With the Olympics only ten days away, I thought I might as well start a thread about them.

As an Aussie, I can say that  our swim team will get us off to a flyer with the medals, as we have the second strongest swim team in the world behind the US. So in the first week our media will talk about how well we're doing on the medal tally. But when we drop off in the second week the focus will be shifted to how we'll we're doing on the per capita medal tally. LOL

Anyway, I'm not an Olympics fanatic or anything, but I'm sure there'll be a few interesting highlights along the way.

  

I think team GB will do ok in the cycling and probs rowing and the like but track and field we'll be pretty hopeless I think.  Only problem will be the time difference, being in China it'll probably be on in the middle of the night!

Don't worry, Alffy. I'm sure the networks will run replays through out the day, minus the boring bits.

I'm actually looking forward to watching: the boxing, swimming. weight lifting, gymnastics, cycling and  of course the 100 and 200 metre sprints. I love the power events.

However, my six year old son has to do a talk on an Australian athlete for school and he chose to do it on the great William Henzel, who is ranked 33 in the world at “table tennis”. So I'll have to track his progress too.  

Congrats on your Gold!!

I have soooooooooooooooooo many issues with this Olympics...
Was I the only one who looked past the "fabulous" show on the first night?

I was totally amazed how the world cheered as this country put on this show. While songs of unity and peace was sung, pictures of Bush and Putin discussing the Georgian invasion by Russia was going on. Journalists reporting in front of the stadium in smog so bad we could hardly see the stadium in the background. A thousand people moving in unison like a school of fish, which reminded me of Berlin 1932 and N. Korea gave me the chills...
The "performers" who've been told to "smile" more during the show... It all had an extremely surreal feel to me.

Last, but not least... does anyone but me refuse to think those Chinese gymnast children are 16? Come the F*** on. They are kids!!!!!!!!!!

That's enough ranting for one evening. Bbt!!  

Quoted from alffy I think team GB will do ok in the cycling and probs rowing

Anybody see what happened with the Men's quad (I think lightweight) rowing?  The team from Denmark looked ridiculous.

I'm partial to Women's beach volleyball, myself.  I don't know why.

I was watching that this evening. I told my husband probably 99% of people watching Beach Volleyball are men... He's response, "Really? Why do you think that?"  I sent him to bed after that comment!

Quoted from shelton Anybody see what happened with the Men's quad (I think lightweight) rowing?  The team from Denmark looked ridiculous.

I never saw it, what happened. Should I watch the reply later today?

Quoted from Grandma Bear Last, but not least... does anyone but me refuse to think those Chinese gymnast children are 16? Come the F*** on. They are kids!!!!!!!!!!

I find the gymnastics all a bit weird.  Those girls, clearly about 12, jumping around in full make up is so bizarre!!!  Maybe I'm unkind but I feel myself watching just to see one of them fail.

The thing about the gymnastics is that those girls have to be 16 in order to compete. IMO there's no way those little girls are 16. If they are, then they need to eat more hormone fed chicken.

I even read yesterday that some countries are saying they want skeletal x-rays of some of those girls just to determine their real age.

Quoted from alffy I never saw it, what happened. Should I watch the reply later today?

I just happened to catch it a couple of days ago, so the replay may have already happened in your area.  It actually might have been on before I saw it.  It was just the qualifying heat though.  The semifinal is scheduled for the 14th at 16:20.

Here's the team bio.

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/BIO/Team/9991267.shtml

If it's been on I can always catch it online.  Thanks for the link though Mike.

Speaking of women's beach volleyball, our girls won again today and have moved into the quarter finals.

I also saw Michael Phelps win his sixth gold medal. After the race they said that he took up swimming as an eleven year old, when his mother dragged him down to the local pools to give him somewhere to burn of his excess energy, caused by his hyper activity disorder. It just goes to show that you don’t have to have your four and five year old kids doing umpteen activities each week for them to become champions. Stage parents take note.  

Check out this one:

The score is tied, nothing left on the clock. Just this throw and that's it.

Usian Bolt - 100 m  - 9.69 seconds!!!

Holy SHIIIIIIIIT!

And it didn't even look like he tried his hardest.

Quoted from sniper Usian Bolt - 100 m  - 9.69 seconds!!! Holy SHIIIIIIIIT! And it didn't even look like he tried his hardest.

I was going to put money on him until this "punting guru" on the radio said Powell had him covered. I didn't back Powell but it worried me enough to stop me from betting on the race.  Yeah. Bolt is a beauty. In the semi-final he spent the last ten metres going at three quarter pace, looking around to see what the rest of the field were doing and he still won.  

I'm looking forward to the swimming today. We've got Grant Hackett going for his third consecutive 1500 metre gold medal and of course Phelps is going for his eighth gold in the medley, but they reckon the Aussie team is a huge chance of spoiling the party. And how lucky was Phelps yesterday? After being in sixth place at the turn, he won his seventh gold by one one hundredth of a second.

I've seen some great weight lifting too. Yesterday a Chinese guy had to break the world record to win the gold. He came out and broke it. The Chinese crowd went nuts, but then the judges said it was an illegal lift. So he lifted it again and won the gold.

Edit: I just saw the replay of the 100 metre final. My god. Bolt was celebrating with ten metres to go and he still broke the world record. Imagine how fast he would've run if he'd kept his head down and gone flat out for the whole race.

Canada has been doing terrible so I am not watching it out of protest.

America and a couple other countries take everything every time... What is the point when the chance one of those places will lose is slim and none?

Even the little girl singing at the opening ceremony was lip syncing because the singer isn't cute enough to be on television... that is sad.