Here it is, HERE'S the Olympics thread!!!

[pawpaw]

 :)

In the 20 or so minutes of viewing I had this morning, the US Womens soccer team beat Canada in a 2OT match to advance to the semi-final round, AND the US Womens volleyball team beat the defending Olympic Champion Chinese team in a 5 set game.

I'm gunna be immersing myself in Oly viewing this weekend, I'll tell you what...

[ItStillJaimoe]

It's been another depressing day so far. Canada lost to Korea in baseball 1-0 (stranding a bunch of runners throughout the game) - we lost to Cuba by a run last night. I didn't expect Canada to beat the US in women's "football" with #1 vs #9 in world rankings, but it was a pretty entertaining game. Canada missed out on a medal in shot-put by 1 centimetre. Canada plays the US tonight in baseball (both teams are 1-2 with both losing to Cuba and Korea). It's a pick-em game.

[Angry Ewok]

Funny post from Deontay Wilder; apparently people keep mistaking him for LeBron James (James and Wilder are both 6'8).

"Hello America, Sorry for the delay on things but I been super busy so much stuff is going on but you know I couldn't forget my favorite fans I love ya! things here has been OK. We live in a big big place called the Olympic Village that's were all the country that competing in the games live and it is beautiful the people that built all this stuff really did a great job! We have a lot of security here so it's safe around here and there very strict about certain things but there cool. We have a laundry room, a game room were every one of all types of country hangs at; how cool is that and we have "The Danger Zone" I call it. The danger zone is were all the food is and the grand slam they have an 24 hour McDonald's"Fat Land"I can't stay out of that place it's awesome.I'm meeting a lot of people here even though I get mob by people every day because they thinks I'm Lebron James is crazy but is fun and funny."

[BH]

I am sooooo ready for some Track and Field!

[DavidCrosby]

...the building that has all the swimming and diving events is really cool looking, I wish that was the ceiling of my room....

[dasmondhaschen]

It's my favorite venue.  Look how neato this is!

[pawpaw]

I just went home for lunch, and was watching the women's white water kayaking event. First of all - what an awesome sport! Secondly - how cool of a job would it be to design the man-made rapids course?! A lady from Slovakia won gold, a repeat performance for her after taking it 4 years ago in Athens.

[Dorothy_Mantooth]

i was obsessed with that syncro diving. i mean, what would even compel you to try such a crazy sport???

here's my issue: diving judges only get to watch your dive once, in real time, and they can issue perfect "10" scores as they see fit. but in gymnastics, judges get to watch the routines as many times as they want in slow motion, nitpicking everything. they've even done away with perfect 10's, thus making the most complicated scoring that no one can understand. i feeeeel like that's kind of unfair to us simple viewers. One girl will score a 16.25 which is amazing, and then another will score a 15.366 and the commentators will be like "OH SHE DID AWFUL. THIS IS DEVASTATING." how confusing.

[DavidCrosby]

It's my favorite venue.  Look how neato this is!

...your picture is way better, I hadn't seen it from that angle...

[red]

I don't understand Race Walking at all.

[weeniebeenie]

I think the only thing I ever pay attention to is the equestrian events so I'm glad Oz got silver.

[ItStillJaimoe]

Brazil is playing Cameroon in soccer right now. It's tied in the second half. Go Cameroon!

The men's 100 metre semi-final and final is on later this morning. I believe the final is at 10:30 EST (which is 10:30pm in Beijing). Anyone see Bolt cruising at the 40 metre mark to win his heat last night? He ran 9.92 without even trying; he looked around at the crowd and jogged to the finish. I've never seen anything like that in my life. He's going to destroy the World Record today. I think he'll go under 9.7.

[mjkoehler]

I think I have only seen 1 football match shown? Damn you NBC. Too bad they would show a match or highlights or something during prime time so I could see a match.

[ItStillJaimoe]

Bolt of Jamaica just embarrassed the field in the 100 metre final a few minutes ago. He jogged the last 15 metres and won easily. He was clocked at 9.69 and if he actually tried, he would have run under 9.6!

Forget what I just wrote. If Bolt went full-out today, he would have run under 9.5.

[pawpaw]

So, I missed the womens all around gymnastics finals on Thursday night...read about the results, and last night got to see some highlights from the routines, which were outstanding.

Normally I hate the human interest stuff, just really can't stand it, but Bob Costas' interview with Nastia and Shawn was just wonderful. Those two girls were just SO gracious and HAPPY for each other. The TV production crew gave them an off-camera round of applause at the end of the segment...those two young women really made America proud :)



How the hell does he come back? Talk about DROPPIN' THE HAMMER!!! What a finish  :D

[pawpaw]

Reaction from Mark Spitz:http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/swimming/news/story?id=3538120

[capt. scotty]

Bolt of Jamaica just embarrassed the field in the 100 metre final a few minutes ago. He jogged the last 15 metres and won easily. He was clocked at 9.69 and if he actually tried, he would have run under 9.6!

