E-Mail This Article to a Friend Let the Games be gone My grip on self-worth is tenuous enough without the Olympics rubbing 16-year-old gymnasts in my face BY ALAN OLIFSON

Well, it’s all over now. The proverbial fat lady has sung. Or maybe it was a real one, I don’t know. I actually didn’t watch the closing ceremonies. But let’s not get bogged down in the details of who sang what when and how much that person may have weighed. The point is, the Olympics are over.

And thank God.

My grip on self-worth is tenuous enough. The last thing I need is to spend the dog days of summer sitting on my couch, eating bowl after missing-the-point bowl of Kashi GoLean cereal, while watching a bunch of teenagers accomplish more in one afternoon than I ever will in my entire life.

Where do they find these people? Swimmer Michael Phelps won the gold medal in the 200-meter individual medley and then, 30 minutes later, turned around, jumped back in the pool, and set an Olympic record in the 100-meter butterfly. I don’t even have a 30-minute turnaround time between my alarm going off and getting out of bed. At 16, Carly Patterson is the first American female in history to win the individual all-around in gymnastics at a fully attended Olympics. At 16, I was the first one in my family to beer-bong.

I realize it’s unproductive for me to compare my life accomplishments with those of Olympic champions. I mean, Patterson started gymnastics when she was six, around the same time I got to stop sleeping with corrective shoes (I was pigeon-toed — don’t ask). She trains more than 30 hours a week. She has been groomed for these games. And while her Web site claims that "she’d like to study dental hygiene in college," I think the odds of Patterson ever scraping the plaque off anyone’s teeth are about zero. She is, after all, "the only person in the world to complete a roundoff, back handspring, Arabian double front dismount on beam." She is an Olympic champion. She lives in a world of outrageous endorsement deals, Wheaties-box covers, slumber parties with Mary Lou Retton. Perhaps she and men’s all-round gymnastics winner Paul Hamm will one day marry and have children, who will undoubtedly spring from her womb with a roundoff, back-handspring, Arabian double-front dismount, getting extra degree-of-difficulty points for doing it all while attached to an umbilical cord and not slipping on the placenta.

Patterson is also a 16-year-old girl. So, on general principle, I probably shouldn’t be comparing my life to hers.

But it’s not even the best-known Olympic superstars who make me feel the most inadequate. It’s the guys who play badminton. And archery. And handball. Talk about doing it for the love of the game. I don’t know exactly what the US badminton circuit is like these days, but my bet is it involves a lot of Motel Sixes and beat up Winnebagos. Plus, leaving parties early because you have to go "bat around the shuttlecock" can’t go over that well in college. These are the true Olympians, in my opinion. Guys like Jason McKittrick, who, when not competing for an Olympic gold medal in archery, works as a quality engineer at Valeo Engine Cooling because Nike isn’t paying a lot to sponsor quivers these days. He trains three nights a week after work. Three nights a friggin’ week. Which at first gave me some hope. Because, hell, even I occasionally go to the gym three nights a week. Better yet, sometimes I go three mornings a week. Which means I get up earlier than some Olympic athletes. In your face, Carl Lewis. Then I realized that McKittrick has managed to parlay those three nights a week into an Olympic berth. I have parlayed them into a sweaty gym bag under my desk that co-workers talk about behind my back.

And as we sit here in post-Olympic decompression, it’s these salt-of-the-earth Olympians I wonder about. Of course Carly Patterson will be fine. And Michael Phelps and gold-medal-winning sprinter Justin Gatlin. They’ll hit the gymnastics and swimming and track circuits, in their air-conditioned luxury buses where even their attendants don’t stay at Motel Sixes. And every company from Nike to Tampax will swaddle them with endorsement deals. They are famous Olympic athletes, and we will reward them handsomely for telling us what to wear on our feet and put in our — well, you know. We’ll pay them a lot, is all I’m saying. Look at Mary Lou Retton and Mark Spitz. They are not dental hygienists.

But what of Jason McKittrick? Or Lori Harrigan, security supervisor and pitcher for the US Olympic softball team? Or Lance Bade, landscape gardener and Olympic shooter? What’s it like for them to return to the office after the grandeur of Athens? Especially if they don’t win. I mean, it’s bad enough to come back from Hawaii without macadamia nuts for everybody. But to come back to MidCoast Title and Deed after failing to medal in badminton? That’s got to make for some awkward office banter. "Saw you get smoked by that guy from Turkmenistan. You know, they don’t even have running water in that country? But, hey, good work. So, um ... you have that sales report ready? If not, I bet we could get the Turkmenistan guy to do it. Ha ha, just kidding, man."

And is coming back after winning much better? Is putting your gold medal on top of your computer monitor next to the finger puppet Donna from accounting gave you as a Secret Santa present really good for the soul?

I’m sure it is. Most likely, I’m exactly missing the point. It’s probably because of their passion for archery or clay-pigeon shooting or shuttlecock hitting that these athletes can get through a day at the office without the type of soul-searing sighs I let out on a hourly basis — usually without even noticing. I’m just projecting. Life after Athens will continue along just fine for these men and women. Better than fine. They have just participated in a historic event and had a chance to prove they were the best of the best. Win or lose, they’ve accomplished more in those few Olympic days than I will in my entire life.

Which reminds me why I am glad the Olympics are over.

Now I can get back to underachieving in peace. Pass the Kashi GoLean, please.

Alan Olifson can be reached at alan@olifson.com