Oh No! Say it ain't Solo!

Super interviewer Savannah Guthie, from the Today Show,
outdid herself the other morning.
She was interviewing US Women's Soccer goalie Hope Solo and
went to a videotape of Solo smiling from ear to ear on the
medal stand after winning the gold medal.
Guthie asks Solo, "What were you feeling at that moment?"

Seriously, this woman gets paid to do this?
NBC hired and pays this tool to come up with this
brilliance.

Gee, what could Solo POSSIBLY be feeling here?

The irony is that there are probably people who believe she
actually has talent and/or sense and intelligence. She
probably believes herself that she actually possesses some sort of
intelligence.
This is what happens when hot chicks get socially promoted
all of their lives. We end up with these tards in front of
our faces completely driving people like me insane.
We know what happened with this girl during her life. She
was hot and she passed her classes because she was hot. This
is all through high school and then college. Because there
is no other way she could have passed anything because her only talent is
looking good on camera.

I am glad that I haven't been able to watch the Today Show
everyday because I would have to write twice a day.

Matt Lauer, the Super Tool of the Today show, has become
such a whipped little sissy on this very liberal network at
NBC. The last morning I watched he was talking with Guthie
(and two negatives clearly don't make a positive.) Guthrie
says something halfway endearing by stating that, "When I
see the athletes getting gold medals and I hear the national
anthem I get a little teary." I was on board with her there.
I thought that finally something useful came out of her
mouth.
But Lauer, making completely sure that his politcally
correct card would not be revoked, said, "It gets me when
ALL of the athletes anthems are being played."
What a pansy. Be proud of your country Matt, its ok...oh, no
wait...on NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN its not ok to show pride in
your country because that makes you arrogant or some stupid
nonsense and makes everyone in the world hate us. Had I been
Al Roker at that moment I would have bitch slapped him for
that.

NBC's Matt Lauer?

I should mention that Roker is ok on the Today Show. So is
the other girl on there, Natalie, or whatever her name is.
But Guthrie and Lauer are the most incompetent hosts a
morning show has ever seen.

Back to Hope Solo. Finally she made a big save and it came
at a big point in time with about 8 minutes left in the game
on one of the Japanese forwards. It was a diving save to her
left that kept the score at 2-1 and helped lead the team to
revenge against the Japanese. This is the team that just
beat them in the women's world cup last year.
I was in and out while that game was taking place. Just as I
turned in at one point, one of the Japanese forwards kicked a
shot towards the American goal that went just wide right.
The cameras cut back to the player and the shot was of her
side where you could see her name. That players last name
was Ohno, and that was pretty much what any of her country's
fans had coincidentally just said when she missed the shot.
I wondered if Ohno's name was an original spelling or if she
changed it from Ono because she was ashamed to be linked to
Yoko Ono, who ruined the Beatles.

Shinobu Ohno

I just ate a pint of chocolate turtle ice cream and have
that simultaneous feeling of happiness and guilt. I want
more though...I need more. A pint of banana ice cream with
chocolate chunks in there would be great.

Its a good thing that we sent a bunch of women's sports team
to compete for us in these Olympics. Because they are
carrying the weight in team competitions for us.
The only men's team that is going to win a medal for us is
the basketball team.
We didn't send a soccer team (as well complained about here)
our volleyball team stunk, we didn't send a field hockey
team and our water polo team stunk. I seem to be forgetting
one or two teams but suffice it to say that our women
outshined our men this year.
Of course this is because we have allowed our women to
compete for some time which is not the case with many other
countries. In time these other countries will catch up to
us. But I will be dead by then so it doesn't much matter to me.

Talk about providing some incentive for your team to win a game. The South Korean men's soccer team took on Japan for the bronze medal game today. The team was told that if they won the game and the bronze medal that their mandatory military obligations would be waived. They won 2-0. Any surprise there? This should be a great lesson to those who believe that most everything that we do work related is done much better when people have a real incentive to succeed. This, by the way, is exactly why "leveling the playing field" never works. One of the commentators asked the other in this game, "What will Japan have to do to come back here?" I answered for him and said, "bring out tanks and actual Japanese military to play," because that was about the only thing that was going to spark a comeback capable of keeping the South Koreans from doing military service at that point.

