Olympic Updates

Just a few updates on the Olympics after my travels have concluded. First, my in-laws just returned from China. They were able to attend the opening ceremonies and a number of the events. It was an amazing opportunity and the host country made things run very efficiently. Aside from the various "don't look behind the curtain" issues, they were awed by the opening ceremonies. They also were very impressed with the "Water Cube" where they were able to see Phelps' first gold in 2008 and Dara Torres' medal.

The 'Puter aptly pointed out differences between sports and, maybe I'll call them physically difficult activities previously. NBC last night had a brief segment with Tim Daggett, Béla Károlyi and Bob Costas where they discussed the Individual Women's Vault Final. Upon watching the clips shown, I am reinvigorated by my compatriot's opinion that a "judged" event is not a "sport". While there isn't any direct accusation of homerism (here, defined as voting for the home team's gymnast because you've been impressed by your host country as the gymnast's country's judge cannot participate in scoring their own athlete's attempts) or other foul play, it does seem odd. At a superficial level, you see one gymnast vault (doing a move named after her) and land on her knees. Ouch. And you watch the other vaults, particularly in my case, the American gymnast, and you see a very good and difficult vault. Maybe we need some more Elean judges. Tim Daggett broke down Cheng Fei's vault pointing out a number of errors that should have been deducted but weren't. However you interpret the results, it's a judged event and not a sport....of course, the next thing up on the screen was the Trampoline. Sigh. More cowbell!