Spirit of the Games

Well the Olympics are almost over and I've had about a million opinions running through my head about them. And on we go!

Basketball



Can I say it's about dang time the US got their act together? Athens was dismal for the men, virtually painful to watch. This year in Beijing has been MUCH better! I can't speak too soon though, because I'm currently watching the semifinal against Argentina and they were kicking their butts and now it's much closer. Hmmmmmm. All I have to say is if the don't make it to the gold medal game........UGH

Basketball during the Olympics has also given me more evidence that Katelyn is so my child. I turned on the game to watch and Katelyn came in the other room from watching her movie. I told her I was going to watch basketball and she said "Mommy, I want to watch basketball with you." I love that kid! :D

Gymnastics



I've come to the realization that I HATE judged sports with a passion. Not necessarily hate the sport, but the mere fact that they are judged. You see an amazing routine and are totally excited by it. Then are dissapointed when you see the score because you know it should have been scored so much better. I was going nuts during the womens all-around because it seemed that the Chinese were given the benefit of the doubt by the judges and scored higher than they should have been, but then any other team (not just the US) would just get slammed by the judges. I can't help but think the Chinese government paid off the judges, so that the Chinese would seem very successful with the Olympics in their home country. I'm sure that's not the case, but MAN, you just can't help but think it.

Then there's the age issue. I know the whole Chinese team isn't under age, but there is 1 or 2 that without a doubt in my mind that I know aren't 16. I know the Chinese have the whole youth look always going for them, but come on! There's no way she's 16. I'm glad to hear that there is an investigation going on as to whether or not they are of age or not. Cheating just burns me, especially during the Olympics.

Baseball/Softball



Explain to me how on EARTH the US softball team has won every gold medal in softball since it was sanctioned an Olympic sport in 1996, and then this Olympics slaughters every opponent they have by not even allowing any opponent to ever hit a pitch (except for ONE by China) and then they LOSE the gold medal match? What the heck happened? I was blown away...

I'm also bugged by the fact that baseball and softball will no longer be Olympic sports when the summer Olympics in London in 2012 come around. Why aren't they going to be anymore? Odd reasons. Baseball won't be played anymore because the IOC wants MLB players to participate, but MLB says no. So the IOC is miffed that they don't get stars and the highest level of players to participate. But on the other hand, they won't be doing softball anymore because the US has been TOO dominant and won every gold medal (until yesterday). Now, doesn't it seem like those reasons completely contradict themselves? Yeah, that's what I thought. But I'm mostly bugged not necessarily because I love baseball and softball to death, but because they are SPORTS. While these sports won't be played in the Olympics anymore, we get witness "sports" like syncronized swimming, table tennis, and walking (oh yes, they really have a 20K walk with medals to be won!!!). I suppose if baseball and softball are dissapearing, we should expect to see basketball and volleyball to vanish from the Olympics too. Then they will get replaced with arcade basketball and water balloon volleyball!

Although, it almost makes me wonder if the US softball team lost on purpose. Maybe they're trying to make it seem like they don't doiminate, so it will stay an Olympic sport. Hmmmmmm.........

Swimming



Katelyn was so funny watching any of the swimming events, including water polo. She loves going swimming herself, so watching it on TV, she'd get SOOOOOOO excited that they were swimming. I think I may have an Olympic swimmer on my hands someday LOL.

Now everyone has been constantly debating if Michael Phelps can be called the greatest Olympian of all time. I think if you are doing it just on the amount of medals won alone, absolutely! He's accomplished so much and I think deserves much credit. Although Nate would argue how could you compare an athlete now to one, say, 100 years ago or how could you compare an athlete in one sport to one in another? Well, we went back and forth on this topic for probably 2 days until I heard a very smart point from Bob Costas on NBC. He said that although the point that Michale Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time is subjective, it would be rather hard to put anyone ahead of him at this juncture. Well said Mr. Bob Costas. Well said.

Track and Field



Wow. The US has been strugging greatly to perform well in this area. Sure they've won a few medals, but the events that the US is known to dominate in, we are failing miserably. Not only are we faltering, but we're doing things that are uncharacteristic of athletes of such high performance. For example, BOTH men and women's 4x100m relay teams for the US dropped the baton. Yeah, DROPPED! They don't do that. You just don't see that happen. For both teams to do it at one Olympics? No way! But it did. I'm starting to believe that a curse has arisen from Marion Jones, who is now currently sitting in jail for lying about taking steroids during the Olympics when she won all of her medals. Let's hope it doesn't go on forever...