The 2008 South Korean Soccer Team?

Ok, I can't take it any more. I'm going back out for more ice cream.

Done

Moving to Romania!

This entry is getting written as I watch the Olympics on Tuesday night the 7th. I have my laptop on my lap and am

just going to write exactly what is on my mind (minus normal dirty thoughts along the way) and then make the post

tomorrow unedited.

How about the All-American final in the gold medal women's beach volleyball championship?
Misty May Treanor and Kerry Walsh Jennings take on the other girls whose names I currently can't recall 

who knocked off the #1 seed in the tournament from Brazil in three sets.

Treanor and Jennings had difficulty getting into the final as well having a brutal match against a Chinese team. They

needed to squeak out both sets in the match by two points and needed to come from behind in the first set.
The team that they beat had at one time been coached by the same coach they had and here in the US. So really that match was sort of an American match.
We rule when it comes to this stuff.

Lolo Jones, who tripped over the hurdles in 2008 in the 100 meter hurdles, attempted to come back this year in London.

Making it back onto the US Olympic team was admirable and she is certainly a character who is endearing enough to root for in these games.
She only managed to place third in her semifinal heat and only two in each semifinal (there are three semis) and the

fastest remaining two times advanced. Fortunately she did get one of those spots.

Coaches sometimes over coach their teams and their players and there was an example of that on the womens water polo team in the semifinal game against Australia. Leading 9-8 with less than 30 seconds to go Australia was in the American end of the pool attempting to get off a shot. When they did get off their shot it was deflected by the American

goalie to the left of her goal. Rather than allowing the remaining one second to tick off of the clock, Overcoach

called a time out. The trouble with that move, which I am sure that he thought was brilliant at the moment, was that none of his players were in possession of the ball. In case you weren't aware of the water polo rules (similar to me) it is illegal to call time out without possession of the ball.
After some double checking with officials all over the arena, a penalty shot was awarded to Australia which they

converted to send the game into overtime. Fortunately for Overcoach, the US responded and won the

match to enter the gold medal game.

I am  now watching the balance beam competition and watching more epic failing. So far both Gabby Douglas, the American all-around champion, and Viktoria Komova from Russia have both fallen off the beam.
Now every normal person would fall off the beam just trying to walk across it, but since both Chinese entrants stayed on

the beam and popped some 15.5, and over, scores, that means that both Douglas and Komova are out of medal contention. Aly Raisman was last and I was hoping going in that she would win the gold tonight and win silver in the floor

exercises while Jordyn Wieber won the gold.
Douglas and Komova still manage to score between 13 and 14  points though and I don't get it.
Raisman does a great job on the beam. One little balance check and a forward hop on her landing. I figure that she is

good for bronze. In this case she WINS a bronze as opposed to losing it since she went last. It is much different than

 what happened with Maroney who lost the gold because of her all off the vault the night before.
Raisman ends up getting the shaft though and coming up in fourth place. The American contingent goes wild in the

stands and demand an inquiry.
Now there is drama in the house. She was clearly better than the Romanian who is standing around believing she won a

medal.
This is the whole problem with gymnastics and any other sport which is judged instead of simply competed team vs

team or person vs person. The judges go to a replay screen, which is fair.

The Romanian is 24 years old and she is hot. Its good to be able to say that about a gymnast since most of them are 14 and its not cool to say that.

The second results are in...score changed...Raisman gets

more points...she gets the bronze. Now what for the

Romanians??? Do they get to review her athlete's tape now?

That doesn't seem fair to me even though it goes to the American.
We'll take it though.

Floor exercises coming up next...well, after track.

Lots of fluorescent track shoes being worn by these sprinters.
With all of the attention around Lolo Jones, who lost in Beijing, no one mentions that Dawn Harper is back this year

in the finals and she is the reigning champion from 2008.

But that’s now because the Australian is the favorite. No one has ever repeated in this event, the 100-meter hurdles.
Harper is second...we think...it’s a photo finish...its the Australian Sally Pearson who wins Australia's first gold

medal in this event She was second to Harper in 2008. Harper is second .02 behind and Kellie Wells from the US is third.

