Phelps was just on TV and the interviewer asked the same question I posed a couple of posts ago. He wasn’t just happy. He said a bunch of his friends from Baltimore were in the stands and yelled something during the anthem that’s an inside joke, so Phelps said he just lost it.
I must admit that Ryan Locate looks good with the silver fox hair. He looks like a hot dad. 8->
Yikes about the broken cap!!! Thank goodness the goggles did not break! Mom probably had an age group meet flashback - broken caps, too many events in a row, punk kid teasing Michael… Lol. 
So happy for all US swimmers who competed tonight!
*Ryan Lochte. Spellcheck is killing me today.
@eyemamom , I had the same thought about a few of the Chinese women gymnasts looking very young. It was back in 2008 that there was a controversy about the age of their gymnasts.
So…does anyone believe those two are 16 years old? Or was China cheating back in 2008 and is still cheating today?
Thought the NYT did out the Chinese gymnast as 14, not 16 back in 2008 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-flumenbaum/scandal-of-the-ages-docum_b_118842.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/sports/olympics/27gymnasts.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
The IOC never confirmed that He Kexin was underage in Beijing. (Apparently the Internet smoking guns of the matter were deleted by the Chinese.)
But the IOC did strip the 2000 team because of underage gymnasts.
http://www.espn.com/olympics/gymnastics/news/story?id=5142755
The IOC is inconsistent. Maybe it was afraid to offend the host country in 2008. I wonder what it and FINA are afraid of now, since they sneakily reinstated the Russian swimmers?
The NYT article does a good job of reporting the inconsistencies in the documents with the varying ages, and the taking down and changing of info available on the Internet. Apparently the Chinese and the Koreans had underage gymnasts. Sounding a bit like the SAT cheating scandals …
I always enjoy watching a bit of Chinese broadcast on CCTV even though the reception is terrible. Just like @Momofadult I find the commentators very balanced all around.
They were very impressed with the American women on floor exercise and one was saying something to the effect that they don’t have the body build to match that kind of dynamism. They also felt their women were marked by a different standard in the competition, that their world champion on some apparatus was given ridiculously low scores for the quality of the performance. Any gymnastic expert here? They readily admit that the Americans are the best by quite a margin though and their comments show nothing but the greatest of respect.
I remember the commentators were surprised in London when a Brazilian won over a Chinese on the rings, but the complaints this time around is a lot stronger, the strongest I have ever heard from them.
The Chinese do look very young, yet they mentioned that one is 20 and another is 19.
Don’t quote me… I can understand only about 60% of what they are saying.
I know gymnastics, but not how they judge at this level. It seems to me the Americans are far and away the best gymnasts with no one even close to them. I think it has to do with Karolyi and how she redefined training for the elite gymnasts. I wonder how they’ll fare once she retires after this olympics. It almost doesn’t even seem a competition to me. What happened to all these former countries that were such powerhouses?
I’m having a love/hate relationship with the Olympics. LOVE watching them, love the athlete stores, love the positive vibe (besides the green pool) that I’m getting from the athletes this round. What I am hating…
- Social media spoilers - you can’t look ANYWHERE without finding out results. From news sources to celebs- frustrating!
- NBC coverage SOOOO late! I finally had to hang it up last night well after 11pm and didn’t get to see the end of the women’s gymnastic team competition. I can’t do this every night for two weeks, operating on 6 hours of sleep! In a way it didn’t matter…BECAUSE SOCIAL MEDIA HAD ALREADY SPOILED THE ENDING FOR ME!!!
What happened? No government support any more and coaches from these countries are now training American children. For example Aly Raisman has a Romanian coach and performs using Russian music.
Google “Star-Spangled Banner” and Baltimore Orioles and you’ll see why Phelps laughed. It was a reminder of his Maryland friends and of home and he probably wasn’t expecting it.
I looked up the 20 year old Chinese gymnast and I believe that she is 20. The article said that she was severely malnourished as a child.
China has a population in excess of 1.3 billion. If they are looking for girls who are tiny and likely to stay tiny, I’m sure there are plenty who fit the bill. One can look at a girl’s parents and make a decent prediction. The Chinese gymnastics folks may want to start scouting the more muscular, powerful girls for future teams. (And maybe feed them more/differently. [I know that this subject could be politically/ethnically charged, but I think it’s a fair subject to bring up because I sincerely doubt that the US elite gymnasts eat whatever they want or the “typical American diet.”])
I am no expert on gymnastics judging but I thought the judges were kind. The Chinese floor routines did not seem well composed at all.
Have any of you read this article?
http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/how-to-really-watch-olympic-gymnastics
This infuriates me:
Can you imagine the same being true for a network football play-by-play announcer?! “Mike, you keep referring to ‘downs’. Will you remind me what those are?”
Hmm, a few comments on the last few pages…
@BunsenBurner, I was cheering like crazy when Nathan Adrian won that first semi-final then qualified first for final after just squeaking into semis. He said afterwards that the high of the 4x100 free relay the night before (always my favorite event of any Olympic sport, both summer & winter) had drained him emotionally. I love that honesty and joy in a young man (and he isn’t so young)!
The diving well needs a serious chlorine blast - pretty sure it’s not a filter issue, just a chemical imbalance.
Michael Phelps!! What an incredible athlete. He won that race by 4/100ths of a second - the closest margin of victory ever in that race. I cried when he cried on the medal stand (I couldn’t believe his eyes teared up, although I was waiting for that single tear to drop, and I bet the photographers were as well, then he got laughing at his friends in the stands, which I got a kick out of).
NOT loving the white/silver Ryan Lochte hair… if he was going to dye it (which I really dislike in general), at least go for Gold!
I do not believe that the Chinese gymnasts are all 16. No way. The IOC, in it’s infinite ineptness, merely relies on each country to produce verifying passports or birth materials. The government can then just produce whatever it wants, accurate or not, and submit them to the IOC. They cheated for years and with this method of “controls” in place, they will just keep cheating. Everyone in the gymnastics community knows it. My biggest beef is what it does to the poor little girls.
I continue to really dislike the NBC coverage. I love the swimming though, and even watch the prelim and semi races in the middle of the day when I can.
Can’t wait for the Olympics to be over (not really), so I can catch up on my sleep!
I’m glad I was able to watch the gymnastics live during the afternoon. I know that’s not an option for alot of CCers. I wouldn’t have stayed up to watch the evening coverage either. I’m really getting tired of NBC’s coverage and some of their announcers.
I think the swimming commentary is fine. Rowdy has a good balance of technicality and excitement in his comments. The gymnastics… They need to let Nastia speak more! Maybe it is her upbringing: it is impolite for a woman to talk when someone older than you speaks.
Last night, NBC finally sprinkled the awards ceremonies in between the commercials. I noticed that the number of commercials increased significantly from Friday. Ugh.
I cannot figure out why I have to stay up until midnight to watch the good stuff. Seriously losing sleep since I am a bonafide Olympics addict. I finally had to admit defeat and record it all so I can watch the next evening.
Why can’t they just start it at 6 or 7pm? (pacific time)
I find it curious that the beach volleyball games start at midnight in Rio? What??? Pretty sure the athletes are not used to having their games in the middle of the night. Maybe to avoid the heat of the day
Also, I am still seeing lots of empty seats in the arenas, even for the women’s gymnastics.
“Why can’t they just start it at 6 or 7pm? (pacific time)”
Yesss!!! I have the same burning Q! I am getting sleep-deprived over this.