I like golf. I watch golf. I watched none of this. It just didn’t feel right as an Olypmics sport to me.
Tag: olympics
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The Blade Runner Murder
This story is so strange and depressing. Pistorius was such an inspiration at the Olympics, but now, I am not sure what to think[^fn1]. My sympathies to Reeva Steenkamp’s family.
[^fn1]: [For example, the Prosecutors are now claiming premeditated murder.](http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2013/02/15/prosecutors-announce-will-pursue-premeditated-murder-charge-against-blade/) I think it is far too early to figure out what really happened, though.
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NBC Breaks Even on the Olympics
Imagine how poorly they would have done if they actually aired events live.
Pat Forde on Manteo Mitchell running on a broken leg during yesterday’s 4×400 qualifying:
> “I knew if I finished strong we could still get it [the baton] around,” Mitchell said. “I saw Josh Mance motioning me in for me to hand it off to him, which lifted me. I didn’t want to let those three guys down, or the team down, so I just ran on it. It hurt so bad. I’m pretty amazed that I still split 45 seconds on a broken leg.”
Talk about giving the extra effort for your teammates.
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Alex Morgan’s Emergence
> And Alex Morgan is on her way, the next generation of soccer superstar, vastly different than Mia, but part of the lineage and development of a sport, a national team and machinery of modern superstardom.
The only time I come close to caring about soccer is a title / medal match for the US Women’s team. I hope Alex Morgan and the rest of the team bring home the gold.
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Allyson Felix Breaks Through
*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR TONIGHT’S 200M FINAL*
> The longtime star of American sprinting had been denied twice in the 200 meters, finishing second in 2004 and ’08. But Wednesday night in London she overpowered a stacked field and won by .21 seconds.
She gets out of the blocks so amazingly fast. I love watching her run.
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Joe Posnanski on Derek Redmond
> You certainly know his story — you’ve at least seen the Visa commercial narrated by Morgan Freeman. Redmond was a 400-meter runner for Great Britain. He was good, too, especially when he was young and healthy. He was fast enough to set the British record, fast enough to be on the British team that shocked the United States in the 4×400 relay at the World Championships in Tokyo.
> …
> While at first the pain had shocked him into a kind of obliviousness, when trainers surrounded him, Redmond remembered again where he was. These were the semifinals of the Olympics. And, as if driven by instinct, he got up and started hobbling toward the finish line. He would say then that in his mind, he was racing again. He still thought he might be able to pass some runners. He did not seem to understand that the race was long over, that everyone else had finished.
It is getting dusty in here.
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Posnanski on Usain Bolt
> And that’s when everybody in the stadium knows, when everyone watching on television knows … Bolt will win. The mystery is solved. No sprinter on Earth, no sprinter who has ever lived, can run the last 50 meters like Usain Bolt. And so he begins to pull away. The sound in the stadium is now one huge scream of anticipation. The announcer had said before the start that there were more than two million ticket requests for this night and this event. These are the 80,000 who made it into the stadium, and they are determined to see history. They are seeing it.
Great column on a great race.
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Fastest Woman Alive
The 100m races are still some of the most exciting moments in sports.
Two excellent pieces up on Yahoo Sports:
[Pat Forde with more of a recap](http://us.rd.yahoo.com/sports/rss/Dan+Wetzel/SIG=144t0e8kk/*http%3A//sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics–usa-s-gabby-douglas-crowned-olympic-champion-in-dramatic-gymnastics-all-around-final.html):
> Douglas, however, is now the unquestioned champion of women’s gymnastics.
and [Dan Wetzel with more of a profile](http://us.rd.yahoo.com/sports/rss/Dan+Wetzel/SIG=142q3g9oj/*http%3A//sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics–gabby-douglas–gold-medal-smile-belies-her-fierce–cold-blooded-competitive-desire.html)
> It’s the smile that will forever be one of the signature images of these Olympics, the smile that will sell a million boxes of cereal or sneakers, the smile that will beam off countless magazine covers to come.
>And it is the smile that will haunt every other competitor she left in a heap behind her – the sweet, wonderful smile of one of the most cold-blooded sporting assassins you’ll ever find.
Both excellent and both worth a read.
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Beware the WiFi Police
It’s worth looking at the article just to see the guy with the apparatus they use to find the “unapproved hotspots.”
And Pat Forde explains why:
> Allison Schmitt is a walking spit take. Ask her about family dinners as the middle child of five growing up in Canton, Mich., and she’ll tell you about milk coming out her nose because she’s guffawing uncontrollably at her siblings. Ask her about anything, actually, and giggles are sure to follow.
> “When I hear someone laugh, I automatically start laughing,” Schmitt said. “I literally laugh at everything.”
Watching her pull away during the 4×200 relay yesterday was awesome. Currently, in the “my favorite Olympian of the 2012 games” contest, she has to be near the top.
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The Black Shuttlecocks Scandal of 2012
> Then Bruce checked the internet and saw there was a brewing controversy over four women’s doubles teams throwing games during pool play in an effort to secure more advantageous spot in the quarterfinals
Of course teams were throwing badminton matches. This sport has been corrupt for years.[^ff]
[^ff]: I actually have no knowledge of any aspect of badminton.
> On Monday night, during its not-at-all-live primetime coverage of the Olympics in London, NBC aired a promo for Tuesday’s Today that trumpeted 17-year-old U.S. swimmer Missy Franklin’s gold medal win in the 100-meter backstroke — just moments before the race itself was to be broadcast (on a tape delay).
At least they’ve been consistently bad in all of their TV coverage.
The [NBC Olympics Live Extra](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fnbc-olympics-live-extra%252Fid542511686%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30) app is great[^ff] for watching Olympic events live. Unfortunately, it is not as good for sending notifications when certain events, especially medal events, are occurring. That’s where the [London Olympics app](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Flondon-2012-official-results%252Fid536513070%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30) comes in. In the London Olympics app, you can get a daily schedule of the sports, including an indicator for when there is a medal round for a particular sport:
When you click on one of the sports, then you get a more detailed view of all the events in the sport, including which ones feature medal rounds at a particular time:
[](/images/post_images/IMG_1303.png)
Tap on the little clock icon and you’ll get a notification when a medal event is about to start.
[](/images/post_images/IMG_1304.png)
Yes, the process is a little kludgy, but at least it gives you a notification so you do not miss something you want to see.
[^ff]: The overall review of the app and NBC’s Olympics coverage are at best “mixed.” I have been lucky so far and only had a one event where I missed the a key moment because the app hiccuped.
Dan Wetzel explains what happens to one reporter who criticized NBC’s Olympics coverage:
>Guy Adams works as a writer for The Independent, a national newspaper in Great Britain. He lives in Los Angeles. Throughout the Olympics, he’s taken to Twitter and ripped NBC repeatedly for its coverage of the Games in America.
> Namely, he’s criticized the network’s reliance on using tape delays, a frustration shared by millions of viewers.
> Only in a marriage of old media and social media, Guy Adams no longer has a Twitter account. It was suspended Tuesday …
Wow.
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Silver for US in 4×100 Freestyle
> And during the fast and furious 200 seconds that it took the race to play out, some hastily reached conclusions underwent radical revision. Ryan Lochte plummeted from being labeled the greatest swimmer on Earth to being unfairly labeled a goat. Michael Phelps was reclassified from fading to formidable.
Great summary by Pat Forde of a great race to watch. Too bad the US came up just short.
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Opening Ceremonies Too Complex for Viewers
> [A[n emailed statement that the ceremonies “are complex entertainment spectacles that do not translate well online because they require context, which our award-winning production team will provide for the large prime-time audiences that gather together to watch them.”
Because if anyone had the option to turn of Lauer and Vieira they would have.[^f1]
[^f1]: If the comments are Twitter were any indication, I am not alone in thinking that the commentary during the opening ceremonies was atrocious. Of course the reason they did not put the ceremonies online was because they wanted to get a huge ratings number for the event, and of course they are not going to come out and say that.
No real surprises, but [TechHive](http://techhive.com) sums them up nicely.