2008 Olympic Games

[May]

I think Michael Phelps is amazing! He totally deserves everything he's gotten out of the Olympics. I mean, he's been training for them since he was 11 years old!

And yay for Dara Torres winning two silver medals yesterday!

Oh, and the women's gymnastics all-around was awesome!

[_mash_]

I love the Olympics

While I think what Torres, Phelps and company have done is awesome, it's not the highlight for me. The 38 yr old Romanian woman who won the Marathon by half a minute after injuries have prevented it before, the small boy with Yao Ming during the Opening Ceremony, Janet Evans watching her 19 year old swimming record finally get broken... That's what the Olympics is about.

[3lla]

I love the Olympics

While I think what Torres, Phelps and company have done is awesome, it's not the highlight for me. The 38 yr old Romanian woman who won the Marathon by half a minute after injuries have prevented it before, the small boy with Yao Ming during the Opening Ceremony, Janet Evans watching her 19 year old swimming record finally get broken... That's what the Olympics is about.

Well said.

As for Janet Evans, I was amazed when that record was broken. Absolutely amazed.

[_mash_]

Janet is one of my faves! One of the stories I read said she cried a little, got a kiss from her hubby, then she said something like 'I would have gotten Silver'.

[Igg]

I love the Olympics

While I think what Torres, Phelps and company have done is awesome, it's not the highlight for me. The 38 yr old Romanian woman who won the Marathon by half a minute after injuries have prevented it before, the small boy with Yao Ming during the Opening Ceremony, Janet Evans watching her 19 year old swimming record finally get broken... That's what the Olympics is about.

Well said.

As for Janet Evans, I was amazed when that record was broken. Absolutely amazed.

Becky Adlington was AMAZING. Nobody expected that much from her- I mean, we knew she was good but like a lot of our swimmers it was a case of 'olympic experience for next time, peak in London' and then she goes and wins 2 golds and breaks a world record as old as she is! Just wonderful.

I'm really pleased for Phelps. I think he's sweet.

Jaw-dropping moment for me (my jaw is still dropping) was Usain Bolt's 100m win. OH. MY. GOD. He wasn't even sprinting properly for the last 20 metres, he was celebrating. I've never seen a sprint final at a major championships before where the winner wasn't leaning for the line- Bolt was leaning backwards. The man is spectacular. I love him.

Team GB got an awesome medal haul this weekend. Our cyclists are amazing, and often overlooked. Come on Wiggins and Hoy!

[Raz]

Here goes my little contribution to this thread

Usain Bolt. Completely and utterly amazing. He's a machine. I just don't understand how he does it. Breaks the world record, without breaking a sweat. It's not supposed to happen that way!

Igg, you didn't mention Jamie Staff, who happens to be one of my best friends' cousin! Yes, once again proud of our rowers, and super pleased for the cyclists too.

[Christopher]

A nice Saturday for NZ, putting us from nothing to respectibility.

New Zealand is often quotes that it has a better per capita medal ranking than most nations in the world, though personally I think that's a bit rubbish. We only have to get one medal to outrank China this way no matter how many China gets XD

[Igg]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah Usain Bolt!

Also enjoying the surprise medals for GB in Track & Field- the silver in Men's High Jump and Tasha Danvers' (I love her) bronze in the 400m hurdles. Ace!

And Christine's 400m gold was expected and she delivered, and it was a fantastically run race.

[Skynetmain]

I haven't really cared about the games much this year (like every year), but I finally have something to be proud of, and not Phelps and his physique of a Greek statue.

Stephanie Brown-Trafton. She won the gold for discus, and she is all SLO County. She is from one of the small cities in the area, Arroyo Grande, and she even went to Cal Poly - SLO. Yay for SLO! Four years ago, I almost had a neighbor going, but he didn't make it. This is pretty cool too. Finally, someone cool to come out of my school since Weird Al.

[3lla]

I finally have something to be proud of, and not Phelps and his physique of a Greek statue.

Most of my girl-friends called me after watching him swim one of his events and couldn't believe I actually have connections with him(via coaches, friends, etc.)
I basically just had a whole week of "OMG OMG OMG HE'S SO HAWT. I'm going to take up swimming"


I'm still suffering from that headache.
I can't wait to see the Mens Individual 10m Platform Diving. I hope Tom Daley does alright, but I highly doubt he'll win a medal. Even if he did manage say, a bronze, I would probably hurt myself cheering at my TV anyway.

[Katherine]

They reviewed one of the swimmers after he swam, and they asked "How did you get into swimming?" and he said "Well, a girl I liked was on the swim team." My whole family was jsut laughing and laughing about that.

[Alex]

The 4x100 Relays? Igg and I were simultaneously watching them and LAUGHING.

We've had them on at work... I've half watched, but not heaps, as I've also had to deal with guests Plus, the CEO's been in town so we're not allowed to have it on then.

I must say, Australia's doing alright for themselves, considering.

[Siniri]

Unfortunately, I've missed a lot of the events I really wanted to watch due to travelling and working and such. I did get to watch the women's 100m race -- that was incredibly cool to see not just one nation sweep the medals (and Jamaica of all places) but also a tie for silver -- both are so rare, and they happened in the same race. I hated Bolt's showboating, personally. He should have gone all out the whole race and saved the celebrating for afterwards (or at least the last 2 meters) -- just imagine what his time could have been! Unfortunately, I didn't get to see much else of the track and field events; it seems like swimming was always on here (which is enjoyable, but still).

My favorite Olympic moments tend to be the ones where people really outshine themselves and pull out incredible feats of personal bests and/or bests for mankind -- to me, that's what the magic of the Olympics is all about. So yeah, I enjoyed watching Phelps and Torres. And the Jamaican running. But also watching the underdogs unseat the giants (e.g., in water polo or volleyball). Or someone just trying to finish despite an injury (has that happened this year?).

[Twinkle]

I'm still livid about the Tai Kwan Do semis.... GRRR.

[Siniri]

Did anyone else just see the synchronized swimming finals? Those athletes are amazing -- I can't even imagine how strong they must be to lift people 10 feet out of the water when no one is touching the bottom. They make it look so easy, but I'm sure it's ridiculously hard -- the announcers said they have to train 8+ hours/day. I don't know how they judge it (or any of those subjective sports, for that matter), but the Russians were definitely incredible (they got perfect 10's across the board for both technical and artistic). I've also watched some boxing and the (tail end of the) women's basketball finals. Now that I'm home, I only get Olympics on 1 channel, so I don't really have a choice of what to watch.

ETA: now they're showing the gold medal pingpong match.