perpetual memory loss

So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen, good night.

Today marked the end of the 29th Olympiad, and I have to say I’m sad to see it go.  I really enjoyed this year’s Olympics probably more so than in the past.  There were so many good stories, records broken, and all around great competition this year that it was rare for me to be watching TV and to not be watching the Olympics.  I watched a lot of Olympics this year, and because there is a 12 hour difference I ended up staying up very late most nights (3 or 4 in the morning usually).  So I figured I would go through my favorite and not so favorite moments of the Olympics Sergio Leone style.

The Good

Can’t talk about this years Olympics without talking about Michael Phelps.  Wow what a performance he put on, one for the ages.  I saw 7 of the 8 gold medal swims live, the one I missed of course was the closest one, the 200M Butterfly, and damn was that some compelling TV.  The come from behind relay win against the French is about as good as it gets.  Seeing Phelps win the 8th Gold Medal with about 500 other drunks at the Astoria Beer Garden–with chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” and “America fuck yeh!”–was one of the highlights of the Olympics for me.  Besides, Phelps the entire US swim team was ridiculously good on both the Men’s and Women’s side.  Some of the coolest stories to come out of the swimming cube were Phelps, Natalie Coughlin, Cullen Jones, and Dara Torres.

Even though I am not that knowledgeable about fencing I do like to watch the swashbuckling.  The US women swept the medals in individual sabres–which I don’t think has ever happened.  Probably the best match I saw, however, was the Women’s Team Sabre Gold medal match between China and Ukraine.  I tuned in late and China was about 6 points from winning the Gold and about 8 points ahead of Ukraine, but the Ukraine pulled off a stunning comeback to tie it up at 44 all, with the winner of the next point getting the Gold.  Ukraine completed the comeback by scoring the final point and winning the Gold.  It was a crazy good match.

Another great moment that I stumbled upon was the Men’s +105kg weightlifting final.  This event was won by Mattias Steiner, who had lost his wife in a tragic car accident the year before, making him the sentimental favorite.  Steiner failed his first two attempts before he lifted, a personal best, 568.8 pounds to clinch the Gold.  From there Steiner went nuts jumping all over the stage, hugging his coaches, and crying as he realized both his and his wife’s Olympic dream.  A touching moment that really encapsulates why the Olympics are special.

Rohullah Nikpai won the first medal ever for Afghanistan.  He won the Bronze medal in 58kg Taekwondo.  Good for him and good for Afghanistan.  Hopefully there are more moments and achievements like this in the future for Afghani Olympians.

The US also cleaned up in both Beach Volleyball and Volleyball.  May and Walsh destroyed the competition as they have been doing for awhile now.  The Bronze medal winning Chinese team, Zhang Xi and Xue Chen, looked really good and should be Gold medal contenders in London.  The best story was from the Volleyball court where the US men won the Gold for the first time since 1988.  This coming only 15 days after the tragic stabbing death of Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of Hugh McCutcheon’s, the US team’s coach, and the wounding of his mother-in-law, Barbara Bachman.  Despite this the team ran the table to the Gold medal.

Now on to Gymnastics where the US men were left for dead after their two best gymnasts, the Hamm brothers, had to pull out of the games at the last minute with injuries.  Despite this the Men’s team competed on another level and pulled off an unlikely Bronze medal in the team competition.  Jonathon Horton was also able to pull out an individual medal in the horizontal bar.  The highlight of the gymnastics competition, however, was on the Women’s side.  Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson were absolutely spectacular leading the women to Gold in the team competition.  Nastia and Shawn also won Gold and Silver respectively in the individual all-around competition.  On top of these medals Nastia won the Silver on the balance beam, the uneven bars, and a bronze on the floor exercise.  While Shawn added a gold on the balance beam and a silver on the floor routine.  All in all a fantastic effort from the US women.

Both the US Men’s and Women’s water polo teams who weren’t considered to be medal favorites, but both played some of their best water polo and both ended up winning the Silver.

