Usain Bolt (spoiler)

[skategoat]

2004? International? I was referring to THIS year and a US audience. Otherwise, your data is convincing.

Again, with Phelps going crazy, LOTS of people were following swimming.

Actually, the sky here is anything but blue this morning!

And by the way Skategoat, I apologize for my earlier sarcasm/incivility. It wasn't called for.

Not a problem Guido. I am way too opinionated for my own good.

The sky here is blue so I have to believe it is blue everywhere. I have no evidence to suggest otherwise.

[Allee]

Skategoat, someone agrees with you.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2008/08/if-olympics-cov.html

The trampoline coverage last night was freakin' awesome!

[Dr D]

What the hell is with NBC`s ìf you`re not American you can`t watch`BS on their websiteÉ I know this is post 9-11, but that`s ridiculous.

Anyone can watch if nbc has an agreement with their cable provider. this is controled by asking you your zipcode and cable provider.

Try 29320 Charter communications greenville

It worked for me and you only have to enter it once.

you may have to kill your cookies and temp files to get it to let you try again.

IT gives you access to all the archives as well

[skategoat]

I know this thread is related to track, but we had a similar debate at work.

It appears "total domination" in the Olympics would BY FAR go to the USA Softball team. Currently, they are out scoring 53-1 and that 1 run was not earned. Nuts.

Many of their games are ended early with the 7 run rule. The competition has pretty much given up.

It's a shame they don't show any more coverage....lots of hotties on the team.

No question, the U.S. Softball team is probably the most dominant team or individual in these games. But, it's not a good thing. Softball is being turfed out of the Olympics (along with men's baseball) for a number of reasons, probably the predominant one being lack of competition. It's a shame because it's a great game.

If US Softball was a bit more forward thinking, they could try develop the game in other countries. Loaning coaches or exchanging players would be a start.

The same thing goes for women's hockey in the Winter Games. Canada is so dominant, it's a joke. They play soft against teams like Japan and still win by 12 goals. In this case, they are lucky that the U.S. has a decent team. But, even a two-horse race is kind of boring after a while.

As for Bolt, his dominance was thrilling only because it's unexpected. You expect a close finish in a sprint but neither the 100 or 200 were close. Oh, sorry to spoil it for NBC viewers, but Bolt won the 200m this morning. Blew away the field.

I don't think there's any reason why Bolt could not run the 400 either. He's gliding at the finish of the 200. I'm sure he could keep it up for another 200m.

[skategoat]

Skategoat, someone agrees with you.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2008/08/if-olympics-cov.html

The trampoline coverage last night was freakin' awesome!

A lot of that has to do with the fact that CBC is a public network. They feel compelled to give equal coverage to women's sports for one thing. Plus, Canadians are good in some non-mainstream sports like women's wrestling, kayaking, mountain biking, etc.

But, the big difference in CBC's coverage is the diminished influence of sponsors. In my opinion, of course. Without Nike, Coke and the like breathing down their neck, they can show sports like trampoline and weightlifting. The predominant sponsors on CBC seem to be McDonald's, Bell and Rona. None of them have much to gain from saturation coverage of a single sport or athlete.

Having said all that, CBC turns on the sap as well. They got a lot of mileage out of the Carol Hyunh story for instance.

[cail]

he used to be a 200/400 runner. maybe he'll go back to the 400... if he does maybe he'll break into the top 10.

i dont think it was too unexpected that he could/would win. he held the world record in the 100 and considering he was mainly a 200 runner initially.. it stood that the 200 would fall with his speed. michael johnson likewise blew away the field in 96. donovan bailey blew away the 100 in 96, maurice greene did it in 2000... 2004 was the most recent olympics that the 100 was close. and that was the closest in olympic history.

[skategoat]

Scratch my thoughts on the US Softball team.

Yikes.

Kent, I think you jinxed them.

Did anyone watch the BMX? It makes Snowboardcross look tame. There was not one single race without a crash. Some crashes took out 4-5 riders. Exciting.

[Skully]

I also didn't like the track. I wish it were more of a downhill with some flat for sprints. The finish run out was too short.....thus the races were done at the last turn.

If they really wanted "wow" they should have put a giant step-up prior to the finish...a la BoarderX.

Anyhoo...I really enjoyed seeing BMX become an olympic sport. Hope it sticks around.

I too enjoyed seeing BMX become an Olympic sport. Who knew Latvia was a BMX powerhouse?

Lets say I was "surprised" by the track. I haven’t been on, or really seen a BMX track for over 20 years, so I have no idea what a "modern" BMX track should look like, but I was surprised by the constant "rhythm" sections. Like you said, some space for sprinting would have been cool, along with that giant step up too. What's up with the asphalt berms?

Everyone I got a good look at was running clipless pedals. Isn’t that heresy on a BMX bike? I remeber back in the day hearing about Mike King and some of the other old-schoolers who were switching back and forth between MTB and BMX racing, using clipless pedals on the BMX side and the BMX'ers were freaking out. I guess they've all learned differently since then...

I did like the big gaps on the men’s course. Hopefully some better coverage will show up on the web…

[jolson]

Considering Torres was less than a minute ahead of her last remaining opportunities of her life to achieve gold and could have (should have) been wholly focused on the swim....I'd say that qualifies as an incredible act of sportsmanship......