Beijing Olympics day 10

Here it is:
-Women's water polo team escapes defeat by beating Australia and heading to the final gold medal match.
-Heartbreaker of a 100 meter hurdles, Lolo Jones is ahead but trips over the second to last hurdle, she finishes in 7th, but her teammate from U.S. Dawn Harper won the gold.
-In the 400 meter run Sanya Richards had a big lead after the first 200 but something went wrong and she ended up getting bronze. She said later that her leg had started cramping up.
-Shawn Johnson finally won her gold medal on the balance beam!! Nastia Liukin got silver. We are all very excited that Shawn got a gold to go with her four silvers.
-Jonathan Horton from the U.S. added more difficulty to his high bar routine to pull out a silver medal win. He was probably the reason the U.S. got bronze in team competition. He gave a very solid and exciting routine.
-Henry ( ), son of undocumented mexican immigrants won his weight class in freestyle wrestling at age 21. He was proud to represent the U.S.

BMX is a new sport in this olympics, I hope it is on tomorrow night, it should be exciting.

One broadcaster noted during the day that U.S. women's teams are having huge success in the olympics. Basketball, softball, soccer, beach volleyball, indoor volleyball and water polo. I hope they all win the gold!

Beijing Olympics day 9

Another late night, so here are the highlights.
-Misty May and Kerri Walsh are headed to the gold medal final of beach volleyball, 108th straight win.

-American's went 1-2-3 in the 400 meter hurdles, mens. Taylor, Clement, and Jackson.
-China won their fifth gold in men's gymnastics.
-Nastia Liukin got jyped in the uneven bar finals. Her score tied with one of the Chinese girls. The way they break ties is screwy so Nastia ended up with the silver when her routine was the better one.

-Women's softball won again, they totally dominate.

Jennie Finch

-U.S. women won gold in rowing eights with coxwain, and they sung when the national anthem was played.
-Venus and Serena Williams got doubles gold in tennis; after not making it in singles.
-U.S. woman got silver in pole vaulting.
-U.S. woman, Brown Trafton got gold in discus throw.

Stephanie Brown Trafton

At the end of the broadcast Bob Costas apologized for the olympics being on so late into the night. I guess they have been getting a lot of complaints because with the time difference the events are going late into the night and into the morning when they show it on TV. They interviewed some people in NYC about whether they stayed up for the olympics. I guess a lot of people are showing up to work more tired than usual. One girl said she stayed up to see the finals of the gymnastics. NBC offered some tips to help people cope with the late nights.

1. Stay hydrated.
2. Wear sunglasses to cover the red eyes.
3. Tell yourself you only need four hours of sleep.
4. Listen to the same music Michael Phelps does on his iPod.
5. Skip work. Olympics like this only come along once in a lifetime.

Ha ha NBC.

Beijing Olympics day 8

Pretty sure they are actually on day 10 or something, but I get so confused with the nighttime here means moring there, but they show us something from the night before which actually happened in our morning. Aggghhh!! I'm pretty tired because I've been staying up too late and it's really annoying trying to put all these pictures in, but I found good ones that I can steal, so I got to do it now. So I will only do highlights and fill in later.
-Shawn Johnson got silver and Nastia Liukin bronze in floor exercise (China did not medal)
-Jamaicans went 1-2-3 in the women's 100 meter run, a 21 year old also won, Bolt is also 21
-The hyped up Chinese hurderler had to pull out because of injury, he was probably one of the biggest stars besides Yao Ming, they wanted him to repeat gold from Athens

Liu Xiang

-Bernard Legat did not make the finals for the 1500 meter, he was the returning gold medalist
-Alicia Sacrimone got jyped on the vault and did not get to redeem herself from the team finals
-Alexi Artemov fell on the pommel horse, very good at this so it was sad
I think that's it for now. Peace out.

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