I am not the biggest fan of watching the Olympics. However, when I do watch the Olympics, I prefer the Summer Olympics to the Winter Olympics for numerous reasons. Overall, I like summer sports more, my favorites being gymnastics and swimming.
I remember my siblings and I would look forward to watching the Olympics together as kids and cheer for the U.S.A. We loved how this event was such a big deal. First, it’s almost always in another country, which is amazing and it involves countries from all around the world. How neat is that? I remember my sister Shams’ favorite sport was gymnastics. I remember that I would specifically enjoy watching it with Shams because of how much she loved gymnastics.
Another reason why I have always enjoyed the Summer Olympics more is because of swimmers Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, whom I found attractive. I also remember how my brother Haidar and other sister Alyaa and I were impressed with how many gold medals Phelps had won. I also like the Summer Olympics more because it’s during the summertime when school is over and you can watch without the stress of work.
However, I also enjoy watching the Winter Olympics because there are more sports where athletes can do tricks, such as snowboarding, and it’s fun to see these tricks. This year, I watched the events more than I had previously because my housemates on campus are really into it. Watching the Winter Olympics has given us the chance to spend more time together. We’re always busy doing our own thing, but we managed to watch the Winter Olympics together almost every night. It’s been wonderful. My favorite winter sports are snowboarding and ice-skating. I love watching them because they look artistic. When athletes in these sports are competing they look graceful and pick themselves up with such class when they fall.
I love watching all of the world’s countries participate, but at the same time I hope U.S.A wins as many gold medals as possible. I do not have any favorite athletes who are participating in the winter sports though.
As a whole, I love that the Olympics because it is nice to see countries competing against each other and coming together. I feel as though this shows that even though this world has a lot of conflicts, we can still play games against one another, which will hopefully help the world be a better place one day. For example, this year North and South Korea walked together under the “Unification Flag” at the opening ceremonies.
I hate watching the news, and hearing about how countries are at war with one another. This always breaks my heart. I asked some people the other day, what country they were supporting in the Olympics. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t say the U.S.A. For example, one person said Japan. It’s neat how people who live in this country are supporting other countries.
I hope that the Olympics gets people to want to travel to other countries. I’m tired of countries being against one another, and I am happy that this is a time where the world gets to unite.
Farah Haidari
fahaidari@vwu.edu
