I've gotten into Olympic weightlifting fairly recently, so I'll probably be watching as much as I can of that. Some dudes I'll be rooting for: - Dmitry Klokov, one of the most ridiculously intense athletes I've ever seen - Hysen Pulaku, a 19-year-old skinny kid from Albania who lifts retarded amounts of weight and is also a really nice guy - Random Chinese lifters with impeccable form (and ridiculous amounts of steroids) Unfortunately, I think the US only qualified for one or two spots, so it's going to be Kendrick Farris and maaaybe Donny Shankle. Shankle is an awesome awesome guy (he's basically the modern day Renaissance man, and his blog is pretty cool too) so I hope he's competing.
This is why we need to stop drug testing our lifters, fucking Pat Mendes could have taken home the gold.
As far as great Olympic moments go, in my mind it's hard to beat Jason Lezak's anchor leg of the 4x100 free relay at the last games. (Relevant part starts at 3:00, though the entire race is worth watching) It's such a great rollercoaster of emotions. When you see them hit the water, and Alain Bernard (the Frenchman) starts to pull away, your heart sinks. By the 50m mark, the situation is hopeless. Lezak is almost a full second behind, and swimming against the current world record holder in the 100m free. There's no way he can catch him. Immediately after the turn, the momentum shifts. Bernard is no longer pulling away; Lezak might even be gaining on him a bit. Lezak is up against the lane line riding on Bernard's wake, letting it carry him forward. But there's only a 50 left, there's no way he can catch him. Then with 25m left, you see Lezak surge. The crowd sees it too, and the noise in the natatorium triples. Every stroke brings Lezak closer and closer to Bernard. But it's too little too late, there's no way he can catch him. And 10m from the wall, Bernard locks up. His stroke falls apart, he's clawing uselessly at the water. Lezak lunges for the wall, touching first by less than a tenth of a second. Everyone in the pool goes crazy. The French, for all the shit they talked before the race, are left stunned. USA all the way, baby! Just looking at Lezak's leg of the relay, it's one of the most impressive swims in history. His time (46.06) beat the previous fastest split in the world (46.63 by Frederick Bousquet, who swam 3rd on the French relay) by over half a second, in a race that's usually decided by hundredths of a second. Lezak went 1.72 seconds faster than he did 2 years earlier on the relay that set the existing world record. Holy shit, I still get chills every time I watch it.
There seems to be quite a bit of security paranoia surrounding these Olympics. I predict that security personnel will either get and start firing/shooting for the hell of it or they will mistake someone for a security threat.
No kidding. The bullshit veneer of drug testing is really starting to get old. It's why I say just let 'em all roid, and let's see what they can do. Charles P. Pierce can be pretty damn self-indulgent with his writing, but he's got it right in these articles: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8093128/a-visit-american-track-field-trials" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/809 ... eld-trials</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8071810/the-roger-clemens-verdict-our-senseless-national-drug-hysteria" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/807 ... g-hysteria</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7620049/in-defense-ryan-braun" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/762 ... ryan-braun</a>
Lezak's anchor leg is my only memory of the last summer games, I don't remember any of Phelps swims but that anchor swim is compelling stuff. No way London beats that. Swimming and gymnastics is about all I plan on watching although with Shawn Johnson out pry just swimming, that girl is cute as hell.
My bet is on Saudi Arabia. Since this article they've only found 2 women. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18797174" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18797174</a> My face when a burqa clad "woman" with only a unibrow showing clean and jerks 500 pounds.
England's own pistol shooters had to train in foreign countries because of their domestic gun laws. 'Nuff said.
There's always been problems in olympic weightlifting when regarding to steroids. Last olympics the entire Bulgarian Team got busted. Before that it was the entire Iranian team (oddly enough Rezazadeh (sp?) their golden boy was found to be clean, maybe because they were trying to build the sport more in Iran at the time maybe because he actually was. I'm not the one to speak on it but it was odd. My father was a lifter back in bulgaria during the late 70s and 80s he pretty much said back then coaches would come up to you and guilt you into taking steroids if you weren't i'm sure Russia and all the other weightlifting powerhouses were the same way.
Favorite moment is definitely the Miracle on Ice. I don't watch the Olympics much anymore. My wife is a big fan of it as she was a competitive swimmer so it's usually on one tv in house. I just find something else to do. And Bob Costas is a hair shy of being as annoying as Regis Philbin. The Olympics would be much more entertaining if the commentary were provided by comedians. Imagine Jeff Ross covering gymnastics.
