BYU Cougar Olympians

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No copyright infringement intended. Please don't hurt me.

How can I have a sports blog and not talk about the Olympics? I LOVE the Olympics! I have been watching almost non-stop since they started. My favorite sports are gymnastics, swimming, and trampoline (if you've never seen trampoline before, you MUST watch on Friday and Saturday! It's amazing!) It was super hard to drag myself away from the TV to go to work this morning. I was right in the middle of catching up on the men's gymnastics team finals. It might take a miracle, but I'm hoping I can make it through the day without the results getting spoiled for me.

But of course, since this is a BYU sports blog, I've decided to do a little research on the current and former BYU athletes who are participating in the London Olympic games this year. Here's what I've found:

Two current Cougars, Andrew Rutherfurd and Rafael Alfaro, are on their home countries' (Bolivia and El Salvador, respectfully) Olympic swim teams. Rutherfurd swam the 100 meter freestyle and Alfaro will swim in the 200 meter IM tomorrow. Unfortunately, Rutherfurd didn't make it past the first round, and Alfaro probably won't either. But it's really amazing to even make it to the Olympics and have the opportunity to swim in front of the world.

If I ever had the potential to be good in any sport, it would have been swimming. I was on my high school swim team . . . for one day. I knew I had to quit because I just didn't have the time with all the AP classes and other commitments I had, but in some ways, I wonder what would have happened if I had given it a shot. I'm definitely not saying I would have make the Olympics by any stretch of the imagination, but I can only imagine what an amazing experience that would be, even if there was no shot of winning a medal.

Former Cougar Arielle Martin is on the U.S. women's BMX cycling team. How cool is that?! The competition doesn't start until August 8. Yahoo Sports lists her as a potential contender for a medal, so that would be amazing if she can pull it out. I know absolutely nothing about BMX, but I will definitely have to try to tune in to that race.

Two more former Cougar medal contenders are on the U.S. men's volleyball team-- Russell Holmes and Rich Lambourne. Even though the 2008 team (of which Lambourne was a member) won gold in Beijing, they weren't really favored to win it all in London (ranked 6th), but after a sound beating of Serbia on Sunday, they've definitely got a shot. They will play Germany today.

Go Cougars and Go U.S.A.!