Beijing Olympics day 7

WOW! What a day it's been for the olympics. It started out pretty slow for the broadcasting night showing the entire women's marathon. Then they finally had interesting things to show. It started out in the pool with Dara Torres. Dara is a five time olympian and 41 years of age. She attended her first olympics in 1984 at age 17. She missed the Atlanta and Athens olympics. People thought it was cool for her to even make the olympics at her age and after having a baby. She swam a great race in the 50 meter freestyle but ended up with silver. Torres was out touched by one one-hundreth of a second. Heartbreaking, but it was her first individual medal.

Dara Torres

Then right after the medal ceremony she had to get back into her swimsuit for the 100 meter medley relay. She didn't even have her swimming cap on, that's how little time she had. Natalie Coughlin led off with the backstroke, Rebecca Soni (who I neglected to mention won gold in the 100 meter breaststroke the other night) did the breaststroke, Christine Magnuson did the butterfly, and Dara Torres did the freestyle. The Americans ended up getting second behind the Austrailians but they put in a great race. Dara Torres is one of the great stories of the olympics, competing at her age, she has a lot of sportsmanship and is a good friend to all.

Dara Torres, Rebecca Soni, Natalie Coughlin and Christine Magnuson

Then they held the track and field finals of the 100 meter run. It was supposed to be a race between the two fastest men, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell but Gay didn't make it into the finals. Powell did but couldn't deliver. The gold medal and new world record of 9.69 seconds went to Usain Bolt of Jamaica. At 21 years old he started racing the 100 meter only a year ago. He usually runs the 200 meter but wanted to see what he could do. During the last few meters of the race Bolt looked to both sides, found no one with him and decided to shut it down. I wonder how fast he could have run had he kept going the whole way. Bolt later said he didn't care about the record he just wanted gold. Man that is fast!

Usain Bolt

Back to the pool and the last swimming event of these olympics. The men's 4x100 medley relay. Aaron Peirsol led of with the backstroke and got a bit of a lead over the rival Australia. Brenden Hansen did the breaststroke next and held on to that lead. Michael Phelps came next with the butterfly. Jason Lezak once again anchored the race with the freestyle. He had a good lead and held onto it to give the U.S. gold. It also meant that Michael Phelps got his eighth gold medal of the Beijing Olympics. He has surpassed all other athletes for winning the most golds in one games and the most medals ever. Phelps had a lot of hype around him but he was able to live up to it. From trouncing his competition to winning by hundreths of seconds to swimming with water in his goggles Michael was able to go out there and swim amazing races and win EIGHT golds. He will surely go down in history as one of the greatest athletes of this time. Way to go Michael!

Lezak diving in for the anchor leg

Celebrating the win

Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, Michael Phelps and Jason Lezak

They had Michael talk to Mark Spitz last night and talk about how he had tied his record. I only wish that Michael could have a cool mustache like Spitz did when he got his medals. It's pretty sweet.

Mark Spitz (7 gold medals)

Beijing Olympics day 5 and 6

Day 5 wasn't all that exciting. There weren't any Michael Phelps finals to show. But in other news American James Blake knocked out top seeded tennis player Roger Federer, which is a pretty cool feat because Federer has won so many grand slams. They didn't show much of this match on TV, but it was cool that Blake beat someone so good. I realized just now that I'm getting my days confused really bad but I'll just talk about some highlights over the past few days. The women's sabre team got bronze in the team event. All three of the girls who had gotten individual medals fought to get the team bronze. The women's volleyball team of Kerri Walsh and Misty May are still dominating. They are a great team and awesome athletes. They haven't really come up against hard competition. The men's team is also doing well but played a hard game against the swiss. Both the indoor teams are doing well as are both water polo teams.

