Are you excited for the Olympics?

My kids just don't seem to be impressed.  They keep flipping back to Disney or Nick or Survivorman or something silly like that.  I came across a blog from a VT native who is participating at her first Olympics, Carissa Gump.  She posted a few photos today that were cool -- her with Matt Lauer, her with Kobe Bryant, and her with Adam Nelson!  Adam is a fellow Dartmouth '97, and I believe we actually even had a French class together at one point. He is a remarkable Track & Field athlete who has 2 prior olympic silver medals to his name.  From an article earlier this year:

Nelson is arguably the most successful track and field athlete in the world over the past decade. Since 2000, he never has finished lower than second at any major championship – including the Olympics and the world championships.

Best wishes to all the athletes that have trained so hard for this opportunity.

One other random Olympic connection:  the Director of the Center for International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (where I have been working this summer) has a fascinating research interest in predicting the total and gold medal counts for each Olympics.  This week he's had a good deal of media attention, did you catch him on the Today show or NPR?  Anywhere else?  Check out this page to see how accurate his 2000 predictions were.  Cool, huh?