He only started running teh 100M in the last yr, 200M is supposed to be his event, and he's only 21..hes def got 2 more olympics in him at that age

Forget what I just wrote. If Bolt went full-out today, he would have run under 9.5.

Ridiculous. I just saw it now. I think he won that more than he did in the semis

I understand him not trying to improve his WR run by more - in the interview afterwards he even said he wasnt worried about that, but damn, he def would have run a sub-9.6 had he gone all out/had more competition to make him do so..he still won by .20 after mailing it in the last 20M..crazy

I wish Tyson Gay was 100% for this, maybe he was, but I dont think he was if he couldnt qualify from the semis.

And Asafa Powell...what a chokejob..at least it allowed the USA runner Walter Dix to get the bronze

[red]

Jaimoe, we've finally acquired some medals!  I was absolutely transfixed by the women's lightweight double sculls where Kok and Cameron took bronze in a photo finish.

[ItStillJaimoe]

I'm not a big fan of Toronto Star's Chris Zelkovich, especially during the NHL season, but he's been good with his daily Olympic media network critiques. I didn't watch NBC yesterday morning, but I find today's report regarding the live (or lack thereof) 100 metre final coverage shocking even for NBC (BTW, I thought NBC did a better job than the CBC in last night's live women's marathon coverage).

If I lived in your fair land, I would have been pissed pissed pissed yesterday. Here's an exerpt from today's story:


Give CBC gold for live coverage of glamour event
August 17, 2008

Chris Zelkovich


The debate over showing Olympic events live or on tape has been raging for some time, practically as long as Bob Costas has been avoiding grey hair.

Considering the results, mainly NBC's record-setting ratings for the Beijing Games, it seems almost pointless to knock the network's plan. In fact, delaying things by a few hours on a weekday makes some sense in maximizing the prime-time audience.

But tape-delaying the biggest event of the Olympics, the men's 100 metres race, by almost 12 hours on a Saturday is not only disingenuous, it smacks of thinking from another century. And I don't mean the 20th century.

While Usain Bolt was shattering the world record around 10:30 yesterday morning, NBC was showing the U.S.-Spain basketball game. While interest in the so-called Redeem Team is high, surely NBC could have broken into it for the race.

Instead, it ignored the glamour event of the Games and ran a promo for its night-time coverage. Included in the promo was a nice feature on American sprinter Tyson Gay.

What that feature didn't mention, of course, was that Gay had already been eliminated in the semifinal and that Bolt had already won the event NBC was promoting.

That, of course, would have spoiled NBC's perfectly packaged coverage.

On a day when Bolt's victory would be all over newscasts and websites instantly, it seemed like a silly decision indeed.

That's why CBC's live-first philosophy (usually, anyway) won the day...

[ManNamedTruth]

I'm not a big fan of Toronto Star's Chris Zelkovich, especially during the NHL season, but he's been good with his daily Olympic media network critiques. I didn't watch NBC yesterday morning, but I find today's report regarding the live (or lack thereof) 100 metre final coverage shocking even for NBC (BTW, I thought NBC did a better job than the CBC in last night's live women's marathon coverage).

If I lived in your fair land, I would have been pissed pissed pissed yesterday. Here's an exerpt from today's story:


Give CBC gold for live coverage of glamour event
August 17, 2008

Chris Zelkovich


The debate over showing Olympic events live or on tape has been raging for some time, practically as long as Bob Costas has been avoiding grey hair.

Considering the results, mainly NBC's record-setting ratings for the Beijing Games, it seems almost pointless to knock the network's plan. In fact, delaying things by a few hours on a weekday makes some sense in maximizing the prime-time audience.

But tape-delaying the biggest event of the Olympics, the men's 100 metres race, by almost 12 hours on a Saturday is not only disingenuous, it smacks of thinking from another century. And I don't mean the 20th century.

While Usain Bolt was shattering the world record around 10:30 yesterday morning, NBC was showing the U.S.-Spain basketball game. While interest in the so-called Redeem Team is high, surely NBC could have broken into it for the race.

Instead, it ignored the glamour event of the Games and ran a promo for its night-time coverage. Included in the promo was a nice feature on American sprinter Tyson Gay.

What that feature didn't mention, of course, was that Gay had already been eliminated in the semifinal and that Bolt had already won the event NBC was promoting.

That, of course, would have spoiled NBC's perfectly packaged coverage.

On a day when Bolt's victory would be all over newscasts and websites instantly, it seemed like a silly decision indeed.

That's why CBC's live-first philosophy (usually, anyway) won the day...

blah blah blah [size=10]canada is better,[/size] blah blah blah

i kid