Olympians love sex

Maybe I'm the only the one who missed out on this rumor, but apparently it seems to be common knowledge that all the Olympians have crazy, hot sex all the time in the Olympic Village. Since you must actually be in the Olympics to have access to the Olympic Village, here are supposedly some of the easiest Olympic sports. You might try skeleton, which I had never heard of before today; it consists of racing head first down an icy track, and you're especially lucky if you're female since it seems to be a heavily male-dominated sport. At least with skeleton you'll probably be able to maintain much more dignity than telling people that you're competing in handball. Yes, that's right, handball is an official Olympic sport.


















Slawomir Szmal of Poland blocking the shot from Snorri Steinn Gudjonsson of Iceland in the Men's Quarterfinal match between Iceland and Poland in Beijing.

I'm pretty confused by this gymnastics article

Tough math leaves Liukin silver

It isn't the "tough math" that phases me, but rather the use of vernacular in the beginning of the article.

It seemed she wuz [sic] robbed, China's He Kexin getting the gold, Liukin left with silver. China's Yang Yilin got the bronze, the bars results adding to the host nation's sensational gymnastics performance at these Games -- the great haul of China.

Wuz [sic] Liukin robbed?

Is there a reason why someone would write "was" as "wuz"?

Olympic Headlines

Phelps is a beast: 6 events, 6 golds, 6 world records. Pure domination. But can he swim faster than Chad Ocho Cinco?

Gym-Nastia is Liukin good: Nastia Liukin had a near flawless all-around final to secure gold. Shawn Johnson came up big when it mattered, scoring 15.025 on the floor to nab the silver by a mere 0.075 points. The real question is, are male gymnasts the gayest straight men in the world, or the straightest gay men?

Newsflash: The US is Hellas good: The US Men's Basketball Team brushed off their first "big" challenge, beating Greece by a score of 92-69. Other scores of note: Yao keeps China's hopes alive, scoring 30 in a 85-68 win over Angola. Spain routs Dirk, 72-59.

Call of the night: Whoever the announcer is on CBC, calling Round 2 of the Men's 100m dash: "And here comes Dix pumping hard!." Dix finished second to Asafa Powell in the heat with a time of 10.08. Video of the event not found.

[edit] Is anyone else excited about the prospect of a Gay-Dix-Bolt heat? How about Bolt-Burns-Gay-Dix?

Add another to your list of hot female Olympians you've never heard of and never will again: Almudena Cid, Leryn Franco, most of the German team, and now Victoria Pendleton. Downside: Despite most of the above not being in contention for a medal, they all could probably still maim you in some way in your quest to lock them in your basement.

No village for USA Basketball

I was talking to my sister yesterday as she returned from a trip to Vancouver, and she discloses that on her flight out, she sat next to none other than Juli Boeheim and her three kids, who were flying out to Beijing.

The conversation went something like this:

Sister: On the flight, we sat next to someone who said that she was the wife of the assistant coach of the Men's Basketball Team, but I don't remember the name.
Me: Well, there are a few assistant coaches. Was she Black or White?
Sister: White.
Me: Judging by the fact that she is sitting in coach class and doesn't have a direct flight to Beijing, it is probably Jim Boeheim's wife. [pulls up a picture of Boeheim and wife]
Sister: Yeah, that's right.

They had a conversation during the flight, in which two things were disclosed.

1. The Olympic committee wouldn't pay for their flight out to Beijing, hence the sitting in coach and stopping in Vancouver. Moreover, they weren't even able to secure tickets to all the basketball games let alone the ceremonies. Can't they arrange that for them?

2. Neither they nor any members of the USA basketball team is living in the Olympic village. Instead, they are staying in a hotel in Beijing. Apparently, in all the years of Boeheim being a national team coach, they have never lived in the Olympic village.

So much for needing those 100,000 condoms.

Sorry, Alicia. We may have lost your ticket home.

