Road to Rio: My Olympic Obsession

Today marks the opening of the Games of the XXXI Olympiad.

You may have learned through my Road to Rio serious on the blog that I am Olympic obsessed. There has always been something about the world uniting and marching in together that has always tugged at my heart strings. For the next 2.5 weeks I will be on Olympics overload, watching every night in Primetime, DVRing things during the day, and routinely check nbcolympics.com.

I remember that as a child I would cut out circles from yellow, gray, and brown construction paper and tape them to yarn to create gold, silver, and bronze medals. I remember my parents letting me stay up late to watch my favorite events.

Gymnastics has forever been my favorite Summer Games event. I'd lay an ace banage that we had down on the crapet to serve as my beam. I'd play music on my boom box and do cartwheels and jumps around the living room as the floor exercise. I got my brother and sister into "vaulting". We'd run up to this recliner we had, do a handstand on it, try to "stick the dismount." The Olympics have provide so many cherished family memories for me.

My all-time favorite Olympic story if that of the Magnificent Seven at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Shannon Miller, Domique Dawes, Domique Moceanu, and Jaycie Phelps were among the members of the women's gymnastics team who were dubbed "The Magnificent Seven" after becomes the very first US Women's Gymnastics team to win the team gold medal. I can't believes that was 20 years ago. I was twelve years old and I'll never forget it. I'll also never forget taping it off of TV on to a VHS and rewatching it the entire summer.

This Olympics allows for new champions and more memories. The Open Ceremony starts tonight at 7:30pm EST on NBC.