Another thing that has been marching on is what I'll call the "Phelps Phenomenon." Every time he even gets in the pool the broadcasting shows it. Commercials are on all the time featuring Michael Phelps. They interview him, do all the bios , tell us what he eats in a day, how big his shoe size is (14), and hype it all up to the level of a frenzy. Well he finally caught Mark Spitz tonight in the 100 meter butterfly. Seven gold medals in one olympics. It was a crazy race, it looked like this other guy won but it was a matter of where their strokes were and how they reached for the wall. Phelps won by one one-hundreth of a second. Close. But it really is cool how he's won all these medals. He is doing quite a lot for the sport of swimming, he has one more event, a relay, I hope he makes it eight.

In other pool events, Natalie Coughlin and Aaron Peirsol repeated as gold medalists in the 100 meter backstroke. (This didn't actually happen, I'd forgotten I'd reported on it earlier.) Both had won in Athens. Aaron Peirsol is pretty chill outside of the pool but he gets really competitive when it comes to swimming. Michael Phelps won the 200 meter individual medley and his teamate Ryan Lochte got bronze. Yet another race where Lochte has lost to Phelps. Later Lochte out-touched Aaron Peirsol in the 200 meter backstroke to claim his first gold medal. Lochte really deserved after coming in second string to Phelps. Peirsol was really gracious in coming in second and giving up his world record. Lochte also had one of the hardest turn arounds having to swim in races only 26 minutes apart.

Aaron Peirsol

Ryan Lochte

Lochte celebrates his win

Lochte and Peirsol

Women's gymnastics also had a great night. Nastia Liukin (18) won gold in the all-around competition and Shawn Johnson (16) won the silver. They both gave amazing performances and managed to squeak ahead of the superstrong Chinese girls. Shawn is small but she packs power in her routines. She is so good and does everything with intensitity. Nastia also packs a lot of difficult elements to her routines. I really enjoyed her on the uneven bars and balance beam. She almost looks like a ballerina when she does her elements. She has long graceful legs that come to a dancer's point in her foot. She is beautiful to watch. The margins of winning were close but there were few mistakes that the judges could deduct points from. Nastia's father won gold for the Soviet Union when he was a gymnast a long time ago. He is her coach and they got to share that moment together. These gymnasts are tough cookies! They do amazing things with their bodies and have to have a lot of strength and get over any fears to do their sport. It is really great. Oh, in the men's individual the Chinese guy won gold, the U.S. finished ninth and 12th. I think that's it for now. Track is starting so that will be fun to watch. And Michael Phelps will be done soon...thank goodness, it's getting old.

Nastia Liukin

Shawn Johnson

Hilarious

This is from the finale of the past American Idol season. It is hilarious. It features Gladys Knight and three new "pips": Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. They were promoting a movie they were all in. So simple but so funny. This is why I love Jack Black.

This is a comparison of the punch dances from "Footloose" and "Hot Rod." "Footloose" has Kevin Bacon, but "Hot Rod" is so funny because it is imitating "Footloose." I laughed so hard when I realized that Andy Samberg was doing the punch dance and it was the same music. Both are on this link.

P.S. I love YouTube.

Beijing Olympics day 4

The Olympics are AMAZING. What can I say? Today I got to watch some men's water polo and white water kyaking. Tonight was kind of a slow night because the swimming and gymnastics were live so we had to wait until they actually happened. We saw the synchronized diving and the Chinese dominated yet again. Then we went to the pool. Michael Phelps won his 10th gold medal in the 200 meter butterfly and 11th in the 200 meter freestyle relay. Both were won easily and in world record time. An athlete like Michael Phelps is not likely to happen for a long time. Then it went to the women's gymnastics. USA put up an outstanding effort, very solid and hard routines but the Chinsese women were even MORE perfect and had harder things. China ended up with gold to match the men and USA got silver; they weren't very happy with their finish.

Nastia Liukin

USA Women's silver medal team

One thing that I've noticed is that when the Chinese athletes win it is gold or nothing; it is also for their country and not for themselves. China is so bent on positioning themselves as such a power in the Olympics. When athletes from the USA win they have country pride but they are more proud of their own achievements rather that what it means for their country.

