Boyfriend... Olympic boyfriend

(the one on the left)

I'm late! The games have begun! It's a tie!

With the Opening Ceremonies still hours away, the competition has already begun.

WHAT?!? No one told me I had to be ready this early to entertain another cavalcade of Olympic boyfriends. But after four years of saving myself (because Apolo Anton Ohno wouldn't return my calls during the Winter Olympiad)...

 ...it is time.

How did the pre-ceremony games begin? Soccer -- football to most of the world -- hit the pitch yesterday. Whilst I was still wondering who's going to carry the torch and light the Olympic cauldron, and while Mitt Romney was declaring the games not ready to begin (though he later flip-flopped and said they'll be great)...

... footballers were busy running, kicking, and scoring goals. Well, they don't really spend much time scoring goals -- it's all about the running and kicking. 

As unprepared as I was to pick a boyfriend so soon, I must declare, in true international football tradition -- it's a tie! As Mexico and South Korea battled to a stalemate, I chose my boyfriends from those who tried really hard to score. Seriously, isn't that what you'd want in a boyfriend? So for a quickie before the games truly open... I have two boyfriends for the day. But remember: just for the day.

Raúl Jiménez of Mexico, and Koo Ja-Cheol of South Korea (please display the correct Korean flag here!) you have the honor of being my Tie-Olympic-Boyfriend(s)-of-the-Day for Day Zero of the XXX Olympiad (that XXX means "thirty"... or whatever else you might want it to mean).

Clearly Raúl Jiménez has the Olympic spirit:

 

and many fans

 

and a serious game face

.

And Koo Ja-Cheol has a lot of suitors since Fox Sports put him on their list of 99 sexiest Olympians:

But when the games begin for realsies, it'll be Raul and Ja-Cheol and me curling up on the couch to watch the opening ceremonies... until my next Olympic Boyfriend of the Day comes along. Tomorrow. Sorry, those are the rules.

It's Coming...

Nice Box! (Special Cereal Killer Update)

One of the perks of Olympic success is the placement of your image on a box of a suitable breakfast cereal for an Olympic athlete to eat as part of a training regimen.
Olympic Decathlete Bryan Clay made the smart choice and put himself on a box of Wheaties: The Breakfast of Champions! He's been staring me down during my morning breakfasts recently and reminding me to eat healthy meals, exercise, and wear spandex:



Michael Phelps, the man with all the medals, went a different route. He chose to lend his image to a sugar-sweetened breakfast treat that also draws in a stoner on a late night. So how did he hope to spur sales of the product he endorsed: by portraying himself as an Olympic athlete who also gets stoned and needs an occasional munchie-binge on Frosted Flakes. Unfortunately, the folks who make the flakes weren't so amused and gave all his boxes of bong-bouncing-binge-bounty to a local homeless shelter. But Phelpsie... your popularity remains... and the cereal verily flew off the shelf at its bargain basement price of $0. You're still a high-roller! And a high-swimmer... and a high-eater.... and so on...

Olympic Boyfriends should be seen and not heard

My Olympic Boyfriend of the Day from the early days of the swimming competition should have let his record stand for itself, because he comes off sounding a bit cocky during the post-race interview.

"My time was excellent," Kosuke Kitajima said. "This is what I was hoping for and I won with that time. I tried to swim precisely for each stroke and keep a good rhythm," he added. "My performance was perfect and ideal. I would have been baffled if you do not say that was perfect."


Oh well, confidence is an attractive quality.

So many boyfriends, so little time...

The last few days' posts have been posted late and out of order, so scroll down a bit to see if you missed any.

Day 15 - He's here, he's Australian, get used to it!

Openly Australian diver Matthew Mitcham won the gold in the 10-meter platform diving today in Beijing. I wasn't going to bestow upon him the honor of being my Olympic Boyfriend of the Day until I got this email from an admiring reader of this, the hottest blog on the planet right now:



With encouragement like that (and a horse's head cut off and placed in my bed last night... thanks a lot!) how can I resist welcoming Matt through my revolving door of Olympic paramours. I mean look at him:









Cute, talented, comfortable wearing very little clothing, and willing to spend a lot of time on his hair in between diving rounds -- he's got it all. In fact the only reason I almost passed him by today is because he truly has it all: he already has a boyfriend who has been by his side through all the olympic competition (here he is on FaceBook):
Lucky devils -- both of them!