Yesterday's battle during the Women's Gymnastics Team Final started out as epic as advertised. The United States and China were paired up on rotations, so it seemed like no one else was even competing. With three stuck landings, the US pulled out to an early lead on vault after the first rotation.

Moving along to the uneven bars, we had solid, though unspectacular performances by Chellsie Memmel and Shawn Johnson before an amazing showing by Nastia Liukin, who seems like a lock to win the individual gold in the event with an unreal score of 16.9 (in comparison, Memmel scored 15.7, Johnson scored 15.375). However, the Chinese proved to have the best uneven bars team in the world, throwing in two scores that nearly matched Liukin's, and edging into a slight 1 point lead after two rotations.

On the balance beam, the Chinese showed definite nerves. Captain Cheng Fei fell off the beam, while Deng Linlin never looked completely balanced in her entire routine, driving the Chinese to an average score of 15.7 on the event. Seeing as every single US gymnast put up a score of above 15.9 in qualifications, this seemed like a great chance to take the lead going into the final rotation.

Alicia Sacramone, object of many a fancy, quickly put an end to that notion as she fell off the beam on her mount of all things, leading to an automatic 0.8 point deduction and a score of 15.1. Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson took care of business, but the US Women had their work cut out for them to finish off.

Going into the last rotation, floor exercise, the United States trailed by exactly 1 point, which is not that much early on, but a lot with only three scores to rely on. In other words, they needed nothing short of perfection. Alicia Sacramone was first up, and if she delivered anything, it wasn't perfect as she sat on of her passes, and stepped out of bounds on another to give her a dismal score of 14.6, effectively ending all hope for the Americans. You could see it in the reactions of her teammates after her routine. Coach Marta Karolyi met her, but wouldn't hug her. None of the American gymnasts approached her to say anything or give any comfort. They knew and she knew.

After her also imperfect routine, Nastia Liukin seemed to be the first gymnast to walk over to Alicia to give any sort of support. They embraced and then Nastia whispered a pretty long motivational speech to her. It was probably something along the lines of "You tried your best, it's not your fault, etc," but Nastia Liukin feels so cold to me that I wouldn't be surprised if it went something like "You have singlehandedly destroyed our chances at winning the team gold. I hope you are happy to be an American."

Some will point to Nastia and Shawn's missteps on the floor, but remember those came after the US was already pretty much eliminated. Some will point out that the Chinese cheated by using "little babies" , but it doesn't take away from the fact that they, the little babies, stepped up to the plate, while Alicia Sacramone, our 20-year-old team captain, hailing from the town of Winchester, Massachussetts, where I happen to be typing from right now, couldn't meet the challenge.

Olympic dreams

Lots of things happened last night and I will touch upon each.

Phelps won his third gold in three tries by setting a new world record in the 200m freestyle. Natalie Cog-lin took home bronze in the 100m Backstroke.

The US Men took Bronze in the gymnastics team final behind very strong showing by Jonathan Horton and Justin Spring, and a clutch pommel horse performance by Sasha Artemev. David Durante, the team's only alternate, was visibly in tears after the final scores were posted, showing no regrets and real patriotism. You can read his Olympic blog here.

China took Spain to OT behind very strong showings by Liu Wei and Zhu Fangyu. This marks the second straight game that they have outperformed my expectations and also the second game in which Yi Jianlian was nowhere to be seen. I know this gets thrown around a lot, but I really think his basketball IQ is not really there.

Greece, after looking sloppy against Spain, came back and destroyed Germany, 87-64. So Spain beats Greece by 15, Greece beats Germany by 23, China take Spain to OT, China should be able to handle Germany right?

Abhinav Bindra took home India's first gold medal ever by edging out favorite, Zhu Qinan of China in the Men's 10m air rifle.

Medal race: US leads China overall 21-20, but China has a big edge in golds with 13 to the US' 7.

Team China Olympic Basketball Schedule

I guess the hot thing to do is to list the games for a certain team that your readers might be interested in. Since my main source of traffic is coming from image hits for Team China basketball, I said to myself, "why not?"

