Random observations about the Olympics

[tmh8286]

I've been surprised that there hasn't been more discussion of the Olympics on the board.  It's been receiving a lot of discussion around my office this week.  Here are a few of my thoughts on the parts that I've watched:

-  The opening ceremonies were absolutely incredible.  I couldn't believe the creativity, the beauty, the majesty, and the vastness of it.  I'd love to watch the whole thing again.  It was just spectacular.  A little of the luster has been removed from it, though, with revelations of faking the firework footprints leading up to the stadium, and replacing the little girl who actually sang the "Hymn to the Motherland" with another that was "prettier".  Rush Limbaugh has been blasting them all week, though, saying that they really modeled communist "sameness":

"What I saw were 15,000 kids who all looked the same, who were all doing the same thing, who were all behaving the same way.  I saw sameness.  I didn't see any individuality at all.  I saw 15,000 people at slave wages no doubt, following orders or else.  Now, it was great, the pageantry was fabulous.  The performance of those people in that opening ceremony was great, the synchronization was flawless. They've only been rehearsing for this for probably five years.  They probably got some dietary bonuses if they did well.  But I saw sameness.  I saw no individuality whatsoever.  I saw exactly what the Soviet communist model, the Marxist model for society is.  One person's as easily interchangeable as anybody else."

He's got a point.  But I still thought the opening ceremony was wonderful.

(I just received an email containing an article written by Kathleen Parker.  Here's a quote from that article:

"Beijing is weird. First of all, you can't breathe the air. Second, how

'bout those drummers? Sure, they're perfect, but that's the point. A

billion Chinese see 2,000 drummers in sync and say, "Well done, my

little emperor son." I see 2,000 drummers all moving with one motion and

I'm thinking: "Whoa." Can anybody say MIL-I-TAR-Y PRE-CI-SION?")

-  I've been excited to see all the success of Michael Phelps, but I'm getting a little tired of the non-stop coverage of this kid.  That's the media, though, and really no reflection on him.  He's a phenomenal athlete.  He's set a new world record with every medal that he's won.  That's pretty incredible.  On a broader scale, I think it's almost unbelievable how many swimming world records are being shattered in this Olympics.  At what point do we reach the point of human limitation?  Apparently, not yet.

- I'm not a huge fan of gymnastics, but I watch it because it's what's on.  It was interesting to see the contrast over the past couple of evenings - the men's team THRILLED to pick up a bronze medal, the following night the women's team broken-hearted to get the silver.  It's all in the expectations, I guess.  Gymnastics is another place where the Chinese image is marred - there's no way that their girls are over sixteen - which gives them a decided advantage over our more "mature" girls.  It is what it is, I guess.  Chalk it up to a regime where falsifying documents to guarantee success is acceptable.

-  Beach volleyball: in a word, boring.  Serve, setup, smash, point.  Over and over.  If the women were a little more covered up, I don't think there would be any audience for it at all.

- In looking at the medals awarded so far, I noticed that the US did fairly poorly in all of the shooting events, except for skeet and trap (same guy, who set a new Olympic record in trap, hitting 145 out of 150).  I would think the US would be very good in shooting events - so this surprised me.  The Second Amendment doesn't guarantee accuracy, I guess .

- Not a popular sport in this part of the world, so it's not receiving prime time coverage, but I'm a big fan of badminton.  These guys aren't playing your back yard variety - their smashes are well in excess of 100 miles per hour, and reaction time is in split seconds.  I played badminton recreationally in college and loved it.  I have great appreciation for what the world class players are able to do.  It is a sport dominated by the Asian countries, and unfortunately for the US, the men's singles, women's singles, and women's doubles teams were eliminated in their opening rounds.  The men's doubles team, which had our most accomplished players on it, were knocked out of the quarterfinal match yesterday.  So from here on out we're watching from the sidelines in badminton.

Other comments or observations?

[tmh8286]

You're right, Mike.  I'm taking it off - too gruesome.

