Rec’ing On…Beijing Olympics – Part 6

Wow.  What a day. It began with upsets and ended with favorites.

The shockers for me happened at the Tennis venue. First, James Blake defeated the suddenly very vincible Roger Federer in men’s singles. Then came Serena Williams vs Elena Dementieva. For me, this was a fun match.  While of course I was rooting for the USA, I was rooting at least as hard for Dementieva, of whom I’ve been a fan since her spectacular run at the 1999 US Open. It kills me how the announcers mispronounce her last name…they should at least be happy that they can ignore her middle name: Vyacheslavovna*. But I digress.. Imagine my surprise that Dementieva eventually prevailed, holding off Williams to win in the third set. But the surprises didn’t end there. Serena’s sister, and current Wimbledon champion, Venus Williams lost a close two-setter to China’s Li Na.  Honestly, I shouldn’t be all that surprised.  Historically, Olympic tennis has had unexpected outcomes more often than not.

With a new day in Beijing (early evening in the U.S.), I thought the surprises were going to continue. Down at the Beach Volleyball venue, the USA team of May-Treanor and Walsh had to fight back five set points to get out of a gnarly first set.  After escaping that scare, the rest of the match was a rout.

Over at the pool: Michael Phelps…blah, blah…gold medal, world record. The surprising bit was that we all here commented that Phelps looked like he was getting skinny.  It seems like the races are melting off more calories than he’s consuming. But Phelps aside, it was a good day in the water for the Americans who managed to collect a little more golden booty.

Softball saw the U.S. once again dominate an opponent, as the mercy rule was called against Japan. Considering the domination of the U.S. over the rest of the world, it’s almost understandable why the sport is being (temporarily) removed from the Olympic menu as of the London games.  Almost.  If domination were the standard, then we’d have to revisit things like synchronized diving, and table tennis, and other similarly often one-sided sports.  I think the U.S.O.C. (United States Olympic Committee) needs to find a better lobbyist with the IOC.

The women’s Gymnastics All-around…that was exciting.  Except for a couple of excessively low scores for the Americans and some elevated scores for some of the Chinese, I think it was a pretty enjoyable competition. While all the gymnasts showed some nerves at some point during their routines, Liukin clearly stood out with her consistency. And that scored-too-low vault?  Wow. I imagine that ad agencies are just champing at the bit with their new slogan: “Get Nasty”.

But the biggest highlight for me? A McDonald’s commercial that was a kung-fu struggle between a boy and a girl for the last chicken nugget.  It was great and the ending was a riot. Second biggest highlight?  Watching Bela Karolyi watching Nastia Liukin’s floor routine. I’ve long been a fan of Bela. People sort of treat him lightly now, but back when I was a sport photographer and shooting gymnastics meets, I remember seeing a man who was no less enthusiastic but also very much serious and caring coach. He demanded much, but he also gave much of himself in turn. Gymnastics has been lucky to have him.

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* Her full name: Elena Vyacheslavovna Dementieva, or in the proper cyrillic (for those systems capable of displaying it): Елена Вячеславовна Дементьева