A True Olympian

From the extraordinary Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt (never have I seen two athletes make setting world records seem so easy) to the incredible, almost telepathic teamwork of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, to the chance to see games you otherwise never see (team handball, badminton, table tennis) and the pure joy of an unknown athlete winning a medal nobody expected them to win (like the guy from the tiny island nation of Tonga winning a bronze medal in whitewater kayaking), the 2008 Summer Olympics have been full of memorable moments. The one person I will remember most from this Olympics, however, is Shawn Johnson.


Shawn Johnson is, of course, an American gymnast. She is an exceptional athlete, as the 5 medals she won will attest, but I'll remember her because she seems like an even better person.

Upon her arrival in Beijing, Johnson was asked how she felt to be there. Instead of talking about how excited or scared she was, she talked about her coach, who is Chinese.

With a huge smile on her face, she said, "It was really cool to be in the Beijing airport and hear him speak Chinese."

"It means I worked hard enough to get him back to his hometown."

Later, during the team competition, the US would lose an intense, hard fought competition to China due, in part, to two critical mistakes by the US team captain, Alicia Sacramone.

After her routine, Sacramone sat by herself, fighting hard not to cry. Johnson sat with her and took her hand.


"It's okay," said Johnson, "we love you no matter what,"

Sacramone is 20. Johnson is 16, but wise and poised beyond her years.

After the individual all-around competition in which she won a silver medal behind her teammate Nastia Liukin, Johnson would only talk about how proud and happy she was for Liukin. When asked what she would say to all the aspiring gymnasts back in the US, she said:

"Follow your heart."

Words to live by from a person seems to have it figured out.

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You Are What You Eat?

Michael Phelps has won 5 gold medals and set 5 world record at the Beijing Olympics and he still has 3 races left. He's one of the world's greatest athletes. So what does he eat? A really healthy, carefully chosen diet? No.

In an NBC interview, Phelps said that his typical day was spent "Eating, swimming and sleeping". He eats "mostly pasta and pizza". When the Olympics are over, he's probably "going to McDonald's."


Phelps eats at least 8000 calories a day (an average adult male should eat about 2500 calories)

A typical breakfast: three fried egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions, and mayo, one five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast with powdered sugar, three chocolate chip pancakes, and two cups of coffee.



So, if you really like high cholesterol, high fat, high calorie foods and want to be able to eat them without fear or heart disease or getting fat, all you have to do is swim about 8 miles per day...

PE Games You Can See in the Olympics

First of all, did anyone see the Opening Ceremonies? Incredible....

Anyway, the Olympics give American viewers a chance to see world class competitors playing games not normally shown on TV. Two examples are Team Handball and Badminton. In case you think that these games are only played in PE (you'll play both of these games at MVMS), try to catch one of these games on TV. They're usually broadcast in the morning or mid-day.



Today I saw a womens team handball game between Hungary and Brazil. Very enjoyable. The game ended in a 29-29 tie after Hungary scored its final goal on a penalty shot with one second left in the game.

Badminton is fun to watch too. It's a very fast paced game. Even though the court is very small, the players work really hard to cover it - they end up drenched in sweat!

World's Smallest Snake?

A newly named species from Barbados could be the world’s smallest kind of snake.

Adults of the new threadsnake average only 100 millimeters long (not quite 4 inches), says evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges of Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

Hedges is naming it Leptotyphlops carlae in honor of his wife, Carla Ann Hass, he says in the formal description published online in Zootaxa.

The snake’s eye-to-tail stripes, narrow head, scale pattern and some of its DNA segments mark it as a species new to science, Hedges says.
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He says the Barbados snake also fits another pattern: Islands are often homes for very large or very small species. Some lineages on continents never make it out to islands, so island dwellers have opportunities to fill niches they wouldn’t on the mainland. Hence, when searching for an unusual form of an animal, such as minis or giants, islands make good places to start looking.

Over his career, Hedges has codescribed other extreme herps: A frog smaller than a dime and the smallest known lizard. Each came from an island.