If others wish to see video of a Hungarian Olympic weightlifter dislocating his elbow, you can find a link to it at the Drudge Report.

[Mike Minyard]

I'm not a big fan of you at the moment!!!  wow 

[Dr. Cornelius]

Anybody else catch this story about the Spanish Nation Basketball team? Stay classy Spain.

[tmh8286]

I heard about that on the radio.  Yikes!  I have a feeling that if that had been the USA team they'd be disqualifying us, taking back some of our gold medals, or something else equally bad.

[tmh8286]

As of this (Thurs.) morning, China has taken the outright lead in the medal count, 35, to the U.S. 34.  Not only that, of their 35, 22 are golds, while only 10 of the USA's medals are gold, and 15 are bronze. 

I just wonder how the medal count would be going if the Chinese were competing somewhere other than in their own country.  While they are very good at certain events, I can't help but believe the home advantage is adding significantly to their success.

[Old Titan]

The Chinese were all about uniformity and precision a thousand years before Communism - it's just their way of life.  It's probably why Communism (or the latest modified version of it) has lasted there so long while crumbling everywhere else in the world.  It's suits them.

I like beach volleyball - at least there's some finesse, as opposed to team volleyball indoors, which looks like dodgeball over a net.  And, of course, the white bikinis don't suck.

Table tennis has gotten to be a joke.  They need to make the table the size of a king size bed, and raise the net a few inches.  As it is right now, the two-man game resembles a high-speed craps table.

Whatever happened to boxing?  I've seen more coverage of fencing so far.

The U.S. should take the lead in the medals count when track and field gets started.  The Chinese are getting fat right now on diving and gymnastics, their two strongest sports.

[Mike Minyard]

The boxing coverage has been great if you have Cox Digital Cable.  They've been showing fights on the Universal HD channel just about every day.  However, I think boxing has taken a step back since the emergence of UFC.

[tmh8286]

We've done a lot of complaining about officiating, but we've never taken it this far:

Swedish Wrestler Tosses Medal (video)

While an Olympic medal would be seen by most athletes as the ultimate reward for a lifetime's work, Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian was less than pleased with the bronze he won at the Chinese Agricultural University Gym.

Abrahamian threw down his 84kg greco-roman bronze in disgust after his shot at gold was ended by a decision denounced by the Swedish coach as "politics".

Abrahamian took the medal from around his neck during the medal ceremony, stepped from the podium and dropped it in the middle of the mat before storming off.

The Swedish wrestler had to be restrained by team-mates earlier as a row erupted with judges over the decision in a semi-final bout with Andrea Minguzzi of Italy, who went on to the take gold.

Abrhamian, who won silver at the Athens 2004 Games, shouted at the referee, then went over to confront judges, angrily throwing off the restraining arm of a team official.

Swedish fans booed loudly as the judges filed out of the arena. Abrahamian said nothing to waiting reporters but whacked an aluminium barricade with his fist as he left the hall.

"It's all politics," said Swedish coach Leo Myllari.

Myllari did not say if he intended to lodge a formal protest over the decision by referee Jean-Marc Petoud of Switzerland, judge Lee Ronald Mackay of Canada, and mat chairman Guillermo Orestes Molina of Cuba.

(full article)

[Old Titan]

Must have been the same three "officials" that refereed the USA-Greece men's basketball game this morning.  They were a joke.

[tmh8286]

I've been watching some tennis today - great semifinal match, by the way - and the players are allowed to challenge up to three line calls per set, I believe.  Anyway, when a call is challenged they use some sort of a video replay, not an actual video of the play, but a computer generated video displaying where the ball hit the ground in relation to the line.

In one challenge in this match, the replay showed the ball to be so close to the line that you couldn't tell whether it was just inside or just missed - so they ZOOMED IN!  From a range that would probably be the equivalent of 3-6" from the ground you could see that the ball had hit outside the line by what appeared, in relation to the width of the line and the size of the ball hit, to be by 1/16" OR LESS!  Apparently, what was shown by the video was final.