Jones is fourth.
Kellie Wells give glory to God. This pisses off the Christophobes out there, I am sure, much like it did when

Gabby Douglas did it after winning her medal. I'm almost shocked that NBC doesn't bleep out the word God knowing how left that network leans.

Back to floor exercises. Wieber goes second and Raiman third. Eight athletes qualify to try to win one of three

medals.14.566 is the opening score for one of the Russians. Here is a chance for some redemption for Wieber. She flubs her first run's landing. Steps out of bounds on her second one. Already she is done. Another fail for the world

champion. She can't even do the dance parts of this well enough to call herself fit to wear a ribbon. It’s on her face

as she walks off of the mat. More tears to come here, I’m afraid. No way that she can be better than 14.566.
Raisman is on deck while everyone awaits the score. Now remember that Raisman bounced on her head doing of the parts of this routine in the team competition. She needs to put it back in to this one.
14.5 for Wieber. How is that humanly possible? The best she can do is silver now, but there is no way that her score

will hold up here.

Raisman goes...and nails the part where she landed on her head previously in warm-ups. She is looking hot...is

she at least 18 and I can say that? She is killing this routine...one more run...she pounds it out. This is gold

medal material. She'll be the one to beat now. Five more girls to go. Her coach says it’s the best routine that she

had ever done. In slow motion it’s amazing. She scores a 15.6. How can that only be 15.6? In qualifying

only two scores are better than that? How could any be better than that if that is such an amazing routine with all

of that difficulty?
Well its puts the pressure on the rest of the girls. But we have to wait for the commercials now.
We are back. The Romanian who Aly tied and beat on the beam is now on the floor. Damn she is hot. I might move to

Romania. What the heck is her name? I want to friend request her on Facebook. She kills her routine too. Wieber will be

off the medal podium now.
Catalina Ponor...that’s her name. Her score...15.2? That doesn't seem right. Where is the inquiry here? But she is

now second.

Catalina Ponor

Now it’s the Italian. They flash their names too quick for me

to type them in on time. She is 6th. If she doesn't get a

15.6 Raisman is assured the bronze. I can tell that the Italian girl will be short and fat in just a couple of years

time. Definitely not as good as my new Romanian girl friend.
The Russian who won the uneven bars gold medal is up next. She is a threat...commercials. I think I see Utah in the

Chevy commercial. I want to move there. Delaware sucks...some day soon I may write a blog entry that is

titled "Why Delaware Sucks."

Back now to Aliya Mustafina. She had 3 medals already. The Italian is now third. Raiman has a guaranteed bronze.
Here she goes...I think she is good for bronze and maybe silver but not gold. Her score...14.9 and good for bronze.

The remaining Romanian, also hot, is last.

Sandra Izbaza

Sandra Izbasa hits the floor but messes up a simple double spin.

Tough to come back from that now I think. She falls on her last run right on her face and that give Aly Raisman the

gold medal. Raisman helps save face for the team in the individual competitions by nailing down the gold medal.
It’s funny to watch the girls try to congratulate each other and they don't all speak the same language. It’s a series of

thumbs up, hugs, and awkward looks on their faces.
But good for Raisman. I wanted her to win one of these gold medals today.

Looks like my dog needs to poop so for now I'm

Done.

White Men CAN Jump!

I'm very proud to still have a juvenile sense of humor during the most of the day. While I can appreciate sophisticated humor from time to time, when I was watching the men's trampoline competition a few days ago I laughed like an 8-year old when China's Dong Dong took his turn to try to win an Olympic medal.

Dong Dong...hehe

It did make me think about what names we use in our country that might have a different meaning in Chinese. For instance, could David mean, "Giant Butt" in Chinese?

