Gold Standard
I was just reading an article about Michael Phelps (champion olympic swimmer/questionable mustache owner) and stumbled across this brilliant tidbit of information:
The United States Olympic Training Center occupies a former military installation not far from the center of Colorado Springs
"!!!", is all I have to say.
No, wait, that's not true.
I've had an obsessive love of the winter olympics forever - one of my earliest memories is of watching the bobsled competition in the 1976 winter olympics; the visceral visuals of twists and turns eventually propelled me towards a passion for waterslides (similar action but WARMER. And less falling down involved.)
And the skaters! Figure skating has got lots of sparkly costumes and sometimes fantastic drama (if you can't guess that I own a copy of this book, well, then, you will never ever ever know me.)
Neither of those fascinations ever competed with my gigantic crush on Dan Jansen though. I grew up not far from him, so he was a home-town hero, as well as a figure of Tragedy! and Drama! - and then, brilliantly, with better story structure than real life usually has the simple decency to provide - Olympic Victory!
The summer olympics have never been as exciting for me, but I suspect that is all about to change, now that I know that the swimmers actually train in the pool at Stargate Command.
Who will be the athlete? McKay (with his instinctive genius grasp of fluid dynamics and skimpy speedo the same color as his eyes) or John (with the full-body swim-glove he insists he needs to keep his chest hair from slowing him down, but which is clearly all about his deep-seated fear of being naked around other men.)
I could really go either way.
The United States Olympic Training Center occupies a former military installation not far from the center of Colorado Springs
"!!!", is all I have to say.
No, wait, that's not true.
I've had an obsessive love of the winter olympics forever - one of my earliest memories is of watching the bobsled competition in the 1976 winter olympics; the visceral visuals of twists and turns eventually propelled me towards a passion for waterslides (similar action but WARMER. And less falling down involved.)
And the skaters! Figure skating has got lots of sparkly costumes and sometimes fantastic drama (if you can't guess that I own a copy of this book, well, then, you will never ever ever know me.)
Neither of those fascinations ever competed with my gigantic crush on Dan Jansen though. I grew up not far from him, so he was a home-town hero, as well as a figure of Tragedy! and Drama! - and then, brilliantly, with better story structure than real life usually has the simple decency to provide - Olympic Victory!
The summer olympics have never been as exciting for me, but I suspect that is all about to change, now that I know that the swimmers actually train in the pool at Stargate Command.
Who will be the athlete? McKay (with his instinctive genius grasp of fluid dynamics and skimpy speedo the same color as his eyes) or John (with the full-body swim-glove he insists he needs to keep his chest hair from slowing him down, but which is clearly all about his deep-seated fear of being naked around other men.)
I could really go either way.