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The Bejing and Seoul Olympics

Posted by Stuart at 08:37 PM on August 18, 2008

I don't remember watching much of the Athens Olympics in 2004 on TV. I was living in Bangkok at that time, and I might not have even had a TV. (And looking back at a previous post on this site from four years ago, I was right, I didn't see much!)

But this year I have been able to catch a little bit of the action. We watched the fantastic Opening Ceremonies (it's amazing what you can do with millions of dollars and thousands of people) and a few events here and there. Last weekend I had the pleasure of joining Piyawat's family for some beach time at Pranburi for a few days. It rained most of the time, but we weren't complaining because there was plenty of great Olympic action to watch on TV.

Unfortunately, though, I haven't seen any of Michael Phelps races, or any swimming for that matter. Too bad Thailand doesn't have any swimmers competing. (I've seen plenty of boxing and weightlifting, on the other hand.) I always enjoy watching swimming on the Olympics because it reminds me of my past swimming days with Olympic athletes.

Back in 1988, the Olympics were in Seoul, and three of my team mates from my local team were swimming for the US. It was such a thrill to watch people that you had trained with every day for years take part in the biggest sporting event in the world.

One of the girls from my team, 16-year old Beth Barr, was awarded a silver medal in one of the relays, coming in second to a powerful East German team. I am not sure that I realized it at the time, but in a sad twist, the East German team later admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs for years, but their medals were never taken from them.

I just learned about this (or at least it was brought to my attention last week) in a "Where are they now?" article about Beth Barr in my hometown newspaper. It's called Losing her Seoul. Washington grad reflects on the empty feeling left by 1988 Olympic Games. And here is another, somewhat more positive, yet still pretty heavy short piece from NPR called Former U.S. Olympians: Then And Now

These articles were definitely an eye-opening read, as I didn't realize Beth's Olympic memories were not as shiny as the silver medal around her neck.