Last but not least basketball, where the US wins Gold for the first time in 8 years.  They have been terrible in international competition over the last decade, and now it looks like they have the winning formula.  With Coach K and a core group of players committed to playing international basketball, it looks like the US is once again poised to dominate in basketball again.  The US dominated everyone the entire Olympic games until the Gold medal game against Spain–who the US beat by 37 points a week earlier.  One of the best basketball games I have seen in a long time.  Dwayne Wade carried the team in the first half, and Kobe carried the team in the 4th quarter.  I have to say it was good to see all those guys out there playing hard, really hard and basically for free and for the USA.  I actually think I got a little misty-eyed there at the end of the game or maybe I was just falling asleep.  Either way I was impressed by how well Spain played and that they didn’t give up but just kept coming back time and again.  By the way Chris Bosh (personally I think he played much better than Dwight Howard) was the man during these games.  It seems like him and Dwayne Wade were always in the middle of everything.

Favorite Olympic name goes to Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon (seriously that’s not a misspelling) the Women’s Gold medal winner, from Thailand, in the 53kg weightlifting.

The Bad

USA Baseball winning the Bronze.  I know MLB players are not going to be at the games, but that was the best team that they could put together.  Ugg. Embarrassing, hopefully things go better in the WBC.

USA softball losing their first game ever in Olympic competition in the Gold medal game.  Once again embarrassing, and that shouldn’t have happened to them.  I’m sure no one feels worse than them though since softball won’t be back in 2012, and they won’t be able to redeem themselves.

The scoring in gymnastics.  Nastia Liukin and He Kexin tied on uneven bars and they had to go to a third tie break to decide the Gold.  That’s a shitty way to win a competition and the tie break needs to be done better or better yet give them both a Gold.  Which leads to the next point that none of the girls on the Chinese team look like they are 16, and it will be interesting to see if anything more comes to light about this in the next few weeks.

The USA track and field Men’s and Women’s 4×100m relays.  Hold onto the freaking baton–especially when you are supposed to be the favorites.

The Ugly

Boxing where have you gone?  I usually enjoy boxing but this time around I barely watched it.  The new scoring is retarded, and all of the excitement that usually comes with boxing is gone.  They have managed to turn boxing into a more boring sport than badminton or ping pong–both of which I watched way more than boxing.  The IOC and boxing need to fix this immediately before their sport loses all relevance in the games–which would be unfortunate because boxing is one of the original sports from ancient Greece.  Also Teddy Atlas has the uncanny ability to suck the life out of everything.  Find someone with a little bit of charisma to commentate next time.

Which brings me to the commentary in general.  Way too much of the well that’s it it’s over so-and-so won’t win, and then they do.  Stick to the commentary  and stop with the predictions.  Secondly, why are people commenting on the game from NY.  What NBC doesn’t have enough money to send people to Beijing to commentate live.  Nothing worse than someone telling me what the softball field is like in Beijing when they are sitting in a studio in Manhattan.  Send the people to the freaking games to give live commentary, or if you don’t then don’t pretend you know what the conditions on the field are like when you’re not there.  The commentary was, is one of my biggest gripes with NBC, and I’m hoping they lose the Olympics after 2012.  They have gotten lazy.

Competitive walking.  No need for it get rid of it now.  No baseball, but competitive walking.  Give me a break.

Then there is Angel Matos from Cuba, who perhaps has one of the most shameful actions in an Olympics ever, but definitely this year.  After a call didn’t go his way Matos decided to take matters into his own hands and kicked the referee in the face.  Punishment was swift and serious for Matos as he has been suspended for life from international competition.  Not much else to say about this except it flies in the face of everything that the Olympics is supposed to be about, and is something I might expect from a little kid, but not an Olympian representing their country.

Well that’s that another Olympics in the book, and a successful one too.  I’m looking forward to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and especially the 2012 Olympics in London.  Hopefully if all goes well in the next few years I will be able to make it to London.

Did I miss any great moments–I’m sure I did I can’t remember everything–then let me know in the comments what you liked or didn’t about the Olympics.

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