I'll give a little preview of each match too, so that you can see how wrong I am.

A lot of people are writing China off as not being able to make it out of a tough Grou B featuring USA, Spain, Germany, and Greece. I say they have their work cut out for them, but that there's always hope. You really only need 2 wins to make it out of the group, which means that China needs to take care of business against Angola, and then steal one from either Germany or Greece.

Game 1 vs. USA, Sunday 8/10, 10 AM EST

In the Pre-Olympic warm ups, we've seen a couple weaknesses for Team USA, mainly efficient, guard-oriented offense (limit turnovers) and a swarming, but not overaggressive team defense to try to force them into isolation plays.

The Chinese team has neither of those, so get ready for a blow out.

Prediction: USA 113 - China 68

Game 2 vs. Spain, Tuesday 8/12, 4:45 AM EST

The Chinese probably have the toughest first two games of any team as they open against the like gold and silver medalists. I'm not sure if the Spanish offense is quite as good as the US one, but I do know that they own a ridiculous defense, which ut on a show during their 85-60 win over fellow international powerhouse Argentina, who seem to be on the decline (In an earlier game this year, the score was a bit closer, 90-88). If Argentina has trouble putting up points against Spain, China is going to have a lot of fun this game.

Prediction: Spain 92 - China 54

Game 3 vs. Angola, Thursday 8/14, 2:30 AM EST

China has to win this game if they want to have any chance at making it out of the group, and they definitely should. They had a solid performance against them during the Diamond Ball tournament, winning by 9 and shooting 59% behind 21 points on 8/10 shooting from Yao Ming.

Prediction: China 85 - Angola 76

Game 4 vs. Germany, Saturday 8/16, 8 AM EST

Germany is a dark horse for a medal in these Olympics, but in my opinion, this is China's best chance for an upset. China matches up almost perfectly against Germany, with Yao neutralizing Kaman and Yi chasing around Dirk. Neither of them really have world-class guards, but could Sun Yue, with his new 2-year contract from the Lakers, be the X-factor in this game? Maybe, if he got some playing time in, as he averaged only 21 minutes in the Diamond Ball Tournament throwing in averages of 4 points, 2.3 rebounds, and less than 1 assist (what a point guard).

Prediction (Upset Special): China 72 - Germany 69

Game 5 vs. Greece, Monday 8/18, 2:30 AM EST

Greece kind of resembles the old guys you find at the Y who play really dirty, push you around, and just jack up threes. They are guard-led and could definitely be a big problem for Team China because of that. China's bigs would destroy Greece's, but the team has historically has had a problem with post-entry passes and if you can't get the ball to your big man, they can't help you. This means that Yi and Sun really need to step up in this game, as they will be the ones who can both handle the ball on the perimeter and keep it away from those pesky Greek guards and fire in a pass to Yao for some punishment. Maybe we'll see a coming out party for Ricky Rubio-esque guard Chen Jianghua also?

Prediction: Greece 84 - China 72

Bomb China

They royally screwed up the US National Anthem during the presentation of the gold medal to Michael Phelps for the 400 IM, in which he crushed the world record by about a full second and finished 3 seconds ahead of the field, which is pretty much like winning by 70 in basketball.

They started the song at about "[O say] can", played the intro verse three times (instead of twice), and then cut the song off at about "land [of the free]". George Bush was in attendance and had a good laugh, but I'm sure if he were a ballsier world leader, there would be hell to pay.

Hopefully, someone comes through with a video, but in the meantime, listen to this one which is tear-jerking for any country-and/or-basketball-loving American:

Hello Beijing

Olympic action has officially kicked off as the first games of the Women's Soccer Preliminary Round were played this morning. Nothing special to see here except that perennial powerhouse Norway and USA faced off and the Scandanavians pulled out a 2-0 victory over Hope Solo, Heather Mitts, and a bunch of other girls that I have never heard of. I guess Christie Rampone has been the US Captain since the 2004 Olympics? Come on, where are Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm, and Kristine Lilly when you need them.