Matthew is hot, happening, and (although I hate to have to share, but sharing is caring) today I dub thee, Matthew Mitcham, my Olympic Boyfriend of the day.

Day 14 - Today I am a Clay(not Aiken)-mate!

He catches shotputs between his ear and shoulder:

He runs:

He jumps:

He flies:

He can grab a large stick...

...and bend it a whole lot:

He sometimes forgets to wear his shoes:
...and frequently forgets his shirt as well:


For all those skills, and for winning the 2008 Olympic Decathlon, Bryan Clay is my Olympic Boyfriend of the Day.


Sorry... those are the rules.
(but call me later, ok?)


(I bet he could do a mean Colin Powell impression, too:)

Day 12: Where there's smoke, there's friendship

Alexander Despatie, your smoldering good looks and stellar diving techniques make you the Colin Ferrell of the diving board, and my Olympic Boyfriend of the Day.
(seriously: is that a McDonald's logo on his shirt???)


But you're not just a medal-winning athlete. When no one was mingling with the Chinese athletes a few years back you persisted and made many acquaintances on the team, and a best friend in Chinese diver Wang Feng. Such a good buddy, actually, that one night (after putting back a few pints with him) you made four burn marks on your arm as part of a friendship pact with Feng. (here's the whole story). You can see the marks on Feng's arm here:

I guess I'm not the first one to see how special you are because somebody else beat me to the punch in making this video that I would have totally made had they not already made it:

Day 11: Truth in Adver-diving

I want to have an Olympic diver as my boyfriend of the day... but let's take some time out here to see if Olympic divers are really as hot as they seem on TV. What happens when you slow the footage down and actually freeze frame them mid-dive. Here are some of the results (from previous competitions) as they could only be brought to you by the Russian website of the paper Pravda (Russian: Правда, or "The Truth"):







Is this Lance Bass?

Day 10: Oh, Canada

Oh Canada, you've been punked in film (Canadian Bacon) and song (Blame Canada) and now it took you eight days to get a single medal at the Beijing Olympics. How could that happen??? Even places like Togo, Croatia and Azerbaijan already had medals by then.

You made up for it by sending this guy, Jared Connaughton, to the Olympics:

No, he hasn't won any medals (yet!) but he certainly serves to distract from the memory of that eight day abstention from victory.

Connaughton hails from New Haven, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He's a track & field athlete representing the land of the maple leaf in the upcoming 200m and will also run the 2nd leg of the 4x100m relay. He's already successfully qualified for the 200m semifinal on Thursday....so don't blame Jared -- Blame Canada! Off the track, Jared is a Law student, and a Cancer, born on the cusp of Leo, making him a sensitive introvert, ambitious, proud, creative, flamboyant, nurturing, traditional, strong, expressive, organized, inspiring, intuitive, cheerful, self-assured, practical, realistic, romantic, social, dependent, passionate, generous, emotional, and today's Olympic Boyfriend of the Day.
(P.S.: why does he need all those upper body muscles to run track? Oh... nevermind, they can stay.)

Day 9: Xiáng went the strings of my heart

Why did I start this blog? Because there was one athlete I was hoping would be my for-real Olympic boyfriend, and I thought I'd mix in all these other hotties to seem less obsessive (although I'm sure that hasn't been the result.) You can imagine the devastation I felt when my cellphone buzzed at 9:05 PM PST with a Breaking News text from NBC Olympics saying Liu Xiang had withdrawn from the games due to injury.This is big news: it's as if Phelps had shown up without his Speedos, or Beckham gave up soccer and took up needlepoint on the eve of the World Cup, or Michael Jordan played baseball instead of....
Anyway, a nation of 1.3 billion supporters wept:Liu, despite the fact that your achilles heel really turned out to be your Achilles Heel, I see your many accomplishments, your good hair, your great looks, your big strong legs, and your charming Coca-Cola commercials and want you to know you are still my choice for Olympic Boyfriend of the Day. Speedy recovery.

Endorse This!

Breathe a heavy thigh of relief...