Now, I haven't watched tennis in a long time, so this may be commonly used technology.  But I have never seen anything like it before.  How in the world do they create that video replay, with that kind of  accuracy?  Inquiring minds want to know .

[Mike Minyard]

Now, I haven't watched tennis in a long time, so this may be commonly used technology.  But I have never seen anything like it before.  How in the world do they create that video replay, with that kind of  accuracy?  Inquiring minds want to know .

I'm not a huge tennis fan, but I sometimes find myself watching it on TV.  I think this technology is used at the major events.  Not sure if it is all pro tournaments or not.  I've seen it before though and it is impressive.

[tmh8286]

Medal count from the 2004 Olympics in Athens:

Rank      Nation    Gold    Silver    Bronze    Total   

1 United States 36 39 27 102

2 China (CHN) 32 17 14 63

3  Russia (RUS) 27 27 38 92

4  Australia (AUS)  17 16 16 49

5  Japan (JPN) 16 9 12 37

[tmh8286]

One thing I've noticed while listening to and watching the Olympics today is JUST HOW MANY of the top performing athletes from AROUND THE WORLD live in and/or train in the US.  It's pretty amazing how thoroughly we set ourselves up for LOSING on the world stage.

High point today - Michael Phelps winning his eighth gold.  Pretty cool; humble, deserving kid.

Low point - the bizarre behavior by Usain Bolt after winning the 100 meter dash.  Even worse was the completely over the top show his mom put on in the stands.  THANK GOODNESS they aren't Americans!  I'd be embarrassed for my country.

[tmh8286]

An observation: all sports that I have learned using side-out scoring (scoring only done by serving side), such as tennis, badminton and volleyball, use rally scoring, where a point is awarded to one team or the other on every serve, in the Olympics, which dramatically speeds up the games. 

May be a good thing - certainly shortens the time of each match, but it's been hard for me to get used to.  Something just doesn't seem right about it.

[ORUalum]

One thing I've noticed while listening to and watching the Olympics today is JUST HOW MANY of the top performing athletes from AROUND THE WORLD live in and/or train in the US.  It's pretty amazing how thoroughly we set ourselves up for LOSING on the world stage.

High point today - Michael Phelps winning his eighth gold.  Pretty cool; humble, deserving kid.

Low point - the bizarre behavior by Usain Bolt after winning the 100 meter dash.  Even worse was the completely over the top show his mom put on in the stands.  THANK GOODNESS they aren't Americans!  I'd be embarrassed for my country.

the 100m final was probably the highlight of the olympics to me thus far.  Bolt blew out the field running only 80 meters and coasting the final 20.  his antics before, during and after the race didn't really bother me.

as for phelps, i'm glad he got the eight gold medals, but i have to admit i won't miss NBC cutting to his crying mother every 15 seconds.

[tmh8286]

the 100m final was probably the highlight of the olympics to me thus far.  Bolt blew out the field running only 80 meters and coasting the final 20.  his antics before, during and after the race didn't really bother me.

as for phelps, i'm glad he got the eight gold medals, but i have to admit i won't miss NBC cutting to his crying mother every 15 seconds.

Bolt's ability is breathtaking; so is maniacal behavior. It DOES bother me, and when I mentioned it at lunch it bothered those I was with in about the same way.  That said, the behavior isn't uncommon in track and field, and I remember a few years back some US athletes pulled the same stuff, and it was embarrassing to me then, as well.

Can't hardly blame Michael Phelps for the coverage the network has given him, but I agree, ORUalum, I'm tired of all the coverage he's received.  He's a very deserving recipient of all that he's gotten and all of the attention, but I'm kind of glad it's (pretty much) over.

[ORUalum]

that's probably why it didn't really bother me.  silly behavior has come to be expected by some competitors.  the sprinters are the rockstars of the track & field they tend to be flamboyant. 

what amazed me was that the guy has been only running the 100 for less than a year and he dominated the field w/what appeared to be little effort.  i can't wait to see what he does in "his best event", the 200.