Overall, a relatively unspectacular Day -2.

Team USA Roundtable

A few of us got around a figurative roundtable and weighed in on some questions posed by Rob Mahoney of Upside and Motor. Check it out.

Thoughts from the Diamond Ball

The Diamond Ball tourney wrapped up today, and my predictions were spot on 1-6, granted I made them when we were already halfway through the tournament. So here are just some exiting thoughts I have after the tournament.

China beat Iran this morning, 75-46. With this victory, they finish with the second highest margin of victory in the tournament (+8.7, compared to +9.3 for Argentina, and +6.7 for Serbia). They are also the only team to really throttle Iran, who put up a fight against Argentina (lost by 10), and upset Serbia. I thought Iran looked pretty solid during this tournament, but this win shows that if China has a good game, they might not be the Group B write-off everyone expects them. They have the potential for a big upset to come out of a group featuring USA, Spain, Germany, and Greece, similar to the one they had at Athens over Serbia to make the Top 8.

I don't buy Argentina as a potential upset for Team USA. Manu looks like he's still feeling his injury and we are only a week away from Beijing. In the preliminary round, Argentina allowed Iran to shoot 50% (China held them to 27%) from the field and outrebound them 28-26 (with 3 from Scola and Oberto combined). This morning, Scola and Manu dominated (32 and 24 points, respectively), but Australia still shot 50% and was only -4 in rebounds despite only 2 from Bogut. Team USA is managing 30+ point wins over teams like Turkey and Lithuania, while Argentina can only scrape by with a 10 point win over Iran, 15 Points against Serbia, and 4 points against Australia? If we think the US defense has holes, this one looks like it might be Swiss cheese.

Iran is if nothing else, a great rebounding team. I already mentioned that they pretty much eliminated the rebounding of Scola and Oberto, but they also held their own against the Great Wall of China in Yao, Yi and Wang, outrebounding the Chinese team, 39-33. To illustrate this, here are the total rebounding margins for each team in the tournament.

• Iran: +12
  
• Argentina: +4
  
• Serbia: -1
  
• Australia: -2
  
• China: -3
  
• Angola: -10

Iran was also the only team to have a postive rebounding margin in every game played, though it only helped them to a 1-3 record in the tournament.

A girl named Jeff interviews Yao

Here's the post-game interview after yesterday's China-Australia game in the Diamond Ball Tournament:



A couple notes:

Yao is sweating up a storm.

He seems to be exhibiting some strange form of optipessirealism, with the following quotes:

"Well, we lost the game, that's it."
--On what the game meant to China's preparation.

"Too much, but in the short term, we'll do our best."
--On what China's needs to improve on.

This must have been a fun game to watch

Australia beat China 67-55 in yesterday's Diamond Ball Tournament action to take over first-ish place in Group A. However, the real story wasn't that they won, but rather how they did it.

Let me throw a couple numbers your way.

Leading Scorers:
AUS: Anstley (11 pts)
CHN: Yao (14 pts)

Ok, so it was a low scoring game, no problem with that. Bogut is worth 12 million dollars a year, but can't even lead Australia in scoring? Yao leads the team, but the other players who were drafted/played an NBA team at any point (Yi, Sun Yue, Wang Zhizhi, Liu Wei) combined for a whopping 11 points.

Here's the curveball...

Leading Assists:
AUS: 3 tied (1 assist)
CHN: 4 tied (1 assist)

Nobody on either team got more than one assist, and they totaled 7 between them. In comparison, they combined for 38 turnovers, with Yao being the high man in that department with 5.

Jose Calderon is not amused.

Also, the Diamond Ball Tournament is kind of strange in that it consists of 2 groups of three, who play round robin style in the first round. After that, the top teams in each group play in the final to decide the champion, the second place teams in each group play for 3rd, and then the last place team play for 6th.

