Olympic Aspirations

In sum, to become an Olympic-level figure skater, one has to have talent, composure, burning desire, financial backing, good looks, a compact body type, pain tolerance, and a lot of luck. As already indicated, I was lacking in many of these categories. Additionally, I had an aversion to cold. (Slate)

I found this post interesting for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I have a relative that is spending incredible amounts of time and money (and sleep!!) on kids who are skating competitively (although I don't think they have Olympic aspirations, but I could be wrong).  In a conversation with my wife, I realized that no kid of mine will ever be an Olympian.  We just don't have the budget or the obsessive focus necessary to spend on a worthy but very difficult endeavor. 

Besides, my daughter is a jack of many trades and master of none yet.  As I have mentioned here and elsewhere, she skis and plays ultimate, but also is interested in other sports.  Her school activities challenge our ability to coordinate (debate, drama, newspaper, yearbook, etc).  I don't know where she gets this from--my major activity at her age was watching old TV shows (Gilligan's Island, Brady Bunch, Hogan's Heroes, etc).  I did play a bunch of sports, never getting great at any one of them, while growing up.  I did specialize in college and since, as any reader of this blog knows, in Ultimate.  But even there, I have not had the obsessive focus necessary to be the best.  I never got serious about conditioning, as my teammates past and present can attest.  

Anyhow, this slate post puts the games into some perspective.