<p>Did you see our guys win the 400 meter relay?! Wooohooo! That’ll teach the French to talk smack!:D</p>
<p>Yes – WOW.</p>
<p>That was amazing! Go USA</p>
<p>OMG!!! We were screaming over here! Not to be a sore winner, the the look on the faces of those Frenchmen was priceless. This has got to be the best moment of the games. And the replay of Phelps yelling at Lezak – wonderful.</p>
<p>CD, yeah, they were VERY diplomatic. Harumph.</p>
<p>Love the men’s relay! But… Michael Phelps, keep the top of your bathing suit up! After he finished his leg of the relay and was cheering on his teammates, his bathing suit was folded down several inches lower than it should be… the camera suddenly jerked upward to film him from the waist up, because it appeared he was about to show more than network television allows! </p>
<p>Please tell me I’m not the only creepy person who noticed this! (OK, I know I’m not, my D laughed as well and said, “OMG, Phelps, pull up your suit!”)</p>
<p>Yeah, I noticed that, too, Lafalum—LOL! But I forgave him. I’m sure that’s the last thing that was on his mind:p</p>
<p>Haha it was awesome! Their faces were so intense right before they showed the times :D</p>
<p>Hey! How about a spoiler alert for us Californians!</p>
<p>S1 was a swimmer in h.s. and the guys all wore their suits down low like that. I thought it was scandalous, personally. =:-o</p>
<p>LOL! Lafa…my boyfriend mentioned the same thing and when the camera panned up he shouted “NOOO! Camera down! DOWN!!!” <em>sigh</em> :P</p>
<p>It was an incredible race though. I’m so happy for them!</p>
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<p>Ooops…! Sorry, Shrinkwrap. I was so excited, I completely forgot that everyone is not in our time zone:( We were jumping up and down in our living room like maniacs, and all I could think to do was rush to the CC community to enjoy the rush on a wider scale. I’ll do my best to remember that others won’t have seen events yet, and would appreciate being surprised like I was.</p>
<p>OK, I’m not “creepy” either but after the last few posts I had to see what you guys were talking about.</p>
<p>[Phelps</a> collects 2nd gold in 4x100 free relay - 2008 Olympics - SI.com](<a href=“http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/08/10/phelps.usa.relay.ap/index.html?cnn=yes]Phelps”>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/08/10/phelps.usa.relay.ap/index.html?cnn=yes)</p>
<p>Have you heard Bela Karoli’s comments about the judging and the youth of the Chinese gymnasts? I personally think Bela’s a stitch, but he might need to be muzzled for the sake of international relations. Regarding the age, he made the point that he and the rest of the professional gymnastics coaches have been around 12-16 year old girls their whole careers, they know what 16 year old girls look like and these aren’t 16 year old girls. Of course, if you have a government ready willing and able to revise birth certificates and passports, there’s no disputing their age. </p>
<p>Funny to think how different it would be in the US if an underaged girl even tried to compete as a senior. You’d have 50 other parents trying to find a copy of her birth certificate, and another 50 pulling out the program from a Level 5 meet 6 years before where the girl had competed in a younger age division than would be allowed by her stated age.</p>
<p>I didn’t notice Phelps showing too much last night, but I distinctly remember seeing more than I should have seen during the Athens coverage.</p>
<p>Great story about Oksana, the now-German gymnast! </p>
<p>I’ve been watching badminton with great interest. I play tennis, but don’t particularly like to watch it on TV. But badminton–fast play, great strategy, fabulous athletes–makes for great TV.</p>
<p>I made a mistake on my earlier post about Oksana. This is her 3rd Olympics. First the one at age 16, then 2004 in Greece (?), and now Beijing. I checked out her page on the German team part of the official Olympics website. Must have remembered it wrong from the tv spot. She is only 5 feet tall and weighs 97 lb., but on tv she looks very curvy and muscular.</p>
<p>As far as age goes, my mom told me that a guy I went to Tulane with is at the Olympics for sailing. His last name is Dane and he is in his 50’s. He was on the Tulane sailing team and has tried for the Olympic team before, but I think this is his first time to go. Equestrian is another event where there are older athletes competing.</p>
<p>The NBC website said that Oksana went to the Olympics in 92, 96, 00, 04 and now 08.</p>
<p>You know, there are so many parents on this site, wondering if their child can get into an Ivy, wondering if their child’s “hook” is really a hook…a friend at church (whose three sons are all Ivy grads) told me that her nephew is on the rowing team. I looked up his bio on NBC’s web site, and determined that some people really have been given an unfair share of smarts and talent. Take a look:</p>
<p>Jamie Schroeder returns for his second consecutive Olympic Games in 2008, rowing in the men’s quadruple sculls. </p>
<p>At 22 years old, Schroeder was the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic squad in 2004. More impressive was the fact that Schroeder had only been rowing for three years at that point. Never much of an athlete, Schroeder arrived on Northwestern’s campus in 2000 with no intention of playing sports. But the captain of the rowing team noticed the 6-foot-8 freshman right away, as many other athletes had in the past. “I was pretty used to people coming up to me because of my height and asking me what sport I did, and when I said none they’d ask me to join theirs” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2004. But unlike the rest of the offers, rowing appealed to Schroeder, and he decided to give it a try. He took to the sport right away, saying, “I felt for the first time I was using my entire physiology.” </p>
<p>In the winter of 2001, Schroeder transferred to Stanford to pursue a degree in biotechnology. He rowed for the varsity team there and trained extensively on the erg. The work paid off: Within six months he rowed a 2,000-meter race in under six minutes. In 2002, Schroeder became the world’s fastest indoor rower when he won the CRASH-B’s in Boston, pulling a 5:50 on the erg. He won the title again in 2003. </p>
<p>Schroeder graduated from Stanford in 2005, taking his senior year off to train with the national team. After the 2004 Games he attended Oxford University, where he earned a doctorate in physiology. He is currently a medical student at John’s Hopkins University. </p>
<p>Aside from his rowing career and academic accomplishments, Schroeder is gifted in many other areas. A talented musician, Schroeder plays the guitar, piano and tuba. He is fluent in Mandarin and he sang tenor in choir for many years.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info on Oksana, missypie. I thought I’d heard 5 times on tv. The website I saw must have confused me. But as I am now over 50, I guess that’s par for the course! And to think that in between all those Olympics, Oksana became a mother and dealt with her child’s cancer, moved to another country, etc. It is an amazing story of courage and strength I think.</p>