Olympic Observations of Australia

Australia is also a proud sporting nation, which was evident over the past two weeks of Olympics. They have a penchant for naming their olympic teams after animals, or failing that, just adding "roo" to the end of the sport (which has turned into a running joke between the two of us, because at the beginning of the olympics we were jokingly referring to every team as the sport with "roos" at the end, until we realized that we were calling them the right name!)

Opals - Women's Basketball (Basketballeroos)
Boomers - Men's Basketball
Stingers - Women's Water Polo (Water Poloroos)
Sharks - Men's Water Polo
Kookaburras - Men's Field Hockey
Dolphins - Swim team, although they weren't widely referred to as the Dolphins...
Socceroos
Volleyroos
Hockeyroos - Women's Field Hockey

So naturally, this progressed to calling any Australian competitor in any sport by the following names...

Handballeroos
Fenceroos
Roweroos
Kayakeroos
Tennisroos
Gymnasteroos
Saileroos
Diveroos
Archeroos
Shooteroos

And so on... Ah, we're funny, especially when we're drinking wine. 

This kangaroo is not impressed.

And neither is MacKayla Moroney (if only she was Australian, this would be perfect)

I actually found a Wikipedia entry on the official names of the national teams (link) if you're really interested...

An interesting factoid for the keen (non-Australian) observer of Australian athletes at the Olympics is the presence of the two animals in the coat of arms seen on their uniforms. Kangaroos and Emus were chosen for two reasons. the obvious one is that they are native animals of Australia, and the other reason is that they are unable to move backwards, and can only progress in a forward direction. Neat huh?

Australian Coat of Arms

We are heading to Noosa this weekend for a little vacation, because in a week WE GET OUR STUFF!!!! Hooray! We are very excited, especially because we'll finally get to sleep in our own bed!

Happy Dance!