Marlee Tegenkamp has never missed the chance to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games on television.

But she won’t watch them tonight because she’ll be on the way to London instead.

“This year will be the first time I won’t be able to see them because I’ll be in the air on the plane, but we’ll have it recorded at home so we’ll be able to watch it when we get home,” she said by telephone Thursday.

Tegenkamp, a distance and cross country runner at Missouri Southern State University, is scheduled to fly out of the country today. While she and her family will cheer on her older brother, Matthew Tegenkamp, as he competes in the 10,000-meter race, other Joplin residents prepare to settle down in front of their televisions for the next two weeks and soak in as much of the Olympics as they can.

Tegenkamp said she has always enjoyed watching the Olympics, particularly the summer games, on TV.

Opening ceremonies — which will be broadcast tonight on NBC beginning at 6:30 p.m. — are her favorite part of the Olympics.

“It’s the lighting of the torch,” she said. “I always look forward to that because it’s different every year, and you never really know what it’s going to be like.”

She said that in addition to seeing the sights of London, she plans to spend at least one day at the Olympic Village with her brother before he races in the evening. She said she and her family were lucky enough to snag the last batch of available tickets to his venue to watch him compete.

‘Immortality’

Tom Rutledge, men’s track and field coach at Missouri Southern, said he enjoys the Olympics for their potential to showcase the “immortality” of the world’s best athletes.

“When a person breaks a record, they’re immortal,” he said.

Rutledge pointed to figures such as Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who won a record eight gold medals four years ago in Beijing, and Finland’s Lasse Viren, who fell on the track during the 10,000-meter race in the 1972 games in Munich and still outran everyone to win a gold medal, breaking a world record in the process.

“A lot of people would have just laid on the track and said, ‘It’s over,’” Rutledge said. “Some people of this caliber have that ability to go to the next level that nobody has ever been before, and that’s probably the thing you notice about the Olympics.”

Rutledge said he tunes in to the games to see the athletic performances of people who go above and beyond what the average person is capable of.

“People say, ‘How do you do that?’ Well, you don’t know until you challenge yourself,” he said. “You’re pushing the envelope, and that’s what’s awesome about it.”

Rutledge is no stranger to the Olympics. He attended the 1996 games in Atlanta, giving seminars on track and field and cheering on athletes as a spectator at several venues. That was the year, Rutledge recalls, that American sprinter Michael Johnson won both the 200-meter and 400-meter dash in his iconic golden shoes.

“It’s just an experience that you can’t imagine,” he said.

Rutledge also trained Missouri Southern graduate Tongula Givens in the triple jump and sent her to the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia, as an alternate.

Long Jump

Bryan Schiding, an assistant coach at Missouri Southern, will also be glued to the TV — mostly because one of his athletes, Tyrone Smith, will compete in the long jump beginning Aug. 3. Schiding has coached Smith, formerly a student at Missouri University of Science and Technology and now competing for his home country, Bermuda, in the long jump since 2003.

“I’ll be watching for him,” said Schiding, who had planned to accompany Smith to London but might not be able to because of a limited number of available passes for coaches. “Chances are I’ll be watching from afar.”

Smith previously competed in Beijing but missed the long-jump finals by only a few centimeters, Schiding said. He continued to train over the past four years, even visiting Schiding in Joplin in February to assist with a weeklong training camp for Missouri Southern athletes.

“I know he’s ready, and he’s excited,” he said. “I’m really hoping for good things for him.”

Schiding said other than track and field, swimming and gymnastics have also typically drawn his attention. He said he remembers his parents recording Olympic competitions from television when he was young to watch at a later time.

“It’s just the competition; it’s the atmosphere, even watching on TV,” he said. “Even as a kid, a lot of athletes dream of trying to get to that big stage. It’s really neat to get the whole world together competing for one last competition of the year.”



PSU Graduate

Beth Hamilton, a graduate of Pittsburg (Kan.) State University, is already in London to assist with the Olympic Games in the media department. According to the university, she was one of the first members of the media to see and film the medals.