Eventually, I think we'll see it. When we tell our grandchildren how this sport originated as something strippers did, they'll laugh their asses off and won't believe us. Alt-focus: This was rilly kewl if you were nine years old in 1984:
I have heard that womens boxing will be tried out this year. I only dream that some asshole on the olympic commitee actualy made a clause stating they must wear skimpy bikini's and the ring is filled with jello. Insulting to the athletes, definately, but I thought it was suposed to for my entertainment. IF I want to watch two angry unattractive women beat each other, I'll watch Jerry Springer.
BBC did an article on the science of running, or rather, if humans will ever be able to run 100m under 9 seconds. They bring up aspects that give Pistorius definite advantages due to the nature of his prosthetics and due to the fact that his legs weigh less. Obviously, the nature of his disability will give him disadvantages, also. It was quite interesting, check it out - <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120712-will-we-ever-run-100m-in-9-secs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2012071 ... -in-9-secs</a> TLR Spoiler Weyand divides each cycle of a runner’s leg into what happens when their foot is in the air, and what happens when it’s on the ground. The former is surprisingly irrelevant. Back in 2000, Weyand showed that, at top speed, every runner takes around a third of a second to pick their foot up and put it down again. “It’s the same from Usain Bolt to Grandma,” he says. “She can’t run as fast as him but at her top speed, she’s repositioning her foot at the same speed.” That third of a second in the air – the swing time – is probably close to a biological limit. Weyand thinks that there is very little that people can do to improve on it, with a notable exception. Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee, runs on artificial carbon-fibre legs that each weigh less than half of what a normal fleshy limb would do. With this lighter load, he can swing his legs around 20% faster than a runner with intact limbs, moving at the same speed. In the 1990s, speed skaters started using a new breed of “clap skates” where the blade is hinged to the front of the boot, rather than firmly fixed. As the skaters pushed back, the new design kept their blades in longer contact with the ice, allowing them to exert the same force over more time. Speed records suddenly fell. People have tried to duplicate the same effect with running shoes, but with little success. That’s because a running leg behaves a bit like a pogo stick. As it hits the ground, it compresses. As it steps off, it gets a bit of elastic rebound. Technologies that try to alter a runner’s gait tend to interfere with this rebound, and diminish the leg’s overall performance. “It’s hard to intervene in a similar manner to the clap-skates without buggering up the other mechanics of the limb,” says Weyand. (Again, Pistorius bucks the trend because his artificial legs are springier than natural ones, and give him around 10% longer on the ground than other runners.)
This article is all sorts of awesome. They are going to order 100,000 condoms for the Olympic Village. That is a mind-boggling amount of sex.
I love the Olympics. The human interest stories get to be a bit much, but when you think about it, these games happen once every 4 years, and alot of times, people only make 1 Olympics, so really you are working your entire life for a single shot. The stories and sacrifices surrounding that are pretty remarkable when you think about it. I also think its kind of cool that, in an election year, when a country like the US is VERY divided right now, you can put all that aside and cheer as one nation. Thats a pretty awesome sentiment. Watching the Olympics in a bar is alot of fun. Looking forward to swimming, beach volleyball, gymnastics is always good TV, love team handball even though the US is terrible at it and thus its hard to find it televised, and soccer for sure.
I'm Greek so the Olympics has always been a huge part of my growing up. I LOVED the '84 Olympics with our men's gymnastics team, Matt Biondi, and the Russian boycott. There was something magical about that year. It was almost as good as the 2000 games in Sydney with all the US-AUS swimming rivalries happening. And the Aussies as fans...watching how excited they were was just intoxicating. I have to say that since it moved to every two years, some of the mystique has been lost. It was cool when it was an "Olympic Year" and you could count on awesome sports for both winter and summer. it made it more special. Now with every two, I feel like a lot of interest is lost which is a real shame. These people are true competitors and it's a beauty to watch such dedication in action. However, my ALL TIME favorite moment that still gives me chills starts around the 3:40 mark. Of course, I was obsessed with the games in Athens and thought that the Greeks really pulled it off. There was an energy surrounding the games that was palpable. You could feel it through the tv. There's just something about being back in the country where it all began and paying such an incredible homage to the past while joining it with the present. The music as the Greek heartbeat, the water for life, and the overall pride and passion of the original spirit of the games is all right there in one moment. Amazing.
Looks like we lost some serious eye candy as Grecian athlete Voula Papachristou has back out of the games: Spoiler Her hilariously offensive tweet:
This would have all played out in more amusing fashion if it happened after she performed well and people starting to chat about her for being a hottie. Then while she was having her 15 min of fame she dropped it.