Repost the Olympic Ponderings ... oops, word filter

[danacara]

I bypassed the word filter without realizing that this would get my thread zapped as per the new August 6 policy ... so I am reposting

Gotten a few of these cc’ed to me today. Here’s my take on things --



Best Performance by a Male Athlete - Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj, winning the men's 1,500 and 5,000, falling to his knees afterwards, and getting a cell phone call from his King. Note to self: if I ever win anything that big, we don’t have a king, but a call from God might be nice. Runners Up: Michael Phelps, who deserves a seventh gold simply for all that grace under the pressure; Cael Sanderson, for the best post-medal interview of the games, telling NBC that as a congratulatory treat to himself, he’s going to buy his wife new living room furniture (he’s 24); Justin Gatlin, for being so likable and religious while winning the most macho race in sports, the 100m.
Best Performance by a Female Athlete – Jenny Thompson, USA Swimming, winning a 12th medal and becoming the most decorated American Olympian ever. Not bad for a girl who started swimming again after spending a year in retirement, and, in living in NYC, did so in a tiny pool in the basement of her Morningside Heights apartment building. Runner Up: snaps to that Misty May and Kerri Walsh pairing, who make absolute domination of beach volleyball seem so simultaneously friendly and sexy.
Best Performance by a Team - Iraqi soccer team. An end to their regular Ude Hussein beatings seems to have amped their results. Bush must be bummed that they couldn’t pull out the bronze, it would’ve made for GREAT footage during this week’s Repub Nat’l Convention (“We are their great liberators, and then they went out and kicked some balls!”); Runner Up: USA Softball, for allowing one run total – I wonder if the owner of the Montreal Expos is starting to think about waiving his entire team and starting fresh with these girls – and the USA Rowing Men’s Eight, for winning so gut-wrenchingly that Matt Deakin, fourth seat, literally tipped over and exhaustedly fell out of the shell once the race had ended.
Worst Performance by a Male Athlete – Justin Wilcock, USA Diving. He qualified for the games strongly but then got injured, and he finished dead last in the preliminaries, having completely failed one dive (i.e. belly flopped). I choose to view “worst performance” positively in that I’m sure he’ll use that experience to fire himself up for Beijing 2008.
Worst Performance by a Female Athlete – Marion Jones, USA Track. Folded like a cheap lawn chair. Do steroids tamper with one’s hand-eye coordination? Help me understand how you can jump longer than almost anyone on Earth but you can’t hand off a baton six inches? Even I can hand off a baton six inches. I got lots of practice passing the bratwurst in this family. Anyone who did even one Thanksgiving with us in the basement of 47 Fieldstone got pretty good at complicated passes, food moving left, plates moving right, etc. Granted we weren’t doing them at twenty miles per hour, but still.
Worst Performance by a Team – No contest. USA Men's Basketball, whose top twelve players collectively earn more than the gross domestic product of Lithuania (that’s unconfirmed, just a rumor I heard), managing to find a way to lose. Alright, so they had no perimeter shooters. Alright, so they had no point guard. But losing to Puerto Rico? COLORADO has more residents than Puerto Rico. If you deduct the incarcerated and the members of the US military, Puerto Rico has a male population roughly equivalent to Vermont. Dude, Vermont. Howard Dean in Bermuda shorts might’ve been able to beat those guys. Genuinely, I am surprised that the best players in the world, excluding LeBron, weren’t interested in playing at the Olympics. Does everything come down to the bling-bling? Well, maybe in four years we’ll come back out with a vengeance.
Gentleman of the Games (Classiest dude) – That marathon runner who got shoved by the deranged ex-priest. (Ireland must be cringing. I mean, this is the biggest story of their Games). Runners Up: Michael Phelps, enough said. Markus Rogan, Austrian backstroker, for telling Piersol to fight his disqualification even though the DQ would’ve given him the gold. Bryan Clay, USA Decathalon, taking silver and showing such amazing grace when his teammate (Tom Pappas) was getting all the press and endorsements.
Lady of the Games (Classiest broad) - Carly Patterson, USA Gymnastics. You flip, you land, you weep appealingly, you conquer, you wisely keep your lips zipped regarding Slutlana (oops, Svetlana) Khorkiva. Not bad for 18 years old. Runner Up: Mohini Bhardwaj, USA Gymnastics, who had ten minutes’ warning that she’d be taking the beam in the team competition, and did a stunning routine. Gotta love the girl who can indirectly thank Pamela Anderson’s breast implants for her presence.
Unpleasant People of the Games – Gymnastics Commentators. You people are so negative.
Other Unpleasant People of the Games - Svetlana Khorkina, Russia Gymnastics, but she’d probably be honored by this.
Best Individual Moment – Deena Kastor, USA Marathon. She broke down with tears of joy when she found out she won the bronze, and I got a little misty too. Also deserving of note was the weather during that marathon: 95 degrees, 30 percent humidity. In that heat, I get winded when changing the recline level on my beach chair. Forget 26.2 miles. Runners Up: USA Men’s swimming 4x100 medley, with Aaron Peirsol breaking the world record in the backstroke leadoff, and Ian Crocker tearing it up with a 50.2 butterfly leg – to give some perspective, if he’d done that during the actual 100m butterfly race, he would’ve beaten Michael Phelps by over a second – that race gave me the chills and I honestly know next to nothing about swimming. Also, Fani Halkia, Greece Track, winning the 400m hurdles to a thunderous ovation from the crowd.
Worst Individual Moment – The two Greeks who faked their motorcycle accident. Dudes, come up with something better than that. Runner Up: Lloy Ball, USA Men’s Volleyball, who overtly shoved the referee’s stand when he was upset with a call. He’s darned lucky that the referee didn’t eject him, or fall off the stand, or both. I understand passion but you can’t attack the referee, just not the stuff of role models.

Best Outfit – An all-around award to the Rhythmic Gymnastics teams – Bulgaria, Russia, and Greece in particular. Those were wicked cool.
Worst Outfit – Gary Hall, USA Swimming. Rule of thumb: if it looks over-the-top on Muhammad Ali, you should rethink it. There are only five or six men in the world who can work it with red, gold and blue lame. You are cool, though. Carrying an orchid around the Olympic Games with you, and winning the 50m freestyle (imagine going 150 feet underwater, full blast, and not taking a breath) as a 29-year-old with diabetes, both of those things are really noteworthy.

Best Fans – Brazilian Beach Volleyball. It was like the gay pride parade times one thousand margaritas of fun. If the games come to New York, I am whipping myself into bikini shape, joining the crowd, and asking Grandmere to be my meringue partner.

 

[snoopy]

You and Grandmere have me in stitches. I think you guys should quit your day job and do a Grandmere/Granddaughter newspaper column.

Loved the games in Athens. The Greeks should be proud. I especially loved to see athletes from 2nd world countries in oddball sports where they have little hope of medaling - just for the love of their sport.

That being said, the eye candy wasn't bad either.

Nomination for the best quote of the Olympics: When asked by a reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald if the golds that he won had helped his sex life, Ian Thorpe said, "They didn't hurt."



Nomination for the best outfit of the games: without a doubt the Speedo jammers. Definately a good look for those shaped like a V.