Bottom Of The Barrel

And it's over for another 4 years...

Today marks the end of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad and the beginning of the countdown to London 2012. For the USA, this Olympics marks the 4th consecutive games that we have led the world in metal count with 110. The US also has remained very consistent with 36 gold metals, which is only 1 below the average gold metals they have won over the past 14 Olympics [not including the boycott games of 1984]. Some of my favorite stories from the games were:

- The Redeem Team redeems US Men's Basketball
- Men's gymnastics loose the Hamm brothers and still take a bronze metal in the team event
- Women's Basketball Team makes it four in a row
- Nastia Liukin [individual all around gold, uneven bars silver, balance beam silver] and Shawn Johnson [balance beam gold, individual all around silver, floor exercise silver]
- Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh repeat in Beach Volleyball
- Men's Volleyball gold metal after the coach's father-in-law was murdered the day before competition began
- Last and certainly not least, Michael Phelps wins 8 gold metals, 7 in world record time

In a final tribute to the Olympics, let's take a look back at Phelps being Phelps:



Watch out London, here he comes...

Labels: Olympics

posted by TheWino @ 10:18 PM 0 comments

And then there was 1

Last night in Beijing, Michael Phelps won his 3rd gold metal of the 2008 summer Olympics in the 200 meter freestyle. This marked his 9th gold metal [starting with the 6 he won in Athens 4 years ago] and it put him in very elite company. Only 4 Olympians prior to Phelps had won this many gold metals:

Paavo Nurmi - Finland (3 in 1920, 5 in 1924, 1 in 1928)
Larissa Latynina - Russia (4 in 1956, 5 in 1962)
Mark Spitz - US (2 in 1968, 7 in 1972)
Carl Lewis - US (4 in 1984, 2 in 1988, 2 in 1992, 1 in 1996)

Today Mr. Phelps joined an even smaller group of athletes - just him all by himself. Winning both the 200 meter butterfly and 4 x 200 meter freestyle relay, Phelps now has won a record setting 11 gold metals and has a chance for 3 more in these games, which could be a total of 8 gold metals surpassing Mr. Spitz's record for a single Olympics. As for the only other metal record he would not hold, he would have to come back for a 3rd Olympics to pass Latynina's 18 overall metals.

I'm not sure there are any words that can describe how impressive Phelps has been so far - 5 events - 5 gold metals - 5 world records. And if he could go 8 for 8, this will be sport domination that will only make sense sometime into the future when we can grasp how dominate he really is.

Labels: Olympics, Sports

posted by TheWino @ 12:14 PM 1 comments