Since last Sunday, I have been taking a break from all my regular interests and spending all my spare time watching any – and EVERY – sport of the Tokyo 2020(one) Olympics! To tell you the truth, I wasn’t really looking forward to this Olympics as I have in the past (probably because I wasn’t 100% convinced it was actually going to happen) but now that it is here – I’m HOOKED! I am obviously cheering for the Canadian team (being from Canada), but I love to watch all the teams and all the sports and see all the stories unfold!

So, if you’re not sure where to start your Olympics watching, here is what I recommend:

Pairs synchronized diving

Whether on the 3 meter board or the 10 meter, diving is HARD. Now add in synchronizing with another person who may not be the same height or weight and this sport takes on a whole other level. Now, I like to watch all synchronized diving, but the pairs 10m finals this year took the CAKE! Not only do the dives get extremely, EXTREMELY difficult on the 10m board, but the margin for error is so small. If you get the chance, you should check out the men’s pairs synchro diving finals for a close match all the way until the end!

High jump

I have never been much of a land sport person (as a former competitive swimmer) so I am always in awe of all of the Athletics events! But the most amazing event for me is the high jump. These people run up to a horizontal pole – that is sometimes double their actual height – and somehow manage to jump over it! HOW??!! So far I have just watched the preliminaries, but there was definitely a lot of clapping shouting and cheering from my couch as I watched the athletes jump after jump!

Mixed pairs table tennis

This is new sport this year – and I’m loving it! Not only do we have the fast moving sport of table tennis, but we have teams of men and women working together at such a fast pace, usually I can’t even tell you what happened at the end of a rally! I do watch alot of table tennis during the Olympics – because it’s so fun to watch – but this mixed pairs offering is such a great addition to the Olympics and I hope it stays for years to come!

Gymnastics

I know there has been a fair amount of chatter this year over gymnastics and Simone Biles withdrawing for health reasons (and I say good for her for making that difficult decision and putting health first), but regardless of whether she is in or out, there is ALWAYS a lot to watch in gymnastics. You have both women’s and men’s team and individual competition – and in every single event there is a huge amount of skill required! I can’t imagine even trying to walk across the balance beam, let alone do flips across it. And I have played around on the bars and rings – and nothing on those is easy! This sport will remain a favorite of mine for a long time, and if you’ve never watched, it makes for some exciting viewing!

We have one more week of Olympic action – will you be watching?