The Olympics

[Brian G]

Just some assorted thoughts...

I saw the basketball team get beat again today. When it was over, the American players left the floor without offering congradulations to any of the Argentina team. How embarrassing, such poor sportsmanship. [:-ashamed]

I like the coverage much more this year. I've seen parts of a lot of events I haven't seen in years, and not so damned many weepy bios. Show me events. [:-jump2]

The big exception to the above came when a lady reporter interviewed the American girls right after the team gymnastics, where we won silver. The reporter asked 3 or 4 questions in a row about NOT winning the gold, until one girl finally blurted out "Hey, we won a silver medal!" [:-irked]

I'd like to see Paul Hamm offer to go with dual gold medals to include the Korean that had his score screwed up by the judges. I'm sick of America looking arrogant and insensitive at these things. Make a gesture Paul, please, you'll still have your medal. [:-king]

Saw some weight-lifting, awesome display of what the body is capable of. I never really got the weight class because they had it in metric, but the guys looked about 175 lbs. or so. The winning lift in the clean-and-jerk was nearly 400 lbs... [:-bigeyes]

Any event which includes the word "syncronized" should be permanently dropped. [:-yuck]

Have you seen any race-walking? Is that the silliest-looking event there is or what? All those contestants in a tight little pack, doing this wierd wiggle as fast as they can...it's hilarious. [:-dopey] Somewhere in the back of mind I can hear one of my old teachers..."NO RUNNING! I SAID NO RUNNING!"

[Terence McCann]

Originally posted by Brian G.

Just some assorted thoughts...

I saw the basketball team get beat again today. When it was over, the American players left the floor without offering congradulations to any of the Argentina team. How embarrassing, such poor sportsmanship. [:-ashamed]

snip

Brian:

Ahh, Americas finest, the mens basketball dream team.

The headlines "U.S. beats Lithuania for bronze"

[:-thumbd]

These corn fed, corn rowed, multi-million dollar man cows. [%|]

I wonder if the whole team, including the coach from Lithuania, makes anything near what a NBA basketball player makes?

I have to ease up on them though, they might not have been able to get their necessary drugs into the country.

Speaking of which, here is one of our finest.

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[Brian G]

Gee Terence, if I didn't know you better I'd swear I detected a hint of sarcasm there. []

I ran across some "Handball" on CNBC today, but it wasn't what I thought handball was. This was on a sort of mini-soccer field with a mini-soccer ball and net, which you throw around instead of kick around. I've never seen that before in my life. [:-boggled]

The pole vaulting last night was cool. Man, is that a hairy event.

Brian G.

[DonTx]

I think the basketball team got what they deserved. Unfortunately, America deserves a better basketball team! I think Terry pretty much has it right. They're overpaid losers who let their ego get in the way of working as a team.

Did we have a track & field team in the Olympics this time???? How 'bout a boxing team?? Did anyone show up??

Some of those "lesser" events (according to the media) are pretty neat to watch.

I agree Brian, the mens pole vault finals were pretty good. Secretly I was hoping Crash would take gold though.

Oh well, I guess every Olympics and every event can't have a Kerri Strug in it. Now there was some spirit there. Those overpriced druggies could learn a thing or two from true athelets such as her.

Donald

[Brian G]

Originally posted by Donald Lawson

Some of those "lesser" events (according to the media) are pretty neat to watch.

You got that right. I saw parts of the shot put, discus, and hammer throw last week. Lots of fun to watch, but rarely seen.

Brian G.

[Terence McCann]

Had to post this one too.

I don't know, I just find this picture funny.

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[Brian G]

Well they wrapped it up today, not a bad Olympics. How about that defrocked priest-nut hindering the marathon runner? At least the crowd got him off quickly, good for them.

I caught a little more boxing today, about the 3rd or 4th time I've seen some of it. I really liked the trainer / analyst NBC hired, Teddy Atlas. The guy is like the John Madden of boxing out there. He knows everything that's happening and why, but he comes across very "regular guy" with that NY street accent. At the end they asked him about improving the American team / system. He talked about how everything now just feeds the pro system here, and said they had to stop putting guys in charge of the program "who don't know a left hook from a fish hook". I love it. [:-fight]

Brian G.

[Terence McCann]

I watched some of the boxing as well and your right, Teddy was refreshing.

You could tell that he knew his stuff and judging by the way his nose was flattened out I'd say he learned by the school of hard knocks!

[hausdok]

Hi,

The only time I watch sport on TV is during the Tour de France and the Olympics. This year I watched at least six hours of coverage every day, either on one of NBC's affiliates, CBC or on the Korean networks. My family came to the US from Canada, I'm an American married to a Korean, so I have a lot of loyalties. So, thanks to premium cable and the large split screen I was able to watch them all simultaneously and toggle back and forth between events.

I preferred the Canadian coverage, because it wasn't nearly as myopic as NBC's or the Korean networks and it was either live coverage or closer to real time than NBC's. Yesterday, I watched the marathon early in the morning, followed afterward by the closing ceremonies, uninterrupted by commercials like NBC's coverage last night, live at mid-morning.

Brian, I have to disagree about Paul Hamm sharing a gold with the Korean. First, the Koreans only got into gold and silver position because of an amazing sequence of stupid mistakes made by all of the leaders, including Hamm. My wife and I were sitting there in the living room cheering both of those Koreans and thought they had it cinched. But Hamm's last routine, which he thought might net him a bronze, was incredible and he ended up winning the gold. Even my wife thought he should have won it. The following day the controversy began.

