Friday, August 15

Olympic roundup

I've been enjoying the Olympics, especially the amount of news we can get on the web. I can plan my viewing more judiciously. Miss something? No problem to watch it later. Other thoughts:

+ In that spirit, I watched some on-demand judo and tae kwon do. I thought they might be interesting. Wrong. Very boring. Stylized scoring with very little continuation. Mix it up a little, then go back to the center, sometimes scoring a point. I'd rather watch wrestling (no dig, since I used to wrestle).

+ 4 days old now, but Jason Lezak was absolutely amazing in the 4x100 free. How do you make up that much space in 15 meters?

Lezak's swim is one for the ages
Who’s talking now? USA Men’s 4x100 Free Relay!!
Video: U.S. men win 4x100m free relay

+ Is it even remotely possible that all of those little Chinese girls were at least 16 years old? My universalizing nature is tempted to call them a whole nation of cheaters, but that wouldn't be fair. Still, it casts a little pallor on the games.

IOC turns blind eye to controversy over China's kiddie gymnasts
Chinese news service reported that gold medal gymnast was 13

+ Great individual competition last night. I was really pulling for Shawn Johnson, since she's from Iowa, but it's a subjective sport and Nastia Liukin was really good and absolutely stuck all of her landings, so good for her.

Felt like sort of a referendum on short, powerful and cute or tall, lithe, and graceful.

Something else good: Shawn was very gracious re: Nastia's win.

+ Michael Phelps is a beast. What else are you going to say?

I really like the lead on this story:
On the seventh day of the Olympics, Michael Phelps rested.
I'm enjoying watching swimming a lot, including all of the events that are on around Michael. This week switches to track, which I almost certainly won't watch as much.

+ Remember when we were kids (if you're my age or older ;-)? We had one culture, only 3 networks, and the Olympics were huge. Now, my kids barely know about it and the good stuff is on too late for them to watch anyway. News flash: different world ;-)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Sean...given your commentary on the gymnastics competition between the short powerful and cute Johnson vs. the tall, lithe and graceful Liukin, I thought you'd find this article at Slate interesting. The title "The Ballerina vs. the Energizer Bunny"

Macon said...

What on earth is the point of having a Communist government if you can't make your own news agency keep a secret? Sheesh!

Sean Meade said...

thanks nykr. i did like it.

Macon, why do you have to be a hater? ;-)

Jim said...

Phelps is a genetic wonder. I've enjoyed watch him win (now 7, as of Friday) gold metals. He's done it with a lot of class, which is very cool.
I agree, it is hard to believe the ages of the Chinese gymnasts. I expect there will eventually be an investigation.

Sean Meade said...

Jim: i agree, across the board