Olympic Correspondent Royer!

Editor's note: I'm proud to present the second guest blog, the first of, hopefully, many Olympic related posts by Olympic Correspondent Royer.  Royer has plenty of credentials including: he worked at a zoo once, fifth degree master of jorts/cut-offs, "bus-friend of the year 2009"- mbta bus route 34, plenty of street cred, and a bucket brimming full of AMERICAN PRIDE that's just sloshing around and over-flowing, getting all over everyone's shit, just how America likes it!  Enjoy! 

Greetings & Olympic Trial Recap

What happens every four years, is the best sporting event ever & gives me a reason to scrapbook? The Summer Olympics! Olympic correspondent Royer signing on to give the first of many guest blog posts about the London Games.

NERD!!!!

All true Americans watch gold medal finals like Men’s Basketball, 100 meter dash or swimming. I follow it all. Being a history/museum nerd I also like to document it with summer Olympic scrapbooks (and yes, I am seasonist and don’t put as much loving into the winter games but that will change in the future, don’t worry).

My Sydney scrapbook is a hodge podge of random sh*t shit (editor's note: Royer, swearing is not only allowed, but encouraged... I thought this was AMERICA?). I was 13, planning ahead was not one of my strong suits. My Athens book is everything I could fine in a colossal 3 feet x 2 feet monstrosity. Captain hindsight tells me that will be a pain in the ass to keep forever. For Beijing I picked individual teams or athletes from each sport. While my American flag hat, bathing suit & tank top say my patriotic level is on turbo I do have some athletes & teams from other countries that I always route for as long as they are not competing against USA.

For this year’s scrapbook I will be doing…THEMATIC PAGES. So to give a recap of the US Olympic Trials I will talk about some general themes plus a few of my favorite events & athletes.

We’ll Keep on Fighting Till the End: The trials are always a little hard to watch because four years is a long time in Olympic Athlete years (check this out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/sports/profiles-in-speed/age/sports-by-age.html). Dara Torres, Nastia Liukin & Bryan Clay all gave it their best but the Olympics are a young man’s game. The crowds gave them standing ovations and their Olympic dreams are over but my scrapbooks say they are still awesome.

We Are Young, So Let’s Set the World on Fire: As we all said goodbye to the stars of 2008 we also started cheering on and learning the faces of the future. Ashton Eaton set a world record in the decathlon. Youngster Missy Franklin qualified in four individual swimming events, set some records, and got jiggy with it on stage during her high school send-off assembly. Gabby “Flying Squirrel” Douglas won the all around competition while Needham local Ali Raisman also made the gymnastics team.  I don’t know about ya’ll but I am very excited to see them bring home some hardware.

Kick a little ass, ROCK, FLAG AND EAGLE! Our sprinters, Lochte & Phelps and men’s gymnastics team are all expected to be a force in these games. Like always, America is 2 legit 2 quit. Swimming, Track & gymnastics brought home 64 of our 110 medals in 2008. These are are sports and we are once again set to dominate.

My New Favorite Face:  Mckayla Maroney (center of photo). When the women’s Olympic team was announced she was one of the only girls not crying hysterically. This was especially good when the men’s team came over and creepily started trying to dance with all the 16 year old girls. She is also a sick nasty vaulter.

Biggest Disappointment: Alyson Felix got beat. No it’s a tie. It is going to be a run-off. Or not. It was a long week of following Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh and their drama of the last 100 meter spot that ended with an empty track and disappointment. Come on Jeneba, at least do it for the sport of Track and getting more people interested in an event that lasts 11 seconds.

My Olympic Hopeful: Galen Rupp. He won the 5k & 10k in the trials and I’m hoping he can help the United States get back on the distance running map. He is a goofy Oregon boy, following in the footsteps of greats like Pre, how can you not want him to win?

I hope ya’ll are counting down the days to July 27. I will be back with some previews but until that epic day here are three things to think about:

1. How do athletes get started in the modern pentathlon?
2. Who would win in an archery match, Robin Hood or men’s individual champion?
3. Will the Spice Girls be making an appearance during the opening ceremonies?

~Olympic Correspondent Royer

Olympic Countdown: 20 Days
This week's pre-Olympic Betting Odds: Spice Girls make an appearance at opening ceremonies (-150)