Gymnastics ends with a bang

Gabby's gold in gymnastics all-around was exciting, but Aly Raisman really shined in this year, as well. She won bronze on the beam in a tie breaker, and then went on to win gold on a nearly perfect floor exercise, with the crowd clapping along with her music, as usual. Aly was the one who edged out Jordyn Wieber for the all-around final, and while everyone was upset that Jordyn didn't get a chance to compete for that title, Aly proved herself the better gymnast this year. Way to go Aly!

Men's gymnastics high bar is so fun to watch! This year the gold medal went to Zonderland of the Netherlands, the first Dutch man to win a medal in gymnastics. His routine was AMAZING--he had a combo of 3 releases in a row, contributing to the most difficult piece of gymnastics in the entire games. Plus, he has a rockin' 70s haircut. You can watch his routine here.
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I don't care that much about equestrian, but the jumping is kinda fun to watch, and I got to root for an Irish guy named Cian O'Connor. He was tied for silver with Gerco Schroder from the Netherlands, so they had a jump-off. It was neat to see these two countries have a go, 'cause the Netherlands is usually a Winter Olympics country, and Ireland doesn't win many medals in general. O'Connor went second, and his time was much better than Schroder's--it looked like he had it won... until he botched the very last jump. It was close, but O'Connor got the bronze, Ireland's first (and probably only) medal of these games. Yay Ireland!

The two American beach volleyball teams played each other for gold, and Misty May/Kerry Walsh won. No surprise there. They've never lost a single set in 3 Olympics. That's just... wow. You can tell in their interviews that they're such great friends. That's probably one reason why they're such an amazing team--they know each other well enough to predict each others' moves, and they trust each other well enough to know that their backs are covered. That's the very definition of teamwork.

So far, we've won 20 medals in track and field. That's twice as many as the 9 that second place Russia has. We always dominate in track and field, and it should give us the edge over China for the overall medal count. Right now, we're up by 4, though China has 2 more golds. I'm hoping we get gold and silver in the decathlon--our two American athletes are at the top after day 1.

Professor and the Beast

That is... Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, who played for the gold in men's beach volleyball. 'Twas an exciting game, just about as down to the wire as it could be. The teams were almost evenly matched. We would tie it up, Brazil would break the tie. We won the first set, Brazil the second. And then in the last set our guys started getting fired up while the Brazilians ran out of gas. We got the gold!

No gold in softball, though! I didn't get to watch the game, but I read this article about Japan's major upset! This was going to be the last Olympics for softball, and the reason was that the US was unbeatable. Lame reason on its own, but now the IOC will have to come up with a better reason for chucking it. Our loss is shocking and a bit sad, but hey, if it ends up saving the sport's Olympic future, that might actually make up for it.

We swept the men's 400m, but the best part was bronze medalist David Neville diving across the finish line. You don't see that too often! But he really might not have medaled if he hadn't done it. Nice move!

Another interesting track moment: the Cuban who won the men's 110m hurdles wears glasses. They're strapped to his head, obviously, but still... not exactly common. I think it's cool. It certainly didn't impede him at all; he won by a landslide and didn't hit a single hurdle.

Both the men's and women's 4x100m relay teams dropped their batons! Terrible! The US in general has under performed in track, and Jamaica has taken up the slack. Just like China's domination in diving, Jamaica is dominating the running events this year.

Speaking of diving, the audience watching the 10m platform finals all stood up and cheered as Chinese 15-year-old Chen Ruolin entered the water after a nearly perfect dive to win the gold. That's how much China loves their divers. They're 7 for 7 on golds for all the diving events.

BMX racing reminds me of speed skating. They all going so fast so close together that if one person falters he can take out everyone else behind him. Short, sweet, and hard to beat.

Queens of the Sandbox

Well, Kerri Walsh and Misty May won the women's beach volleyball gold. No surprise, really. I knew they would. Misty is such an awesome digger and Kerri is a great blocker; they're basically unbeatable. They have, after all, been undefeated for over a year.

Jamaica's Usain Bolt really is a freak of nature. He won the 200m just as easily as the 100m, and broke Michael Johnson's 12-year-old world record like it was no prob.

Race walking is freaking awesome. Period. Even more so when it's raining. They're like wiggling noodles moving along down the road. The slow mo is fascinating. It seems odd that there's a racing event in which you get disqualified if you exert too much, breaking into a slight run instead of a walk, but it's also weirdly cool.

Not much else to say, really. But I'm going to mention that I really like Chris Collinsworth and Mary Carillo. Chris has done great athlete interviews as well as befriended the Phelps family. Mary has been doing a bunch of really neat cultural stories, including one on pandas and one on kites. I love their demeanors and their storytelling styles.

Speaking of neat stories, Chris did a story tonight on a South African woman who participated in the open water swimming race, and she's an amputee! Now that is amazing.