Oprah, Olympians, Oh Boy!

Marcus Riley, NBC5 Street Team (video)

I like to think I’m passed the point of being overly excited by meeting celebrities. Not that I’m too cool for school or anything, it’s just that I’ve learned over the years that celebs are like the rest of us, and if anything, a bit more insecure and tortured due to the glare that life can bring.

That being said, I was a bit surprised to find myself feeling a few butterflies as I stood among 150 medal-winning Olympians and the Queen of all media herself — Oprah Winfrey. It all went down at Millenium Park, where Oprah was shooting her season-opening episode that airs Monday.

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Slideshow: Oprah And The Olympians

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The athletes rode in on double-decker buses, and the next thing I knew, I was snapping pictures of all those athletes I was watching from Beijing just a couple of weeks ago — names like Phelps, Misty, Nastia — and others I’ve been watching for years, like Kobe. That was expected. What wasn’t expected was a visit down the media rope by Oprah herself. I’m not sure why I was surprised she was so gracious and down-to-earth. For some reason I’d always thought she would be the opposite.

At the end of the day it goes down as another feather in Chicago’s cap — good publicity for the 2016 bid and another reminder that we live in one of the coolest cities in the world.

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Cold War Anyone? Part II

Raminder, NBC5 Street Team

The Olympics are in full swing and apparently the Phelps-mania is catching on and NBC couldn’t be happier for their advertisers! And we are too!

Former U.S.S.R. member Russia realized they didn’t have much sports might so why not show their military might during the Opening Night ceremonies by engaging Georgia in a wrestling match.  

The U.S. maintains a slim lead in the total medal count (79) but China (76) has to wonder if the medals should be weighted the same, given that they (China – 43 Golds) have 17 more Gold medals than the U.S. (26 Golds).

Russia (10 Golds) is sitting at a total of 42 medals and I think Putin (and his judoesque prowess) saw this poor showing coming and wanted to bring Georgia into its empire and count their 3 medals too. But it doesn’t work that way Mr. Putin or at least try invading the UK (16 Golds and total of 33 medals) and Germany (11 Golds and total of 28 medals) as they could put you in the lead.

These Olympics might be remembered as the ones that brought Russia into the forefront of Europe again when it was instead supposed to be China’s moment to make us fear them. ;-) Oh and the other billion strong nation of India celebrated with their first-ever solo Gold medal in 10m Air Rifle shooting…Jai Hind my peeps!

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