biff said:
That's actually really interesting. I'd love to hear more about that.
Hehe, well, first off I've seen pretty much every gymnastics meet televised in the States in the past 13 years. There's always a little segment about where the meet is being held. Then, there's always several segments about stand-out gymnasts. Since they're from other countries, these segments always include info about where the gymnast is from. For example, how many 21 year olds from the States that aren't actually into history or geography can name 10 cities in Romania? Or all of the countries that border Romania, what their political relationships were, and what Romanias main exports were/are? Everything I know about Ceausescu and his regime, I learned because Nadia Comaneci is my favorite gymnast (if you ever need to know anything about her, ask me because MOST of what is published about her in mainstream media is completely untrue. Her REAL story is quite amazing). Until very recently (1993), gymnastics and politics were inseperable. You could hedge your bets on who would win if you just considered the current state of world affairs and whether the competitior was Soviet, Romanian, East German, Czech, Japanese, Korean, etc. I remember in 1992, that was the last time the Soviets competed as the Unified Team. After that Olympics, gymnastics fans had to learn about the federations and national training programs in the Ukraine, Belarous, Uzbekistan. I remember watching old footage from the 1968 Olympics. Caslavska one a medal fair and square, but of course they gave a Soviet the tie, so Caslavka refused to watch the flags go up. I learned then about how the Soviet tanks invaded her country. She was opposed to communism and her career simply faded away because they denied her the right to travel after that display of disapproval.
Just things like that. I just retain it better when I can relate it to something that's important to me, something I know really well. I'm sure the same argument could be made for any sport, although I think it helps with gymnastics because it's largely individual. You know where the top 20 gymnast in each country were born, where they grew up, where they train now, and what implications that has on their level of technique, artistry, and overall potential.
Anyway, back to Bono and his eyepatch/height....