South African double amputee, Oscar Pistorius made Olympic history as the first with his type of physical condition to compete in an Olympic track event. Competing in the 400-meter run Pistorius qualified for a quarterfinal run although he came in last in that run. Pistorius runs on specially designed "blades" which had track spikes on the bottom of them. He had to get special clearance to compete, of course, since there were some complaints that he had some sort of advantage.
I had a tendency to agree with that even if some engineers testified otherwise. Those blades are artificial and I thought the whole idea of competing in these events was to do so naturally. This is why there are drug tests and gender tests.

Preparing for the High Jump Competition in 2016

Serena Williams won two gold medals for the US in tennis one of which was the women's singles competition. She completely smoked Maria Sharapova in the gold-medal match 6-0, 6-1. It did truly seem as if Serena was legitimately happy to win these medals. She did say that competing as a member of a team for her country added to her experience and that it was fun to hang out with other athletes and root for the rest of her teammates when she wasn't competing.

Sprinter Justin Gatlin won me over as well with that same attitude in an interview following one of his qualifying races for the 100-meter dash. He said that he wasn't doing this for himself, or for his team, but for his country.

There is a country called Eritrea. It is located in the horn of Africa and they sent a couple of athletes to the Olympics. I was more fascinated with the fact that I had apparently discovered a new country than the athletes themselves.

Here in Delaware we have a track and country coach named Pat Castagno. He has established himself as one of the best coaches in his sport in at least this state there has ever been. He coaches for a small private school called the Tatnall School and churns out state champions at an amazing pace. Because of his knowledge and ability he can attract motivated athletes to his program which then can strengthen his program.
So think about what Alberto Salazar's coaching camp will look like in the next couple of years. Salazar, a member of the National Distance Running Hall of Fame, coached Great Britain's Mo Farah and Galen Rupp from the US to a 1-2 finish in the men's 10,000 meter run. Farah became the first Brit to win gold in this event and Rupp was just the third American to win a medal in Olympic history.

Whenever anyone from Ghana competes I root vigorously against them. Ghana is home to a plethora of internet con men who try all of those online scams to try to rip off people in this country. You have probably heard of many of these con jobs which include subscribing to online dating sites to try to lure older people into sending money overseas to "bring them to the US for love."

Another of these scams include the one in which you get an email saying that you can earn millions of dollars by simply opening up an account so that some royal person from there can clear money that is rightfully his, or something to that effect.

I am in love with GB's Jessica Ennis now. She was the winner of the heptathlon this year and is simply smokin sexy. She lived up to the hype placed on her and didn't succumb to the pressure placed on her shoulders. In fact, in the final event of her competition, the 800 meters, which wasn't her strongest race, she won it to the excitement of the packed house at Olympic Stadium and her countrymen.

Jessica Ennis

Step aside Jessica Alba, I have a new Jessica in my life

The Brit's have committed a series of flagrant flag violations that I have seen so far. I've seen flags landing on the ground and even Ennis was carrying one that was adorned with accolades for Ennis, which here in America is a technical foul.

Who says white men can’t jump? Great Britain’s Greg Rutherford won the men’s long jump gold medal with a leap of over 27 feet! An Australian, who also happened to be white, won the bronze.

Greg Rutherford (NOT Photoshopped!)

NBC’s Andrea Kremer has been the poolside reporter at the aquatic center. How many questions did she ask which had athletes tilting their head as if to say, “Wow, that was a stupid question?”

Lewis Johnson is the track and field interviewer and he has done far better trackside with his questions. He asks open-ended questions that also aren’t, “How do feel about winning the gold?” or “What does this mean to you?” But Johnson must be about 8 feet tall because no matter who is standing next to him it looks as if he should playing along side LaBron and Kobe on the basketball court.

I love the fact that every time a Brit wins a gold and they play their National Anthem that I can sing alternate lyrics to it that are truly America….LET FREEDOM RING!

We didn’t place anyone in the women’s marathon this year as our girls finished 9^th and 10^th this year. Returning bronze medalist Shalane Flanagan wasn’t able to medal in an event which teammate Kara Goucher called “more painful than giving birth.” Flanagan is the American record holder at 3k, 5k and 10k. I actually remember seeing her in the Penn Relays when she was at North Carolina running.

