Sunday, August 31

Olympics - All-time hardest and videos

+ I'd swear I've written this before, but I can't find it here on my weblog. The hardest athletic event I can think of is balance beam. How do little girls do it? Tiger Woods won't hit without silence. These little girls backflip on four inches with music blaring for the nearby floor exercise, clapping for other events and announcements. How do they do it? Truly amazing.

+ kottke had a great post about Olympic moments on YouTube:
One of the best ways to watch the Olympics is to chase down all the references made by NBC's commentators on YouTube and watch them in addition to (or instead of) the regular telecast. Here are some of the ones I've found.
He's got some great stuff there I'd encourage you to check out. The two that make my greatest hits are:
Some of my others (in (why not?) chronological order):
Without committing myself, the performances that stand out to me from Beijing are Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt.

How about you? What did I miss?

3 comments:

j streed said...

Bingo on the balance beam analysis.

Did you know I was in gymnastics for several years when I was in grade school? Got to the point where I could do a somersault on the beam, but then living in the Mt Vernon/Lisbon area took over and I switched over to wrestling for a couple of years.

Anyway, that stuff they do is crazy-hard.

Some of my favorite Olympic moments (in addition to yours, which were all great):
+ Michael Johnson blowing away the field in the 200m
+ Vince Carter jumping over the 7ft guy
+ Rulon Gardner beating that scary Russian wrestler
+ Ex-Hawkeye wrestler Randy Lewis winning gold at the '84 games, then saying the post-match interview that, "Yeah, I knew that Jap would give me a good match." My dad aspirated his RC Cola.

Usain Bold is my favorite athlete of these games, even over Phelps, I think. The whole sleep-late-and-eat-chicken-nuggets thing, plus the overflowing personality, really injected life into track and field, which too often has a grim, glowering demeanor.

Sport I wish were more popular so I could watch it on teevee: badminton.

Kathy said...

I particularly enjoyed (read devoured) Beach Volleyball this time. May-Treanor and Walsh are amazing! To repeat gold 2 Olympics in a row, without even losing a set! Those women are my new heroes.

In past games, I'm in total agreement with you on the "Miracle" team. Every time that movie comes on TV, I watch it. And cry.

P.S. I knew there was a reason I liked Jaq. ;-)

Sean Meade said...

thanks, J. good stuff from you, too. and lol at the Lewis quote.

and thank you, Kathy. i watched a fair amount of beach volleyball. those girls were very good, obviously. my comment, which you could predict: they need to eat a sandwich ;-)