DC ExtraTime: Meet The Challenge's Olympic Superfan

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

When we rang in the new year a few long months ago, the year 2020 meant several things to many people. In the view of the Gregorian calendar, this is a leap year, and it meant Ja Rule officially celebrated his birthday for just the 10th time in his life on February 29th. Come November, the world's eyes will be on the race for the White House in a divided America. And despite what has been a rough year for all of us, many of the biggest holidays of this year have or will be taking place on the weekend... and as we speak to you here, it is now officially 4/20 month as well.
   An even numbered year also means that it's also an Olympic year, which means this blogger gets to spend most of nineteen straight days watching the only program on television that he avidly looks forward to actually binge watching. And instead of scripted content, it's both live sports and events that he loves from all around the spectrum which only receive their time in the spotlight every even year, all in the name of gold medals in front of flags and a burning flame. It's the love that this writer has of the whole sports world - not just the NBA and his Bay Area teams - that make the Olympics the favorite sporting event of this blogger.

The Games of the XXXII Olympiad were scheduled to take place in Tokyo starting on July 24th and running until August 9th. But the uncertainty of right now and coronavirus on everyone's minds has meant that, for the first time since World War II, there will not be an Olympic Games held this summer, among a slew of sporting events that have been nixed or pushed back due to COVID-19. But unlike what happened in 1940 and '44, this is a postponement, not a cancellation, of Japan's Summer Olympics as preparation has been made difficult in Tokyo, the host nation and the world's athletes, who will now have as much time as necessary to prepare for 2021 as the health of them, fans and everyone alike has taken greater precedent in unprecedented times.
   Once the flame finally is lit on July 23, 2021 in what will be the first of two Olympics to be held within a year's time span (the Beijing 2022 Winter Games will take place less than six months after the Tokyo Closing Ceremony on August 8), one of those who will be glued to his TV and mobile devices for a total of forty days of Olympic mania is one who is a two-time champion on MTV's The Challenge. But, he can also lay claim to being the resident superfan of all things Olympics in the MTV Reality family - not surprising for someone who was a swimmer in college and who's met those behind some of the Olympics' biggest moments of the past two decades. And he also happens to be part of a Real World alumni class turned Challenge royalty that's just as good as gold.