It is scary the lengths that China will go toward making top athletes. The girls gymnastic teams are handpicked at age three. They are sent away to gyms and only get to see their parents once a year. The olympians are supposed to turn 16 years old in the year of the olympics but more than half of the chinsese team looks like they are 13 or 14. The Chinese claim they are 16 because their passports declare they are, but many people question the validity of this statement. Also, the Chinese men's gymnastic team is supposed to win at least 5 gold medals this olympics. Anything less will be failure.

Another statement on China and their overambition to present a certain "image" to the world. In the opening ceremonies a little 9 year old girl sang a song. News has come out saying she lip synched the words while a 7 year old girl actually sang. The 7 year old was deemed not "cute" enough to be the one in the actual performance; it was actually in the nation's "best interest" to have the best voice go with the best face. In the U.S. there would be a huge outcry to the unfairness of the thing, but the 7 year old says it was an honor just to sing for the opening ceremonies. There is also news that some of the fireworks were digitally added in for television effect. The Chinese weren't sure they would be able to be seen very well. I'm also guessing if China does not end up with the most total gold medals, not just medals, it will not be happy with that. I know that the U.S always has a kind of arrogance that we are the best and are going to win, but China is in a different way. I shouldn't talk though, if the U.S. men's basketball team gets less than gold it will be a failure. But it won't affect the U.S.'s status in the world quite like a similar situation would be for China. It will be interesting to hear how China views the olympics after they end...we shall see.

Jiang Yuyuan

Beijing Olympics day 3

Another great day, I got to see some men's beach volleyball and the women's water polo match against China. Both teams won. Congrats to the swim team for yet another great night. American's got at least two medals in many of the finals. Michael Phelps got another gold today tying him with four others for most career golds. He also set more world records. That guy is such an amazing swimmer and his body was just built for it. Watching one of his races on one of his turns he gained almost half a body length without any strokes. He will definately be remembered for a long, long time. USA also got repeat gold in both the men's and women's 100 meter backstroke, Aaron Peirsol repeated gold for the men and Natalie Coughlin repeated for the women. Both swam very fast times against hard fields. Another notice of the night was the men's gymnastic team. They had some flubs on their qualifying round and are missing both Paul and Morgan Hamm so they weren't expected to do very well. But the men put in a solid effort and were even leading at one point during rotation. The Chinese are too much to deal with though, they do absurdly difficult stuff and score really high. The men ended up getting bronze but Jonathan Horton was solid on event after event. He proved that he was worthy of the Olympic team. He really turned in an impressive performance for the night.

Aaron Peirsol

Aaron Peirsol in Athens, 2004

Natalie Coughlin

I love the commercials during the Olympics. Companies usually put tons of money into advertising and have really good ones. My favorites are: Visa which has Morgan Freeman narrating about different past Olympic stories, sometimes they make me cry; Nike which has a montage of a bunch of different sports that aren't even in the Olympics but they have people winning medals and falling down during the race, the part that makes me cry is when they show Lance Armstrong curled up in a bed, bald from chemotherapy, and the next image is of Lance on a bike in a yellow jersey leading the Tour de France; and Oreo which has a little red haired girl on a train with her mom, she looks out a window while eating her Oreo and a little Chinese girl is in another train next to her with an Oreo also mimmicking the same actions as the first girl. She waves after eating her Oreo, when she turns to get her mom to look at her new friend the train has pulled away, it's very cute.
New one I found with Jackie Chan and Yao Ming.

I love Bob Costas. He has the coolest job in the world and he is hilarious, just listen to him commentate sometime. He is always making jokes if he can.

Beijing Olympics day 1 & 2

The Beijing Olympics have been wonderful so far. The only thing I can complain about is that with only having one channel I am restricted to the sports they show me on NBC regular. They show swimming and gymnastics. The heats and semis for everything. I'd rather watch some water polo or something. **Side note-I am actually not sure if I am getting everything on the right day. China being some 15 hours ahead of my time zone makes tv broadcasting difficult. Some events are live, some are not. They have an agreement with the swimming to hold the finals in the morning so that they can be broadcast during primetime in the U.S. So I do the best I can with getting things to the right day. Today I watched Michael Phelps swim at night in Beijing and then after getting a good nights sleep he came back and swam some more. Isn't tape delay wonderful? ##Other side note-I hate the NBC lady at the swimming pool. She is a terrible interviewer. Please get someone else.

