cliche alert. male gymnastics is so beautiful it makes me want to cry.


god bless the olympics. even if 90% of it is duller than watching paint dry.

so far i haven't caught any male gymnastics on the tvnz coverage. due to their preference for the paint drying sports: cycling, soccer, hockey, god forsaken equestrian. that kind of thing. so i've resorted to reliving my favourite olympic moments through youtube. like this...

ps only watch the first minute of this. the rest is some other gymnasts. why bother?

the benefit of watching clips on youtube is that i can watch them in bed with my electric blanket. you may not have noticed but it is positively siberian round here these days. on saturday i thought i had pneumonia because i just couldn't get warm. then i realised it was my three fin heater and eighty year old flat conspiring against me. so i bought a new heater. and spent my nights dreaming of insulation and heat pumps.

anyway, back to alexei nemov. in 1996, when new zealand had danyon fever, i thought i would die if i never met alexei. surprisingly, i'm still alive. and now he has retired and lost some of his gymnasts physique. i'd still go there though. obv. (but not in a million years for danyon. again, obv. it was the dancing with the stars that took that one over the edge).

then in 2000 i couldn't believe he was in my hemisphere. again, i vowed death a better alternative to never meeting him. as per above, i'm still alive. despite vanessa amorosi doing her best to kill me with her 'absolutely everybody' song. ps only click that link if you are desperate to remember what song i'm talking about. you will only last like three seconds. i promise you.

but by 2004 i was a professional and didn't have time to sit around all day watching the olympics. i worked hard for my money. and plus didn't want my cowoes to know about my obsession. but still, i booed with the crowd when alexei wasn't given a high enough score by judges. i also continued my fantasy where i would marry alexei. as yet this hasn't come true. plus the athens olympics were the dullest yet. i can't remember a single other moment.

this time round all i have is other moments. due to no alexei. and no male gymnastics for me so far. only godforsaken equestrian.