THAT'S a Sport?

Well our #1 men’s beach volleyball team just got ousted in the round of 16 in the Olympics. So much for that attempt at a repeat and our women’s #1 team had a scare in their last match losing their first ever set in an Olympic competition.

The real reason I mention this is because beach volleyball was pioneered here in the US and, naturally, we dominated it for quite some time. But other countries catch up on the training and strategy so at some point one of them breaks through and starts to win.

But when it comes to baseball and softball, both sports created here, rather than continue to grow and improve the quality of the competition around the world, they were both eliminated from the Olympics this year. I don’t know the exact reason and nor do I care what that reason is because whatever the reason is it was wrong.

I see that trampoline is in the Olympics. You know, that sport of champions. And rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming are also hot sports all around the world so I guess that is why they are in and baseball and softball are out.

Olympic Sport

I wonder why rugby isn’t in the Olympics. Certainly there are enough countries that play rugby, aren’t there?

Did you know that Great Britain, the host country, has not had a soccer team in the Olympics, until this year, since 1960? I have a feeling that maybe they didn’t know soccer was in the Olympics and didn’t bother to enter a team because they call it “football.” Wow those people are dumb!

As someone who is 50 years old I root for the older athletes. The US women’s volleyball team has Danielle Scott-Arruna who is 39 on the team. I saw her play in the win against China the other day.

She is not the oldest competitor of course. That honor goes to an equestrian competitor from Japan who is 72. But he just doesn't count. If he did the actual jumping over the hurdles himself then it would count. He just sits on the horsie who does all of the work.

I can’t help but feel sorry for the Chinese and North Korean athletes when I watch them. I can’t keep from thinking that they are competing so that they and their families will be allowed to eat when they get home. The Chinese have an amazing sports program but its recruitment and training regimen is similar in concept to the Soviet Union and East Germany back in the good ole’ communist days that we are slowly trying to emulate here in the United States economy as well. They take kids who show athletic aptitude and basically capture them from their families and put them in sports boot camps.
One of the Chinese divers who won a gold medal got news after the event that her mother was suffering from cancer and that her grandparents died a year ago. So sequestration is a winning tactic in that country. I would rather lose, wouldn’t you?

Win or Else!

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that people are really tortured in China when it comes to sports. Ok, maybe I don’t know for sure. I do think that the lack of freedom of choice in those matters is what is taken from them though. I am certain that the propaganda ministers do a great job of selling country pride and promising rewards to those who succeed. And it is good to know that Jay Carney will have a great job opportunity there next January. (Sorry couldn’t resist.)

Great Britain has a legitimate new sports hero in cyclist Bradley Wiggins. He won the time trial gold medal this year after also winning the Tour de France just last month.
He said in an interview that “it will never get better than that,” when it comes to a cycling career. He is certainly right about that. He clearly reached the pinnacle, knew it, and acknowledged it.

Adrian Nathan won the men’s 100-meter freestyle gold medal for the US. It was the first gold medal for the US in that event since Matt Biondi did it in the 70’s.

Allison Schmidt was part of a gold medal US swimming relay team and while on the podium singing along with the national anthem messed up the words near the end of the song. Instead of singing “o’er the land of the free” she sung FOR the land of the free.

At least she didn’t grab her crotch when she was singing it.

Roseanne Barr Sings National Anthem

So much attention went to Gabby Douglas for winning the women’s all-around gymnastics medal that people were creating all sorts of picture art with sayings on it to post on Facebook and other places to honor her. But Kayla Harrison won the first-ever gold medal for an American woman in Judo. Where are her pictures?

Of course Gabby did have a first of her own which too many people just had to mention. Since they did I won’t. It is all getting very old to me.

Ok, yes, she was the first American to win gold in the team competition and the all-around individual gold medal.

