Some observations:
- The parade of nations, while taking entirely too long, was at least interesting because the countries entered alphabetically...by Chinese.
- The opening ceremonies were pretty cool and, thankfully, there were no chrome pick-ups a la the Atlanta games (they show up about three minutes into the video).
- The US team got off to a good start by winning the first three medals with a gold, silver and bronze in the Women's Saber. USA! USA!
- Michael Phelps is a machine with giant feet. How discouraging is it for the guys swimming against him to know he isn't racing them, he's racing his own world records. Must be like playing with Tiger on Sunday in a major.
- The venues the Chinese have built are beautiful, especially the Water Cube (swimming).
- Dara Torres is one hot 41-year-old mom.
- For a group of multi-multi-millionaires the US basketball team is acquitting itself well. An interesting aspect of their white (I'm guessing road) uniforms is the players' names are done in white making them difficult to read. Without a close look all you see is a number and "USA." I approve.
- There was tragedy: Todd Bachman, father-in-law of US volleyball team coach Hugh McCutcheon, was murdered by a Chinese man who also stabbed Bachman's wife before killing himself.
- The tape delays aren't too bad. Phelps swam for his first gold at 10 a.m. Beijing time which was 10 p.m. EDT. So it kinda works out.
Totally off the subject of the Olympics, if you didn't catch "Don't Mess with the Zohan" you're missing one of the funnier movies of the year. If you still want to see it, it's playing at the Arlington Drafthouse.
Well I'm off, back to women's cycling.
3 comments:
Also, that torch-lighting was incredible.
tino- I agree, the torch lighting was pretty cool. Except, and this is being really picky, maybe they could have had the guy only make, say, half a lap around the stadium instead of a full circuit. Although, by that point you were fully invested and wouldn't have turned it off anyway. So, probably not a big deal.
Very cool no matter what.
The parts I saw were pretty cool. I'm just amused that I left an Opening Ceremonies party in Arlington when the parade was going, got to my friend's apartment in DC, the parade was still going on her TV, we went to pick up her car, we went back to her apartment so she could change shoes, finally got to the bar...AND THE PARADE WAS STILL GOING.
The Olympics have some serious stamina.
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