I love the games and it is so humbling to see elite athletes compete, and to know how hard they have worked on their natural talent to get to the level they are at in their chosen field.
It is also great to see athletes from really poor countries get there- our school did a fundraiser for the Kiribati team (it's pronounced Kirrybass and I'm sure many have never heard of it). It is a small Pacific Island nation and the whole boxing team only owned I think two full sets of Olympic equipment, which all the members had to share between them. (To the person who complained that other teams "get everything paid for", please note!) I'd be surprised if they win a medal, but I enjoy knowing that someone cares enough to make the effort to prepare and go and pitch themselves against the best in the world. And why should some poor boy in Kiribati not dream of being the best? If we can't all have that dream, what is the point?
My favourite part of the opening ceremony was when they lit the flame, which started in separate little dishes representing each team, and then came together into one big bowl of light- beautiful imagery- the whole world has to come together and share their light to make an Olympics happen, and that is something else to celebrate!
Another thing I found really interesting is that there is a small number of athletes competing under the Olympic flag, because they have no country. (Most of them are from what used to be the Netherlands Antillies- I did not know until today that their country no longer exists!) I don't think any of them are expected to win a medal but imagine if you did and you had no national flag to raise - quite a concept!
Living in Australia one thing I don't like so much is the constant focus on the Aussie medal tally and comentators (who probably never won anything in their lives) complaining that "we" "only" got a certain number of gold medals. I grew up in a country where we seldom won anything, so I learned to enjoy the competition and celebrate the achievements of Olympians from all over (and our TV showed the best bits, not just the sports that we were going to do well in!)
My favourite is the track and field, but I enjoy watching all sorts of sports and will watch as much as I can. I agree about the professional athletes- it seems odd to me that tennis players etc are in there, (but then again, a lot of elite athletes in other codes are fulltime sportsmen/women too- I would prefer it was otherwise but that is life- it is hard to pursue your sport to the utmost and hold down a job as well)