Why hello everyone! My name is Katie and I love live music, soccer, and John Stewart. I also enjoy popcicles year round. 
So I’m assuming you’ve been pretty exhausted this week. And I’m assuming this based on my own all-consuming tiredness. The instigator of this epidemic of lethargy? China!
Well, ok, not so much China as the distance between China and the U.S. I think the entire country has been up way past bedtime watching the spectacle after spectacle amazing-fest that is this year’s summer Olympics in Beijing!
I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the Olympics, per say… but as a lifetime fan and avid viewer, I would consider myself a pretty accurate source. And, I’ve been getting a lot of questions. One of which I feel is only appropriate to address in this newsletter.
I’m overwhelmed by the amount of people who ask me, “Katie, what do you enjoy more, watching Michael Phelps, or the footage of pandas?”
Obviously this is a difficult question. Michael Phelps, by far the greatest athlete of our lifetime, and perhaps of all time, is undoubtedly the star of the Beijing games. Yet, when a snuggly panda bear pops up just as NBC is heading to commercial, I find my heart fluttering just as fast as during some of the most heated contests…
To simplify the issue… I decided to break the question down:
Stats:
Michael Phelps:
6′4
195 lbs
Panda Bear:
Between 2 and 3 feet tall at the shoulder
Males are larger than females, weighing up to 250 pounds in the wild.
Diet:
MP:
“It’s all about cramming in as many calories into my system as I possibly can.”
PB:
Pandas typically eat about 20 to 40 pounds of bamboo each day!
Overcoming Adversity:
Man:
Michael Phelps went a perfect 8-for-8 in Beijing, breaking Mark Spitz’s single-Games record for gold medals. He swam 17 times over nine days and broke the world record in four of his five individual swims.
Bear:
The pandas are still recovering after a horrible earthquake devastated the Wolong Panda Reserve in China. The reserve is in the process of being rebuilt. click here to see how you can help!
So there you have it… this seems to be a dead heat in terms of who is more awesome… although I think it’s safe to say when it comes to shear athleticism Michael takes the cake…
Although I could argue that watching a panda loaf on a tree is just as awesome…
I guess this remains one of those questions for the ages. These two camera magnets combined though definitely give this year’s Olympics an obscene amount of TV magic. And obviously, cuteness.
Sources:
http://sports.ign.com/
http://www.nbcolympics.com/
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