August 15th, 2008 By Justin Williams
Sports Fix: Water Polo and Beach Volleyball Edition
Let’s just assume that the entire world has shut down for the Olympics this past week. My TV has been jumping between the NBC stations all week mostly watching sports I only tune into every four years. It’s interesting how for two weeks out of the year I actually care about swimming time trials or beach volleyball.
One sport I’m not really too keen on watching is the flipping pixies in the gymnastics competition. While the drama of the Nastia Liuken winning the individual gold was high, I just can’t shake the feeling that those girls are celebrating their victories by splitting a Corn Flake in the locker room.
My serious contention with sports like gymnastics is that I don’t think anything that is scored based on a judged ruling is as captivating as man vs. man. No matter how good (or bad) a performer does, their fate is in the hands of five stern looking women in blue jackets. I can’t help but feel it is rigged.
The real highlight of the gymnastics competition is former Team USA gymnastics coach Captain Kangaroo Bela Karolyi working with Bob Costas. This video sums him up quite nicely.
The sport I have the most interest in for the games is men’s basketball. As a die hard NBA fan, it’s great to finally see our Olympic basketball program finally being taken seriously again both by the team itself and the world. The 2004 games and 2006 championships were an embarrassment, but I’ve enjoyed getting up at 7AM to tune into each of Team USA’s games. It’s been Dwayne Wade’s return party. I could watch him and Kobe run the floor all day.
As we jump into the second week of the games, it looks like gymnastics and swimming will start to take a back seat to track & field. Get your blood doping supplies ready!
What are you watching at the olympics?
photo courtesy of Getty Images
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jim
August 16, 2008 @ 04:46PM
Funny how you love watching US basketball pummel the world, yet you feel gymnastic sports are ‘rigged’.
In case you didn’t see any news this week, about the time the olympics started some US and Israeli-backed Georgian attacks prompted the Russian army to invade Georgia. This has been widely mis-reported in the media.
Justin Williams
August 16, 2008 @ 06:30PM
Last I checked, basketball does not have a judges table who gives points based on the difficulty and style of a shot. If it goes in the hoop, 2 points. Same with tennis, ping-pong, volleyball, running and more.
Thanks for keeping us up-to-date on the media misrepresentations of the Georgia-Russia conflict.