Because of this format, here is my projected order of finish:

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. China
4. Iran (Upset Serbia today)
5. Serbia
6. Angola

Hamm-ing up the Bhav-star

When Paul Hamm "fought through" a broken hand to qualify for for the Olympics and a chance to defend his all-around gold medal (as in he told the selection panel to include him and they agreed), it was heralded as one of the feel good stories of the 2008 games. I, however, did not feel so good about it.

There are two ways someone can qualify for the Olympics. First, you can qualify automatically, which means that during trials, you finish in the top 3 in three of the six events and in the top 2 overall. Failing that, a committee assesses your performance at the trials combined with the skill set you bring to the team and past performance to select a Olympics team that they think will be the best bet to get medals.

What the second part usually entails is selecting several gymnasts you are world-class at a single event on top of just a couple all-around threats. The committee wants to build a well-rounded team and doesn't want to have to leave a gold medal pommel horse at home to make room for a fourth place worthy all-around guy, though the latter might be the better gymnast overall.

At the trials, no gymnast met the requirements for automatic qualification, though Raj Bhavsar came the closest, finishing in the top three in the requisite 3 events, but falling only 0.08 short of second place all-around. Because of Hamm's petition to be included on the Olympic team despite not participating in trials (because of the injury), he was included and Bhavsar was left out.

ESPN had a field day with the Bhavsar story, as the same thing happened 4 years ago. Bhavsar went out during trials, hit 12 of 12 routines (as in he didn't make a mistake during the entire trials period), and at the end of the day just wasn't good enough. He contemplated quitting the sport for a while, but eventually decided to come back as determined as ever. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I was watching his scores intently during the trials period, hoping for that automatic berth. You can't help but like this guy, as he's full of energy, excitement, and culminates every routine with his signature double fist pump.

Now, with the new injury to Hamm's rotator cuff forcing him out of the competition, we get to see that spunk on display at Beijing, where Raj Bhavsar, all-around good guy (no pun intended), will make his Olympic debut. Let one feel-good story die, and another arise from its ashes.

[edit] Here's the fluff video that ESPN showed about Raj during the trials:



And here is a video of the high bar routine that he was about to begin when that fluff video aired:



Being a former gymnast (I use the term loosely), I feel like I should know this, but how do their arms not get ripped out of their sockets?

Feel free to kill this guy

Vincent W. Wong of Arcadia, CA has won the heralded Yao Ming raffle.

From what I have learned on Google, Vincent graduated from Arcadia High in 1998 and is currently a Senior Solutions Architect at AXS-One Inc, which is a data management firm. I have no idea what any of that means, but now I want to kill him for making me lose a raffle for the first time in 2 years. Seriously, I won the last 6 raffles I've entered, winning such things as a $200 airplane voucher (which I dumbly let expire without realizing it) and 8 tickets to a Celtics game of my choice (some restrictions).

In all seriousness, congratu-[bleeping]-lations, and I hope you enjoy the trip to the Olympics and meeting Yao Ming.

Olympics related things I learned over the weekend

...because everyone loves bullet posts.

Germany will be joining Greece and Croatia in the Olympics after triumphing over Puerto Rico, marking the first time Dirk Nowitzki has participated in the event.

China lost to Angola in the Stankovic Cup. Epic fail.

The Olympics Channel has already started giving 24 hour coverage of the event, right now giving background information on every athlete imaginable.

Natalie Coughlin's last name is pronounced "Cog-lin". What the.

At the risk of sounding pedophilic, World Champion gymnast, Shawn Johnson, is somewhat cute, as long as you don't judge by competition photos. +1 for being a gymnast, -1 (or +8 depending on your preferences) for being 4'8".

Misty May-Treanor is the best dancer on the beach volleyball circuit. Here's a sample of her performances. Um, yeah.

You'd have to be a pretty weird person to be considered world-class in the Modern Pentathlon (events: shooting, running, fencing, equestrian show jumping, swimming). Pretty strange collection of skills (unless you are really rich and just happen to be good at running and swimming).