Since our men’s soccer development program is a failure in the US may I suggest that they all transition into Field Hockey? I was watching Great Britain stage a come-from-behind 3-3 tie with Australia recently and noticed how much different it is than the women’s version. Obviously the men are more athletic but the guys who play this sport in other countries really make the game much more interesting than one might think who has not had much exposure to this sport. It is clearly superior to soccer although I would like to see more contact allowed. We should Americanize that sport for men and attract more athletes to it so we can prepare to ban soccer in this country, which would be the greatest thing ever.

This is what happens when I get busy with other things and can’t post for a little while even though I have a lot of notes. It gets long.

Michael Phelps is now “officially retired” from competing in the Olympics. At 27 years old he pretty much has a charmed life for the rest of it. He has earned it putting in all of those years and achieving all that he did.
Still there were lingering questions about his performance in a couple of events to which he responded, “I got the results that I deserved.” I thought that such an honest and basically humble response that I can only agree with him.
Who am I to judge his level of preparedness anyway? I am basically a failure at life who could never, in my wildest imagination, do anything remotely close to what any of those athletes can do or did do.

But that still won’t stop me from commenting anyway.

Major disappointments for the women’s gymnastics team in the individual competitions so far. McKayla Maroney, the prohibitive favorite and reigning world champion, only managed to capture a silver medal in the vault. She was only on this team because of her vaulting capability but she landed on her ass on her second vault losing the silver to one of the Romanians.

I don’t know how anyone can fall on their ass and still medal but a few others of the 8 involved in the final did also so with her first vault providing an excellent score for her she was still able to medal.

I would be happy with a silver, myself. It really depends on which side of the balance beam you are standing to have an appreciation for whether earning a silver medal is a success or failure.
At least she didn’t land on her face like the Canadian girl did.

Felix Sanchez won the 400-meter hurdles for the Dominican Republic, but he was born in NYC, went to HS there and went to college at USC. That should be an American gold, not one for the DR.

Savannah Guthrie, from the Today Show, is the most useless tool in the Today Show tool shed. This morning I watched her take a tour of the Athletes Village in London with one of our athletes. Her first swing of her screwdriver of brilliance came when she walked up on an American high jumper talking on the phone with her mother. Guthrie gets on the phone and asks her mother, “How proud of your daughter are you?” Again, this is a question that should require an instant beating for its uselessness and automatic termination.
But, she outdid herself moments later. Going back live she was sitting near the Wrench King himself, Matt Lauer. Lauer asks her what Great Britain will do with the village once the Olympics are over. Guthrie compliments Lauer by saying, “That’s a great question, I often wondered that!” And that was all we are ever going to be able to do now that Guthrie displayed that amazing journalistic talent after that one.

"Journalist" Savannah Guthrie

Naturally I am not hot like Savannah Guthrie but here is some proof that I can do her job, or Matt Lauer’s for that matter since he was holding on to his King of Tools throne as hard as he possibly could

After the Game, the Olympic Village will be a lasting legacy of essential new housing for east London. It will be transformed into 2818 new homes, including 1379 affordable homes and houses for sale and rent, and will create a new residential quarter to be known as East Village.

NBC, you know how to find me.

Done.

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

Gratitude

The tough thing about trying to watch all of the coverage of the Olympic Games is trying to watch all of the coverage of the Olympic Games.
There is so much to try to absorb that I have resorted to taking notes and still recognize that I miss so much along the way.
Here are some things I have seen and noted.

First, do you know who is in this following picture? We have already seen 1000 interviews with the women's gymnastic team but do you recognize this person who won gold in 2008 in Beijing and just repeated in London? What event?

Trying to get information and video on the NBC Olympics site is difficult even with the fiber optic internet connection that I have. Everything still loads slowly and I think the most annoying thing that website developers do these days is add the applications from social media sites so that their users can “like” or “follow” the sites on those sites like Facebook and Twitter. Each of these applications has to take the time to add up how many users from those sites are fans of the one that you are trying to watch and it bogs down everything. Combined with all of the flash media ads and other types of animated ads on the sites it is an exercise in frustration to access the site properly.
I tried to get an idea about what else has been happening in boxing and just gave up the effort since my computer processor is whizzing at 100% capacity and I think its going to blow up soon.
The reason I was looking at boxing is because I saw one of our matches with the captain of the US team and he lost in the first round. He was apparently the second to do so.
This is telling me that boxing is dying out here in this country. With the rise in popularity in Mixed Martial Arts and the overregulation in boxing the choice for those who want to compete in a fiercely physical event is becoming clearer all of the time and boxing is second trombone now.