Day 1-Michael Phelps wins his first gold of the Olympics well on his way to set more records. The highlight of the day was probably USA going 1, 2, 3 in the women's sabre competition. Mariel Zagunis, Sada Jacobson, and another 18 year old beat everyone else in the quick paced competition. Zagunis repeated gold from 2004.

Day 2-USA vs. China in basketball. The basketball team has gone from the "Dream Team" to the "Redeem Team" because apparantly they are embarassed about only winning bronze in Athens. USA spanked China but it was fun because Yao Ming got to play for his country. USA dominated in the swimming arena. The men's 4x100 freestyle relay was supposed to be won by the French. Some French swimmer even made some snotty comments about the USA team. They wanted to come back to their gold medal having been beaten in Sydney and Athens. Michael Phelps led the team and put in a solid effort. Garrett Webber-Gale put in the second leg and helped keep the Americans in contention. France and Australia were both putting on good shows. During the race many teams were ahead of world record pace. Cullen Jones swam the third leg, he slowed down the Americans a bit but still put in a good effort. Jason Lezak was the anchor and final leg of the race going up against France's Alain Bernard. Lezak was right behind Bernard for most of the leg. Bernard was leading at the 50 meter mark. Then with almost 25 meters left to go Lezak really turned on the burners and caught up with Bernard. The race was so close that it was only decided who won by looking at the times. USA won!!! They got the gold back and beat those Frenchies. Lezak is considered an older competitor but he came through for team USA. They also beat the world record. As did four of the other teams which meant it was a very fast race. People are calling it probably the best relay of all time. Congrats to the men's relay team for winning in such dramatic style!! Go USA!

Michael Phelps, Garrett Webber-Gale, and Jason Lezak

Olympics-Opening Ceremony

I just watched the opening ceremonies for the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing and I am pumped. I LOVE watching the Olympics. The opening ceremonies always inspire a sense of patriotism for America and a hope for world peace as I watch the athletes marching and representing their countries. I also get excited for the days ahead that promise to hold great stories of triumph and even failure. I get caught up in the stories of the athletes and how hard they have worked to get to the Olympics to even compete. There are many countires where the athletes have no hope of winning a medal, but they are still proud to represent their country just the same.

Now the opening ceremonies tonight represented a lot for the Chinese people. They want badly to show the world that they have become a great nation that should stand as a superpower once again. I really enjoyed the creative dancing and all the performances. I always get a little emotional when they have little kids. This time they had chinese children dressed up in costumes singing a song to welcome everyone. Bob Costas said they were the best opening ceremonies ever, but I'd have to say Salt Lake or Sydney's were better.

My favorite story of the night was this: Yao Ming is a famous basketball player who plays for the Houston Rockets. He is 7 feet 6 inches and was chosen to carry the flag for China. As he walked in there was a little boy who was waving around two little flags, one was the chinese flag and one was the olympic flag. Then Bob Costas told us why he was there. The little boy's name is Lin Hao and he is 9 years old. Lin was in school when China suffered the devastating earthquakes in Sichuan Provice that killed 70,000 people in May of this year. After the earthquake destroyed his school he pulled himself from the rubble and then pulled two of his classmates from the rubble also. When asked why he did this he stated that he was a leader in his class, he was the hall monitor and it was his job to take care of the others. Lin Hao was brave and only thought of helping others. He represented a lot when he walked along side of Yao Ming and the Chinese flag. The earthquake hit the country hard and devastated the lives of many people. Lin Hao is a picture of hope and healing for all of the Chinese people. Later on, he probably had the best seat in the house as Yao Ming lifted him up and held him so Lin could be able to see over all the people. He should have had a great view from the 7 foot 6 inch Ming.