The Olympic Dream

The second round of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying tournament is well underway now, with Croatia delivering a certified beating to Canada, knocking them out of contention. Just now, Slovenia lost to Puerto Rico, in a game where they kept it close until the lat 5 minutes of the game, during which Puerto Rico pulled away for an 11 point victory, who came in third place in the European tournament last year.

Greece steamrolled through the first round with an average margin of victory of 33.5 points, solidifying their spot as the odds-on favorite to win it all here. They have a relatively easy matchup here against New Zealand.

The other two wild card spots are likely to come from either Croatia, Brazil, Germany, or Puerto Rico. The only problem is that Brazil plays Germany today in a loser goes home scenario. Two good teams (including Slovenia) are going to make their exit.

I would say that Greece and Croatia are almost definite picks to make the top 3. Greece destroyed Brazil, beating them by 20 in the preliminary round, while Croatia beat Puerto Rico by 14. They both have the easiest path to the Finals of the teams, as they basically received a bye into the semis vs. New Zealand and Canada respectively.

I would expect Germany to defeat Brazil today behind strong performances by Dirk Nowitki and Chris Kaman, but they were untested in the first round, so I'm not sure how good this team actually is. Slovenia looked good in the first round two, beating Canada and Korea by an average of 14 points, but they fell down hard against Puerto Rico, who actually had a negative point spread in the first round due to their loss to Croatia.

In any case, Puerto Rico has already punched their ticket to at least the third place match, so they deserve to be in the conversation with their outstanding guard play behind NBA reserves JJ Barea and Carlos Arroyo.

[edit]Germany is laying the hurt on Brazil right now, leading 55-30 in the third quarter (low score). They might just sneak into the final if they can repeat this kind of defensive performance (holding Brazil to under 30% shooting) against Croatia.

Bracket:

Quarterfinals:

1. Croatia vs. Canada
2. Slovenia vs. Puerto Rico
3. Brazil vs. Germany
4. Greece vs. New Zealand

Semi-Finals:

5. Croatia vs. Winner of 3
6. Puerto Rico vs. Winner of 4

Finals:

7. Winner of 5 vs. Winner of 6

Consolation game (Third Place):

8. Loser of 5 vs. Loser of 6

Rasho's call to arms

Photo by Flickr user flavio ferreira used under a Creative Commons license.
The Slovenian national basketball team could probably be pretty good. Certainly not on the level of the US, or even Argentina and Spain, but they certainly could be pretty good in the sense that Germany, France, Lithuania, Greece and China are pretty good.

Their only problem? It seems to be apathy, as many of their best players have declined to play in this month's Olympic qualifier. You'd think that after a similar thing happened at the World Championships, where the depleted Slovenes still finished a remarkable 7th, some players might actually try to help them qualify for the Olympics.

I mean look at who has chosen to not to participate, due to injury or free agent negotiations: Sasha Vujacic, Primoz Brezec, Bostjan Nachbar, Beno Udrih, Goran Dragic, and a slew of others that I have never heard of (Gasper, Matjaz, Lorbek?). You're telling me that that team doesn't want the chance to beat up on a team of hapless Angolans for the sake of their country? Come on.

A notably perturbed Captain Rasho Nesterovic tried to keep things positive in an interview given to FIBA.com, and afterwards had these words to say:

“We talk too much about the players who are not with us.

“Those who wanted to play are here. We all know that Gasper and especially Matjaz will be hard to replace, but we were in a similar position before the EuroBasket in Spain.

“We had very few guards then, now we are short of power forwards and centers. But why wouldn’t we surprise once again, like we did in Spain when everybody predicted for us a terrible outcome?”

I feel like even an undermanned Slovenian team can make it through the first round of Olympic qualifiers where they are set to meet basketball powerhouses Canada and Korea, but after that, I'm not sure how far they go.

Rasho sounds call to battle for depleted Slovenia [FIBA.com]