Saturday, August 23, 2008

Thoughts as the games wind down

We are having a successful Olympics as far as medals are concerned. We have 107 total medals and China has 96. China has more gold 49 to the USA's 34. In my earlier predictions I predicted that the USA would win 95 total medals and China 91 and both have exceeded that with one day to go.

As far as successful USA sports go I would rank swimming first, beach volleyball second, gymnastics third, indoor volleyball fourth and track and field 5th. In track we lost at least 10 medals(several in the men's and women's 100m, 200m, men's 1500m men's shot put and men's and women's 4 by 100 relays.) We did not put anyone in the finals of the men's long jump, high jump, and men's 800m.

The Chinese owned the diving, gymnastics gold and were surprising in beach volleyball and indoor volleyball.

There were controversies like suspicions of underage Chinese women gymnasts, fake fireworks(computer animated) replacing a Chinese opening ceremonies singer with a better looking one who lip synched a song. There were doping violations that expelled athletes(heptathlete Lydmila Blonska of Ukraine) from these games and an athlete(wrestler Aru Abrahamian of Sweden) who protested the results so he threw his medal down and walked off.

These games were about Michael Phelps with 8 gold medals(I predicted 7 gold) with 7 world records, Dara Torres, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Luikin, Jonathan Horton, USA women's basketball team winning gold, Misty May Treanor/Kerri Walsh winning beach volleyball gold for 2 straight Olympics and Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers winning gold in men's beach volleyball. Usain Bolt of Jamaica winning 3 gold medals in track and set 3 world records in the men's 100, 200 and 4 by 100m relay.

The USA track and field's new rival is Jamaica. They beat us soundly in 100m and 200m sprinting. Jamaican track athletes are up and coming and a serious threat to the USA winning gold in sprinting events in future Olympics.

No comments: