Rec’ing On…Beijing Olympics – Part 2

Wow.  That was one heck of a Men’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay.  The top 5 teams all beat the existing world record that the USA set just 15 hours before.  Of all the pure human racing events, I think swimming consistently puts for the most exciting results.  The finger-tip finishes are always in the offing with each games. I can’t help but think how sucky it must be to break a world record and yet still only finish fifth.

The marquee event this morning was China vs the United States in Men’s Basketball. While who was going to win was almost a foregone conclusion, the image of Yao Ming shooting a 3-pointer to score the game’s first points made for a special moment. I have to say that this version of the men’s team has been a refreshing non-embarrassment.  Regardless of the results when the competition is over, at least they aren’t behaving like narcissistic boobs. It’s kind of sad when behaving respectably is something noteworthy.

I loved the story that was on NBC about gymnast Oksana Chusovitina (link)…who is once again competing in the Olympics for a different country (it’s all the rage) in gymnastics at the age of—get this—33 years old! When she won a gold medal with the “Unified Team” (a/k/a the former USSR) in 1992, few of the other gymnast in the rest of the competition had even been born. Long story short: her young son had leukemia, she found help with a coach on the German team, and is paying back her adopted country by raising the gymnastic bar. Amazing. (This story also has a slight connection with the USA team as one of the people who help fund the treatment was former Soviet gymnast Valeri Liukin: USA gymnast Nastia Liukin’s father.)

Next up for me, after a couple of hours of sleep: Women’s Basketball.  China vs the USA, and Brazil vs Australia.  Should be fun.