Michael Phelps picked up his 18^th and 19^th Olympic medals yesterday; one was silver in the 200 Fly (his specialty) and one was gold in the 4x200 relay.
He was out touched at the wall by Chad Le Clos from South Africa. He admitted that he had been getting lazy touching the wall in practices and, don’t you know, what he does in practice he does in the game. For those who have had coaches in the sports you have played perhaps have heard that little cliché at some point.

Phelps is a guy who has all the attention because of his success. Because of all of the interviews he has done over the years he is savvy in front of the camera and never seems nervous or even interested. Because of all the success he has had I imagine that it could even get old to him after a while. In one that I saw after the 200-Fly defeat he mentioned that he was having more fun during these Olympics and pretty much by design. It has been clear that he simply hasn’t put as much effort into winning this time around as he had in the past. In fact, he was originally scheduled to compete in as many as ten events but pared it down to, I think, seven. He apparently didn’t even train for the 400 IM, in which he finished fourth and was the defending champion. Nice to know that he doesn’t even have to train and can still get 4^th place but it is disappointing to see that talent wasted especially when so many others work so hard just to get there.



I was supposed to train??



Not that Phelps doesn’t deserve to be in that race even though he didn’t train for it, of course, but I find it lacking in gratitude a bit. Take, for instance, Caitlin Leverenz, who won a bronze medal in the pool in her only event. Her tears at the finish line were because she simply had ONE medal and it was for third place. I find that emotion much more endearing to me. Sure, Phelps has had that same look on his face in previous Olympics but the lack of it this year bothers me a little.

The grateful face of Caitlin Leverenz,
swimming bronze medalist

I have long been tired of all of the attention that Gymnastics receives in the Olympics. I get why there is so much, but I still think its way overproduced. After every commercial we have to watch another specially designed bumper, teaser and introduction of our little gymnasts that just don’t get done for other athletes who have had much more success and most of the time have much better stories than five 15-17 year-old girls who just haven’t had the life experience that is worth chronicling like so many others.

That said, I still want them to do well and bring home the gold. It is tense and nerve-wracking and what they do athletically is amazing. (I just want the same attention paid to other athletes, that’s all.)
The team competition was last night, as we all certainly well know by now and they indeed win gold and were the first American team to do so since 1996 in Atlanta. Now, winning in 96 was a big deal, but I think the feat is more significant doing it in another country.
There are four elements on which three girls from each team compete just one time; the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. Stunts done on this equipment is pretty amazing even on the flat surface on the floor exercise.
The US jumped out early taking on the vault. McKayla Maroney only competed in the vault. The team put her on the team strictly for that and since the number of team members has been cut from 7 to 5 this said two things; first that the rest of the team had to be very, very strong across the board in the other events and that Maroney was one hell of a vaulter.

Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber, Kyla Ross

The Russians began to creep back up on the US and the race was tight after the uneven bars, which is America’s weakest of the four. But the Russians fell apart on the balance beam and the US held it together on an element which is the most difficult of them all. These kids do back flips and land on a 4-inch wide board three feet in the air. Jordyn Wieber, the current world champion, had some balance issues in the preliminary rounds on the beam which, in part, led to her not qualifying for the all-around medal still to be contested. So it’s brutal. All three of the Russian girls had difficulty on the beam and then the Americans had to deal with the floor exercise with a handy lead.
The US had to simply average a score of 13 between the three girls to clinch gold. In the preliminaries they averaged over 14 so there wasn’t as much pressure as there really could have been had the Russians been able to pull off a better performance on the beam.
In the warm-ups, Aly Raisman, from the US, nearly landed straight on her head on a tumbling run. Tim Daggett, the NBC analyst prophetically said that she should cut that part out of her routine, which she later did.
Up first on the floor was Gabby Douglas, who has a smile which many people claim is gold-medal worthy itself. I disagree with that assessment and think, rather, that her smile shows that she needs a lot of work in there, but I digress.
Gabby is very athletic but definitely robotic in motions with her arms and head that should be much more graceful. She scores a 15 in the routine which means that Jordyn Wieber has less pressure on her during her routine.
Wieber is clearly much more graceful in her turn. Plus, like Douglas, nails all of her tumbling runs and scores another 15.
Raisman now just need a score of 10.234 to clinch gold for America. This basically means that she could go out on the floor and do a basic headstand and she is on a box of Wheaties in a month’s time. Since she nearly landed on her head earlier in warm-ups we all knew she could pull that off. She did, and it was Gold for the US and the beginning of 1000 interviews on NBC was about to begin.

