Finally, a reason to follow the entire Olympics

Will you participate in Fantasy Olympics?   42%  No     37%  Yes     21%  Maybe     Total Votes: 359

For the first time in my life, I'm actually looking forward to the Summer Olympics, which open Friday in China. With these Beijing Games, I'm actively engaged -– not as a participant, but as a passionate observer with hopes and aspirations for our American athletes.

Specifically, I hope Shawn Johnson, Tyson Gay and Allyson Felix bring home multiple gold medals; and I hope Michael Phelps, Natalie Coughlin and Morgan Hamm fail miserably.

Does this make me un-American? Maybe. But don't blame me. Blame Bryan Clark, Jeremy Bridgman, Lee Delaveris and Dustin Torres, four friends who organized a website, TheFantasyOlympics.Net, which applies a traditional Fantasy format to the U.S. Olympic team.

Thanks to them, I won't be dismayed by the usual Olympic drawbacks, including steroid allegations, tape-delay broadcasts and the melodramatic homerism of Bob Costas. Now I can simply get back to basics, rooting for and against my fellow Americans, which is what we all do when we watch football, baseball, basketball and hockey.

I stumbled across the Fantasy Olympics website a few weeks ago, while wondering how gamblers and ADD-sufferers enjoy the Games. Through a series of e-mails, the four creators helped explain the genesis of Fantasy Olympics, as well as its rules and underlying spirit.

Hoping to see results like Jason Giambi, Phelps is embracing the power of the mustache. (Getty Images)

"It's just one of those ideas you come up with when you're sitting around with friends. Most of the time you don't really do anything about it, but this one kind of hit a nerve," said Bryan Clark, 25, a law student from Chicago and webmaster for the site. "Lee (Delaveris) and I had just come from a gymnastics meet at the University of Missouri and thought, 'Why can't there be a Fantasy league for Olympic sports?' The (2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy) were just a couple weeks away, so we went for it. The site was up and running within a few hours."

Back then, interest was limited to family, friends and coworkers, but word soon spread. Right now they have five leagues of seven teams, and they might add more depending on interest.

"Recruitment for this Olympiad began immediately after the last one, due to immediate and sustained interest," said Bridgman, 26, who works in public relations in New York City. "After Bryan rebuilt the site last month, we've gotten interest from all over the country, as well as Australia and Canada." In Fantasy Olympics, each owner drafts 12 athletes from the U.S. Olympic squad. (The pool is restricted to the U.S. team because there are more than 10,000 athletes competing in the Beijing Games, so opening the Fantasy competition to include them all would create draft-day scenarios involving too much time and alcohol.)

Depending on the success of your athletes, you earn points (three for a gold, two for a silver, one for a bronze), and the team with the most points at the end of the Games will win. In the event of a tie, each owner has also selected a tiebreaking country, whose medal count (total, gold, silver, bronze) breaks the tie.

You can draft teams like the USA men's basketball, but if they win gold, you only get three points. Contrast that with Michael Phelps, who could earn three points in eight different events, making him the unquestioned No. 1 pick.

In our league's automated draft, I pulled the No. 4 pick, which gave me Shawn Johnson, whom I initially mistook for a 7-foot basketball player, not a 4-8 gymnast. If the enthusiasm witnessed during the 2006 Winter Olympics is any indication, Dustin Torres of Fantasy Olympics says I'll soon be leaping out of my Barcalounger to cheer for this Lilliputian girl.

"When you have grown men jumping up and down when someone lands a triple salchow, you know you either have a problem or you have stumbled upon the next big thing in Fantasy sports," said Torres, 26, a law student in New York City.

Until this year, my interest in the Olympics usually ended when two questions were answered: "Who is going to light the Olympic torch?" and "What kind of stupid hat is the United States team going to wear during the opening ceremony?"

In other words, my interest usually ended early.

Women's gymnastics has had a place in men's "fantasy" worlds for many years now. (Getty Images)

Now, I'm personally invested. I drafted a 12-player team, convinced six people to join my league, and even convinced them to pony up $10 each, with winner take all. Playing the Fantasy Olympics is free and gambling is not encouraged by the site, but frankly, I didn't need any encouragement.

I mean, bragging rights are great and all, but I prefer monetary compensation, particularly when I have to root for competitors in shot put (Christian Cantwell), cycling (George Hincapie) and taekwondo (Diane Lopez).

"The great thing about the Fantasy Olympics competition," said Delaveris, 26, an investment banker from Columbus, Ohio, "is that you find yourself following events that may have otherwise been very obscure to you."

Moreover, you might find yourself rooting against Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Amanda Beard and the U.S. men's basketball team, while pulling hard for the U.S. women's four-person rowing team.

Come to think of it, Bob Costas should play Fantasy Olympics. It would provide him with some much-needed perspective.

Cameron Martin writes for Bugs&Cranks and Comcast SportsNet New England. You can reach him at cdavidmartin@yahoo.com.