on the 4^th of July?

The medal count is ridiculous. China, you got it. Meanwhile, I’ll have fun watching the sports we play in the summer… baseball, basketball, soccer, and, for me, weightlifting, although it’s more of a year-round activity and almost always done indoors, so why it shouldn’t be a Winter Olympics thing is beyond me.

But the whole thing is larger than life, I have to admit, especially as staged by China. That opening ceremony was, by all accounts, the single most memorable experience in their lifetimes. This reporter missed it, but I did manage to see a lot of people walking.

But, if this extravaganza is all about promoting peace and harmony, why do I have to see the single worst President of the U.S. on TV discussing his chastising of his buddy Putin for attacking Georgia? And why focus on Iran’s dissing the swimming heat because Israel had a participant?

So, all in all, like most people I guess, I have mixed feelings about these Olympics, at least the coverage of it. And, after all, there’s always the remote control. Push a button and it’s gone, as it is now, as I watch the Mets try to hang on against the Pirates, and win one for Pedro.

But as soon as Heilman turns my stomach over one more time, I’ll turn back to the Olympics, I’m sure, or maybe I’ll get to the gym and do a couple of snatches. For Melanie Roach.