When we win the gold in any of these gymnastics events it makes suffering through all of the over-blown coverage of it worth while. There is still much more to come of that too, of course.

What it took to clinch the gold for the US in the last element

Did you know that Vince Hancock, skeet shooter, won his second straight Olympic gold medal? If you didn’t, you do now.
It’s not that NBC doesn’t cover this and get the news out about it, its just that it so token that it’s insulting.

Vince Hancock

Did you know that Kristen Armstrong won her second straight gold medal in the Cycling Time Trials? Her story is so much better than the gymnasts’ stories and should be a highly covered event. Yet we see it at 9am in the morning instead of 9pm.
Armstrong became the oldest female gold medalist in women’s cycling at the age of 38.
But what is more amazing than that is that she suffers from arthritis in her hips and just this past MAY she broke her collarbone and had surgery to repair it. This was just two years after taking time off from the sport to have a child. THIS is the type of story that should be produced for a prime-time airing. Now, it still may show up later so I could be premature in my criticism.

The first picture in this blog entry is Kristen Armstrong.

I mentioned the other day about athletes from America competing for other countries. Well, there are certainly times when the opposite is true. Take, for one example, Khatuna Lorig, an archer. I was watching some of her competition this morning as she won her first two matches to become the first American archer to advance to the round of 16 so far this year. Lorig is originally from Georgia in the former USSR who came to the US and became a US citizen. I have a great deal of admiration for that type of dedication and personal sacrifice to become free to do the things that we are free to do here in America. It makes me seethe with disgust to hear anyone who is a natural born citizen in our country take our country for granted ever.

At this moment the US is ahead in the total medal count with 25. China is second with 23 but they lead us in gold 13-9.
Swimmer Allison Schmidt has won one of each color to tie with Phelps and fellow swimmer Ryan Lochte with three total medals.

The first official scandal of the games goes to Badminton as four teams have been disqualified for throwing matches. This was done, apparently, to secure better draws in the event. Who would do that in the Olympics? This is, to me, perhaps a more egregious crime than blood doping is. Because at least those who are doping, while cheating, are going all out to win, not going half way out to win. Am I wrong about that? Which is actually worse?

Badminton Crooks

Regular Crooks

But the most horrible errors have been on display by the NBC crew on the Today Show trying to cover sporting events and athletes.
First, Ryan Seacrest, of American Idol fame, is there trying to do athlete interviews. He is clearly clueless about sports so its embarrassing to watch his try to do it.

Seacrest out!....PLEASE!

Fortunately for Ryan, he was outdone this morning by one of the women hosts on the show. While interviewing the top seeded American beach volleyball team, her question to Phil Dalhausser was, “So which team would you like to see in the finals, the undefeated Brazilians?” To which Dalhausser replied, “We’d like to see our compatriots in the finals with us.”
That was the best answer of the day to the worst question of the day (of the month) and it’s obvious – Dalhausser wants America to go 1-2 in that event. He wants the other team to be number two, of course, but certainly he doesn’t want any other team to take that spot.

I know these Today Show people aren’t knowledgeable about sports. They really only know how to talk about food and read a teleprompter, but there really should have been some thought to having someone who has a clue about sports at least jot down some questions that would make them look a lot better than they do there.

Done