- Cheers to NBC for showing a lot of events live here on the East Coast.
- Double Jeers to NBC for tape delaying those same events on the West Coast, despite the fact that its primetime or almost primetime there when they are being broadcast here in the East. I heard that the Men's 4X100 Freestyle Relay was not only tape delayed on the WC, but it didn't air till around 1130 PM. For shame NBC, that's weak.
- I understand why Phelps is the big story of the games: he's young, American and an ass kicking machine. The whole Phelps angle of the coverage has been pushed to the limit of tolerance, as I expected it would, and yet I almost think it could have gone further, and I'm thankful that it hasn't yet.
- Phelps just won career gold medal number 10, making him the gold medalingst athlete in Olympic history. This is great, a fantastic accomplishment. But I can't help but feel that different sports ought to grade on a curve. As a swimmer, Phelps has a ton of opportunities for gold, given the 4 strokes plus the relays and medleys. Imagine if Carl Lewis, who has nine gold medals in track and field, were given twice as many opportunities to medal based on different ways of running. I'm betting he would have taken more than just 9 medals.
- As I mentioned in an earlier post, I don't think that any event requiring "judges" to determine the outcome should qualify as a pure sport. Worst of all of these is diving, especially "synchronized" diving. What a bullshit event.
- Men's gymnastics leaves me inspired, women's gymnastics leaves me kinda creeped out. Both are exciting to watch, but I think that women's has a lot of issues which detract from the enjoyment. The big thing of course is the borderline abuse that these girls (and most of them are just girls, especially the "16" year olds China is trotting out) go through in order to make it this far. Granted, I'm sure they all enjoy what they do a lot, or at least they are good at faking it. But still, its creepy. Girls in China and other nations are taken from their families at a young age to go into gymnastics training, and that's what they do with their lives. And these are the ones who make it this far. For every one you see, there are probably 100 who were chewed up and spit out by the national olympic medal machine. It's all so they can perform for mere moments at the Olympics in the hope of winning fleeting glory. And the glory isn't really even for them, its for their Country, and what really does it mean? A few highly trained athletes from your nation beat a few other highly trained athletes from other nations in a weird pseudo-sport. Granted we in American do pretty much the exact same thing, though with less overt state support.
- Ok, so men's gymnastics probably has the same stuff going on, right? Well that's true, but now its my turn to be sexist. Male gymnasts get to go through puberty. In fact, they better, or they'll never have the muscle needed to make it. The women, on the other hand, often make "sacrifices" that go beyond getting up at 5 AM to hit the gym. No, not all female gymasts are worse for the experience. I know a few who loved it very much and I'd be happy to have a daughter of mine pursue gymnastics at a less than super intense level. But when it gets to this Olympic level of intensity, things can go too far. Frankly, it seems to me that if your chosen athletic activity may alter your very body chemistry in an unnatural way, then maybe we're missing the purpose of physical fitness.
- Another problem I have with Women's Gymnastics is the sexist overtones. This is supposed to be sport. Gymnastics was designed to train the body and as a display of physical skill. When the men do it, its all about the sport, when the women do it they have to be athletic and feminine at the same time. They wear shiny outfits with sequins. The are expected to dance and have music in their floor routine. Their beam routines have all these little bits of flair which are required but have nothing to do with athleticism. Jesus, they're doing back flips on the beam! Its like the hardest thing in the world, do they really have to look girly while they do it?
- One of the gymnastics announcers says a lot of stupid things. Whoever he is, he's the second male on the broadcast who clearly knows a lot about gymnastics but squat about being a good announcer. Yesterday during the men's broadcast, the Chinese team faltered a few times. After each of these mess ups they other Chinese gymnasts performed well. So the guy kept saying something like "That's better than if they had all performed perfectly". Um, no. This is a sport where points count. If 2 people do well and 1 messes up, then they are worse off than if all 3 had done well.
- Kobe and Lebron better bring home gold. I mean it, if not a medal than they better break into the Forbidden City and steal some gold stuff.
- Natalie Coughlin is my favorite swimmer and probably my favorite Olympic athlete. She's cute, bubbly, a CA girl and she loves to EAT! I know all swimmers eat alot (Phelps consumes something like 8000 calories a day to keep his energy up), but this girl is a real foodie who loves to cook. Also she hasn't posed nude in some lame magazine like FHM, as so many other female Olympians have. She's a classy girl who's saving that for Playboy. Plus she doesn't support PETA like Amanda Beard. Natalie already has a gold medal in the zig zag backstroke, and hopefully she'll grab a few more before she's done.
That's all I got for now, maybe more Olympic thoughts later. Go get um, strange people from the same country I was born in! Boo to strange people from countries I was not born in!
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