Hello Friends!  I will be glued to the Olympics (and my blog, where I will be posting lots of interesting Olympic type stories) for the next two weeks.  My friend Pat is also glued to the Olympics, and her dreams of becoming an Olympic athlete one day yet  . . .

I am probably the most non-athletic person you’ll ever meet, but that has never stopped me from dreaming of someday competing in the Olympics.

I’ll be at the London Games (virtually) to experience the joy of victory and the agony of defeat, wave the American flag, and eat healthy snacks (I think it could be a sin if you eat junk food while watching some of these incredible physical specimens).

And, quite frankly, I’ll also be glued to my television set in hopes of finding an Olympic sport for me.

After all, there are 35 official Summer and Winter Games sports now and the International Olympic Committee is considering adding softball, baseball, karate, squash, roller sports, wakeboard, sports climbing and wushu (which apparently is some sort of Chinese martial art) for the 2020 games. Although I don’t understand all the official and wannabe sports, I can accept that someone more athletically minded than me thinks they’re important enough for the Olympics.

Plus, each time new sports are added, my chances increase, right? Still, it seems like my Olympics window of opportunity is closing with each passing year. You don’t have to know me to guess a woman my age will never be a track star, speed swimmer or downhill racer. But surely there’s still some sports someone with “a little maturity” can compete in if she really, really wants to, right?

Shooting, sailing, curling, fencing, equestrian and maybe table tennis might still be possibilities because I don’t think they require an overly youthful physique.  Of course, I don’t have a bit of experience in any of these sports, but that’s not the point. If I trained hard enough and wasn’t so busy with other things -- like writing for hooplaha.com or worrying about my hair  – maybe I also could be wearing the red, white and blue uniforms of Team USA.

Better yet, perhaps I should be pushing for blog writing and hair maintenance to someday become official Olympic sports, too.

In the meantime, I’ve had the privilege of talking to athletes who made it as far as the Olympic Trials. (Hoopie's Note:  Watch our blog for the story of one such athlete, Andrew Campbell,  who made it to the Olympic Trials for these London games, coming up later this week!) These young men and women dedicated years of their lives just to reach these preliminary contests, but then fell short of earning the privilege of representing their home countries at the Olympics. Although they should be rightfully proud of their athletic accomplishments, which far surpass those of most ordinary humans, it seems to me that the outcome must be incredibly discouraging after investing all that time and energy.

Perhaps I ought to rethink this Olympics glory thing after all.

Better yet, maybe I should suggest that they make WATCHING the Olympics an official sport since I already excel at that!