Right now, I'm pretty disgusted with the Korean. First, he held 4 times on his parallel bar routine when you are only allowed to hold 3 times. Even if his violation hadn't been missed by the judges, and they had started him at a 10.0 like they were supposed to, he would have lost anyway. Then, instead of following the rules and filing his protest immediately, he waited until the next day - way beyond the allowable time limit to file.

As far as I'm concerned, he's acting like a kid who cheats in high school, doesn't get caught, gets beat out for a scholarship by someone who worked harder and honestly for it, and then starts bellyaching and bleating because he didn't get a scholarship that he wasn't entitled to.

Then, to top it off, Hamm, after enduring more than 10 minutes of jeers, whistles and boos before his final high-bar routine days later, goes in and manages to pull off an incredible routine for the bronze with the sound of all that jeering still ringing in his ears. He was followed immediately by the Korean, who seriously f#@ked his routine, proving that he and Hamm are definitely not in the same class. The class act would be for the Korean, after performing so miserably and for having dishonored himself with a dishonest protest, to drop the protest and acknowledge that he got beat fair and square.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

http://www.nashvillescene.com/cgi-bin/a ... er_Shelter

The link is to Walter's weekly column; this week, he waxes silly about the Olympics, & Hamm in particular.

Personally, the entire controversy over the Gold is sad. I can see both sides quite easily. Inasmuch as the point difference between the two is only 0.15, comparisons are odious. For all the good of the Olympics, I find the carping about medals to be particularly obnoxious.

Can you imagine the IMMENSE good will that would be generated if young Mr. Hamm came forward and said "ya know, this is screwed up; I wanna share my medal w/ the Korean", or something like that. Mr. Hamm would go down in world history as the greatest, & most humanitarian, athlete @ any games in memory, instead of (now) being seen by many as a diddler.

[Norm]

Are we missing something here? As a former college wrestler, many moons ago, I fell victim to bad calls by the Ref. on occasion. I got pinned more times than I won and the official was correct at least 90% of the time. Have none of you watched a NFL game only to see a miscall by the Ref., umpire, or linesman, cost a team a well deserved victory? In football, as in the olympics, established rules exist which govern the time allowed to protest. It may be by way of, in the case of football, instant replay or in the olympics prior to the onset of the next contestant's performance. In either case the athlete's performance was not in question, rather it was human error on the part of the official. I have seen far more football games lost by a team who clearly won due to official error than I have olympic events. I've never seen so much to do by loosing football teams as I am seeing by loosing olympians. Do I sound insensitive? Yep. Been there,on a much smaller scale,but done that. Last time I checked WHINING was not an athletic event.

NORM SAGE

[hausdok]

Hi Kurt,

You know that I have immense respect and admiration for Walter, but I can't agree on this one. Each of those gymnasts started with a score based on his or her standings. Some started with 10's while others started with 9.8's or 9.9's. From there, each error you make results in a deduction from your total score. When Hamm lost his balance, the judges deducted the correct point totals for that fall, so if his final score and point tally beat the Korean that is just the way it is, regardless of the trip. If the Russion, the Ukrainian or one of the Romanians' had held scores that out-totalled Hamm when they tripped,they would have beat Hamm and also would have beat the Koreans.

What is wrong is the Korean making noise about his having 1/10th of a point incorrectly deducted before he started, knowing full well that he should have received a 2-point deduction for exceeding the number of allowable holds. He is squawking because the judges made an error and started him with a 9.9. Well, he can't have his cake and eat it too. If he wants the judging error acknowledged so that he gets his 1/10th point, he needs to also allow them to correct their other error which was not to deduct that 2/10th of a point from him. If he does that, he might find himself wearing bronze and his teammate wearing silver.

The main thing that people need to focus on here is that Paul Hamm didn't do anything wrong - unlike the judges and the Korean. He fell, took his point deduction gracefully and without protest and still beat the Korean. The Korean knows full well that he got over by getting the silver, he should take his medal, go home and shut his mouth.

By the way Norm, good post.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

No one is listening; everyone is all het up about subjective issues.

Yep. The Korean had too many holds. Paul Hamm stumbled into the judges table & was downright oafish. Somewhere in there subjective analysis was applied & someone came out w/fractions of a point more than the other guy to say they were "better". Pretty sad stuff. They are all, unfortuneately, nattering about things that are widely outside of my interest.

Comparing any of what occurred in the gymnastics events to sports like football or wrestling is missing the obvious point.

Personally, I liked the womans baseball; they simply kicked ass & no one else was even close. None of that "points deducted or added" stuff. They won 'cause they were just damn excellent.

[Brian G]

For me it's not about the points or any of the details, it was just a screwed-up deal where I thought we once again came off looking arrogant and indifferent to the rest of the world. It wasn't Hamm's fault by any means, but I still wish he had made the gesture. He would've looked a giant.

In truth I was more bothered by the mens basketball team walking off without congradulating the Argentine players, who simply bested them. More American arrogance, no American sportsmanship. [:-ashamed]

[Jim Morrison]

In my opinion, the real tragedy is that competitve beer drinking has (once again) been excluded from the Olympic games -thanks to internal IOC politics. I've spent my entire adult life training and dominating my weight class, only to be told: "It isn't politically correct", "It's not socially acceptable", "it's illegal, irresponsible, and quite dangerous"

I coulda been a contender,

[Brian G]

Originally posted by Jim Morrison

I coulda been a contender

Just another example of The Man keeping you down. Damn The Man! [:-dev3]

Brian G.

[Jack Ahern]

Jimmy

When's practice?? Is there a Guinness catagory? Count me in.[:-banghea

Jack Ahern Needham on the Charles