Yea, I'm reviewing the Olympics.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics are well underway, with athletes from all over the world competing in dozens of events to represent their country on the world stage. What follows is my ramblings about the competetors, the events, and the medals.
The first week of the Games was argely dominated by swimming, which in itself was largely dominated by Michael Phelps. Watching him swim was, for me, watching a tape of how he won, not wondering if he would win, which is why I was befuddled during his seventh race that he wasn't winning. I remember thinking 'this isn't supposed to happen!' but he did win, and everything turned out for the better. The whole time I kept wondering how fast it actually was; the swimmers make it seems so easy I can't comprehend the effort it takes. The folks at NBC DID put in a green line representing the WR time, but since so many were broken the point was null. I would like to see an average person swimming against the last-lace finisher, to get some perspective to appreciate it more.
On the other side of the Water Cube (A huge waste of money, what the hell are they going to do with it AFTER?), there's the diving. Diving consists of men's and women's synchronized and solo dives from several heights. Synchronized diving has go to be the biggest waste of time and life one could imagine. My head almost asploded when I saw Men's synch. diving: I was unprepared for the amount of fail I bore witness to. Here were 16 men trying to flip into the water at the same time as another man, making the smallest splash possible, and they are content with their lives? Imagine coming in fourth place in that event. There were also solo dives, with impossibly skinny people doing impossible flips and twists from a 3 story building. After watching two divers, one after the other, do the exact same dive, yet one recieving a lower score because she made a slightly bigger splash, I was perplexed. How could the judges give one girl 2 more points because of the splash size? How could they overlook the perfection of the dive for something so pointless as the splash? Diving as an Olympic sport, in terms of athletes, event, and judges, fails.
After the swimming there was the track week, starting off with the Marathon: 2.5 hours of televised Ambien. How can people watch other people run around a city with no end? Even when they neared the stadium, the winner was clearly defined: a woman had a minute lead on the second and third placers. There was also the 100-, 200- meter dashes, in which Usain Bolt pwned face.
Another complaint with the judging was that two runners got DQ'ed for stepping on the line in a race. As if stepping on the line, an act incredibly insignificant, was grounds for disqualification! I am speechless, I really don't know why or how the IOC can be so uptight, so snooty about these impossibly strict rules.
There was also a Cuban weightlifter whose hand flew off the bar three times, each of which counted as a 'try'. Unless the weights leave the ground, it shouldn't be counted as a try.
One positive aspect of the games was Handball, a sport I hand never heard of. I just want to see people playing it, it look so cool.
Before this gets any longer or any more incoherent/exclusive of events, I want to wrap it up with a TL;DR:
Olympic judges suck, the only sports allowed should be races/events with a clear numerical winner, i.e., I scored more points, I threw it the farthest, I did this the most in X time.
And that's all I have to say about that.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics are well underway, with athletes from all over the world competing in dozens of events to represent their country on the world stage. What follows is my ramblings about the competetors, the events, and the medals.
The first week of the Games was argely dominated by swimming, which in itself was largely dominated by Michael Phelps. Watching him swim was, for me, watching a tape of how he won, not wondering if he would win, which is why I was befuddled during his seventh race that he wasn't winning. I remember thinking 'this isn't supposed to happen!' but he did win, and everything turned out for the better. The whole time I kept wondering how fast it actually was; the swimmers make it seems so easy I can't comprehend the effort it takes. The folks at NBC DID put in a green line representing the WR time, but since so many were broken the point was null. I would like to see an average person swimming against the last-lace finisher, to get some perspective to appreciate it more.
On the other side of the Water Cube (A huge waste of money, what the hell are they going to do with it AFTER?), there's the diving. Diving consists of men's and women's synchronized and solo dives from several heights. Synchronized diving has go to be the biggest waste of time and life one could imagine. My head almost asploded when I saw Men's synch. diving: I was unprepared for the amount of fail I bore witness to. Here were 16 men trying to flip into the water at the same time as another man, making the smallest splash possible, and they are content with their lives? Imagine coming in fourth place in that event. There were also solo dives, with impossibly skinny people doing impossible flips and twists from a 3 story building. After watching two divers, one after the other, do the exact same dive, yet one recieving a lower score because she made a slightly bigger splash, I was perplexed. How could the judges give one girl 2 more points because of the splash size? How could they overlook the perfection of the dive for something so pointless as the splash? Diving as an Olympic sport, in terms of athletes, event, and judges, fails.
After the swimming there was the track week, starting off with the Marathon: 2.5 hours of televised Ambien. How can people watch other people run around a city with no end? Even when they neared the stadium, the winner was clearly defined: a woman had a minute lead on the second and third placers. There was also the 100-, 200- meter dashes, in which Usain Bolt pwned face.
Another complaint with the judging was that two runners got DQ'ed for stepping on the line in a race. As if stepping on the line, an act incredibly insignificant, was grounds for disqualification! I am speechless, I really don't know why or how the IOC can be so uptight, so snooty about these impossibly strict rules.
There was also a Cuban weightlifter whose hand flew off the bar three times, each of which counted as a 'try'. Unless the weights leave the ground, it shouldn't be counted as a try.
One positive aspect of the games was Handball, a sport I hand never heard of. I just want to see people playing it, it look so cool.
Before this gets any longer or any more incoherent/exclusive of events, I want to wrap it up with a TL;DR:
Olympic judges suck, the only sports allowed should be races/events with a clear numerical winner, i.e., I scored more points, I threw it the farthest, I did this the most in X time.
And that's all I have to say about that.
