Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Gooooooooooooooooooooold!


Mexico has won a gold medal! Guillermo Perez won gold in Tae Kwon Do (58 kg). He's from Uruapan, Michoacan, which is just a couple hours away from here.

Ibis tells me this is only Mexico's eleventh gold medal EVER and the first in eight years. The ceremony was very emotional and I felt very proud for my transplant country. During the national anthem you could actually hear people singing. It seems like athletes don't always sing along, and you rarely hear the crowd, but this group showed their national pride.

Congratulations!

14 comments:

WendyCinNYC said...

Congrats to Mexico! I always like to root for the underdog, like Afganistan or Panama.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

I know! I almost cried when the woman from Bahrain came in first place in her heat.

Robin said...

That is so cool. We're so jaded to gold medals in America. Another gold medal. Ho hum.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Michael Phelps has won more gold medals than MEXICO. Crazy!

Travis Erwin said...

Viva!

Spy Scribbler said...

Wow! You know, I've barely watched the Olympics, but I was watching him last night. So cool!

My complaint about the Taekwondo coverage is they don't have a little thing on the screen telling you the score and/or who is sparring and what country they're from.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Really Spy? Our had that.

Watching with me and Ibis would be annoying for anyone else because I ask him a hundred questions. Everything is in Spanish and since I don't know much about this sport, I assumed they were talking about it. I'm usually pretty good, but last night I was all "why didn't that score a point?" "did that count?" "does the ref tell them when to hit?" and so forth. ;)

Anonymous said...

"Michael Phelps has won more gold medals than MEXICO. Crazy!"

We should all be thankful for our priviledged lives. Phelps great athleticism coupled with opportunity served him well.

colbymarshall said...

Woot, woot! Winning a medal for literally kicking ass is an exciting thing.

Mary B said...

I love seeing countries win medals they aren[t accustomed to. In Gymnastics, a Croatian won their very first medal ever in the sport and bawled like a baby. I found myself crying with him because it was so emotional.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Mary, I'm 1/4 Croatian! How did I miss that?

*sheds tears for fellow countryman*

Melanie Hooyenga said...

AC, the Olympics have been just one more thing that's been interesting to experience here.

Colby, yay!

Zoe Winters said...

awesome! And it wasn't for speed walking. lol.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Hee hee.