While watching Jordyn Wieber watch her teammates compete for the all-around medal and watching Aly Raisner blow her chance at a bronze medal, I couldn’t help but try to figure out what was going through her mind. Here is the reigning world champion sitting in the stands instead of being where she should have been because of that ridiculous rule that only two team members can advance to the overall.
Raisner was given a bronze opportunity because of a horrid balance beam performance by the eventual bronze medalist from Russia, Aliya Mustafina. She had scored a 13.633 after falling off the beam in mid routine opening the door for Raisman. But Raisman also had a mishap on the beam, although she didn’t fall off, and it made her floor routine score one that was just enough to tie for the bronze. Mustafina won the medal on the tie breaker.  But what got me about Mustafina’s beam score was that it was as high as 13. SHE FELL OFF THE BEAM and that’s only a full-point deduction. Seems to me that the score should have been ZERO, not 13 and medal to our team.

Hearing the over dramatization at the gymnastics competition is old also. Every year we have to hear the analyst say, “it all comes down to the final routine…the floor exercise.” Yeah, no kidding, Sherlock. There aren’t 17 events; there are only 4. Of COURSE it will come down to the final event. Do the math some time. No one could ever clinch the gold medal before the final event unless there were 17 events. I’m not going to do that work you; you have to do it yourself to understand.

Another question that interviewers ask that makes me sick is, “what does this mean to you?” It’s in the same category as, “how do you feel?” The girl who has been doing the swimming interviews (whose name escapes me) keeps asking that question as does Matt Lauer from the Today Show. Both of them should be fired and replaced with…me….or a pet parrot which could ask better questions also.

Michael Phelps redeemed himself in the pool finally winning his third straight gold medal in one event, the 200 IM. He had failed at three-peating in two other events. So after a slow start he has put his Games back together. Now he sits with 20 total medals an Olympic record. Whatever I, or anyone else, think about an overall performance this year that pales in comparison to Beijing, he still goes down as one of the greatest athletes of all time. This is not debatable so don’t try me.

The men’s basketball team beat Nigeria by 83 points scoring 29 3-pointers in the match. That amount of 3-point conversions is just sick. It means that they really weren’t pouring it on since those shots are high risk.

We hear a lot about the struggles of our athletes here in the US and all of the sacrifices that they have to make in their lives to be able to compete in the Olympics. None of them, and I mean NONE of them have it tough at all.
Take the Somali Olympic team, all two of them, who are competing in Track and Field this year. They have to train while literally dodging bullets and bombs in that war torn, Al-Qaeda filled Hell hole of a country. Think about that when you see some highly produced NBC segment about how one of our athletes has to get up early to train every day.

Training for the 100 Meter Dash and Duck

Or take some of the women from Arab countries who have just had their first-ever chance to compete in the Olympics. Noor Al-Malki, a 17-year old from Qatar, is such an athlete. This morning she had her first shot at competing in the 100-meter dash in track and field. The announcer commented about how little girls back in her country would now look up to her and she would be the role model for a future generation of female runners across the Arabian Peninsula.

Then she pulled her hamstring coming out of the blocks and ended her attempt 25 meters into the race.

But that’s a few small steps for Arabian women kind. I just hope she doesn’t get stoned to death for failing when she gets back home.

One of our Delaware athletes, swimmer Andrew Gemmell, finished 9^th in the 1600 meter swim in the semifinals and, sadly, will not advance for a chance to win a medal for the US and for Delaware.

Kobe Bryant, from the basketball team, was seen in the stand watching a tennis match this morning. He did pick a good one to watch as he witnessed Switzerland’s Roger Federer win an epic 3-6, 7-6, 19-17 match against Argentina’s Del Potro which took 4 hours and twenty minutes (that’s 4:20 everyone!) to complete. Juan Martin del Potro then had to go directly to the next court to compete in the mixed double’s competition which was delayed because of his absence.

Federer, a winner of 17 grand-slam titles, advanced to the gold-medal match. He has never won an Olympic gold medal, but they just don’t pay as much as grand slam titles do so it’s just a matter of pride more than anything else. Or maybe not, since this is his 4^th Olympics.

That’s all I have for now. Peace out.

Done