I have a question about the swimming competitions. Do they deliberately place the highest-ranked swimmers in the middle lanes? Every Olympics I can remember, swimmers in the middle three lanes or so have been the winners. It seems there's always that distinctive V-shape during the race, like a flock of birds. I don't know, maybe it's just my imagination.

I managed to catch a bit of the show jumping today, although I missed the dressage and cross country.

I saw on the standings board that the US got a gold medal for women's trap, but that would be one of the (numerous) events that doesn't get broadcasted because most people find it boring as hell, and after all, does involve those nasty, nasty guns. I don't think that even the obscure sports channel runs any of the shooting events.

Clodfobble,

I think they place swimmers in the lanes based on the times they had during qualifing. The faster swimmers are towards the center of the pool, because there's more 'disturbance' in the water going towards the outside.

I saw an American girl win the saber gold, my father-in-law was an All-American fencer so I'm expecting youth sized sabers to show up any day now. :) Another lady took the silver in white water rafting, wow she had some pipes on her! I also saw part of the time trial where Hamilton took Gold and Julich took bronze, very cool stuff.

They'll show a live firefight on the news but won't show somebody breaking clays...

Darn missed the horsies, the girls will be pissed.

Back before ESPN started getting contracts with "real" sports (i.e., football), all they ever had on was trap and skeet, celebrity trap and skeet, and curling. Oh, and the lumberjack contests.

I'll say this much: This Olympics is certainly the most visual as far as the city. My GOD, I love how NBC shows these sweeping, from-the-air shots of the city and surrounding areas. The ruins, the houses by the sea, the beaches, the SUNSETS! Pure heaven... :D A photographers DREAM!

And the other highlight of the games: Micheal Phelps kicking 100 types of ass in the swimming competitions (and he's from Baltimore...wahoooo!). :thumbsup:

someone else already pointed out that they put them out in the middle to minimize disturbances, but the put the fastest next to each other so that they race their fastest possible race. human nature causes one to only swim, walk, run, drive as fast as necessary to win. if the person in the lead can't see who may be in second they won't swim as fast.

i wrote that really poorly, but i think you get the point.

The EU won the olympics. just ask 'em. ok, so it is probably just a couple of morons that think adding the entire EU's medals together and then comparing that to the number of medals won by the US is fair, but i've seen the story in several places.

i got to thinking about it and i realized the flaw in their logic. each and every nation in the EU got to send a full squad to the olympics to compete. if the US sent a full squad from each state of the union, might the results be a little different?

i am only linking to one of the stories, there are quite a few out there.

article

Either PA or NY could have taken the gold in mens basketball!

Hmmmm.. is there a list of athletes by state?

I just got into a...'discussion' yesterday evening with someone (male) who was 'enraged and disgusted' by the WNBA on the whole. According to this man, women should not be playing basketball, as they are totally unfit for the sport, since they usually don't reach decent height, have distracting jiggly parts and care about their nails, which would break in 'real basketball play', among other things. He's convinced the US Women's Basketball team winning the gold while the men's team bombed is a fix, done to give a boost to Women's Rights, and that they probably slept with someone to make the gold possible. 'Buncha whores, all of them.'

I wanted to hurt this man. :mad2: I mean really hurt him. :rar: Blowtorch and needlenose pliers kind of hurt. :angry:
But instead I laughed at his pain. Because it was hilariously stupid. And in the end, I didn't end up with assault charges and I still felt good. :D

It's too bad he can't just turn off the tv so he doesn't have to see it.

What a dumb ass. He doesn't even justify a response in my opinion. I could care less about basketball of any sort, but that's just ignorant and silly.

And by the way, who exactly does he think is distracted by the "jiggly parts"? Probably the men watching, which has nothing to do with the players' skill level or ability.

There wouldn't be much of a difference if the US fielded 50 teams or 1 team. Only the best of the best make it onto that one team, so they are the ones who have a shot at the gold. If there are another 49 average athletes from other states who don't make it onto the field, it doesn't matter. They would have lost anyway.

you don't think that if they US sent 50 teams we would have won more medals? or if you reverse it. the EU only gets to send one team with the top three athletes in X event going? they would have fewer possible winners so they would end up with fewer winners/medals.

in the world of sports anything can happen. look at gymanstics alone. how often does the top ranked person foul up and not medal? some relatively unknown individual steps up and wins.

if we had 50 teams, we obviously would have won more medals.