lets watch it together

The Olympics. It’s been a deep desire of mine to one day witness a live Olympic event. See a few races yourself, live. Sigh… someday. I will be rich enough or retired enough to see one. I want to play a game of cricket in England, watch Wimbledon, and catch a test match in Australia. And ofcourse watch the 100 meter sprint at the Olympics. Now thanks to Jispa we have started watching swimming and understanding it. It’s a completely different experience.

We have a TV now at home but we still don’t have cable. So we still can’t watch the Olympics. Getting the cable just for this is quite a pathetic chore. So we were lucky to be at friends place to catch the finals of the 400m individual medley, which had the legend Phelps finishing a poor fourth. Jispa was excited and we all watched eagerly. It was fun watching a sporting event with Jispa. I have always wanted to watch sports and play sports with Jispa. It’s awesome fun. Full on bonding. At the other swimming races, there was considerable excitement as well. Our friends also caught our infection as we cheered for the swimmers. Normally the swimming would have become a bit boring if not for the introduction of the World record line. They show the line (superimposed for TV) at which the swimmer must be to beat the world record. So it quite visible if the swimmer is ahead or behind the record. It makes for an exciting race.

So we were cheering and very excited towards the end when you see how fast the swimmers are going and if there are in line to beat the record.

The next day I tried to catch a few swim races with Jasmine and Jispa on the cell phone on YouTube. There we saw the race and then tried to analyse and learn from the swimmers. We were discussing how the hand is stretched just for that little bit before it pulls the water back. This is quite clear from the underwater shots. Then we were looking and rewinding and forwarding to see how the relay guys are ready to jump and have taken off just as the swimmer approaches. It’s timed to perfection. They begin their jump and only the toe is touching while their compatriot is reaching for the touchpad. Lovely. At that level you save every half second. Finally a sport that our whole family can watch and not just watch, we get technical about it. Wow. That’s one dream come true.

Normally when we watch cricket I struggle to show Jasmine that see – see the ball pitch and turn. There.. Can you see it, the ball is swinging in the air. In the middle, I used to try and predict the googly from Anil Kumble hand while he was bowling. All that was lost. Now we all can look forward to see one sport. I am thrilled. And all the angles and the innovation make for a very engrossing viewing.