The 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London have come to a close. Here are some reflections looking back at the XXX Summer Olympics.
*Like I said before, Michael Phelps was dominant. He will go down probably as the best Olympian of this generation. It will be a long time (if ever) that someone will match his medal total.
*Along the lines of dominant, Usain Bolt would qualify as well. To repeat gold in sprinting is very impressive. Definitely when you think speed, Bolt comes to mind. It will be interesting to see if he will compete in Rio in 4 years. I haven't heard otherwise. So we could have the first man to three-peat winning the gold in the 100m....which would put him in line for best Olympian of this generation with Phelps.
*It was great to see an All-American final in women's beach volleyball. Misty May-Treanor & Kerri Walsh Jennings won their 3rd gold in a row. They were impressive in that they only lost 1 set in their Olympic career together. I admit that I was rooting for Jennifer Kessy and April Ross to win but in the end was happy for Misty and Kerri. What's interesting is that Misty is retiring but Kerri is continuing on to Rio. So she could be going for her 4th gold medal in 4 Olympics. Something to watch for...
*The women's basketball team won their 5th consecutive Gold medal dating back to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. It is the longest Gold medal streak in any women's sport in the Olympics. It seemed that in this Olympics a lot of talk went to the women's soccer team and not so much to the basketball team. But regardless, what the basketball team did was impressive and they will strive for a 6th straight Gold medal in Rio.
*On the men's side, they did their job in winning another Gold medal. They had a tough finals against Spain and won by only 7. A lot was made about this year's team in comparison to the '92 Dream Team but in an of themselves they were a good team. I still don't think this year's team could beat the '08 Redeem Team, but they did win the Gold so props to them. I hope that the pros continue to play in the Olympics because it makes it mean more. I don't think there will be changes in 4 years but after that who knows.
*This Olympics was definitely the "Social Media" Olympics. Twitter was still in it's infancy in '08 and was picking up steam in '10 in Vancouver but this year it was everywhere. Coupled that with smart phones and online coverage and it seemed that everyone was talking about the Olympics in those mediums. That coupled with the disdain for tape delay (a tradition in Olympic coverage) made for a lot of frustrating times when it came to the "primetime" events. Part of that I said before was the '08 games had more of the "primetime" events live & not on tape delay given it was halfway around the world. With it only being about 5 hours from East Coast to London it was just rough. However, the next Winter & Summer games could be less of that. I do think NBC will tweak their coverage and improve it based on the "social media" response that was given.
*Overall, London did a great job and should be commended. It'll be interesting how Rio does in 4 years.
Showing posts with label volleyball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label volleyball. Show all posts
Monday, August 13, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
More Reflections on the London Olympics
*Michael Phelps ended up with 22 medals with 18 of them gold medals. That is ridiculous. He medaled in 22 of 24 Olympic finals. That is a pretty good percentage right there. Some compared his finish to that of Michael Jordan retiring (the 1998 retirement). The crazy thing is that Ryan Lochte is older than Phelps and will be at the Rio Olympics in 2016. So honestly, if Phelps wanted to, he could add to that total. But given his comments, I don't think he'll go back on saying he's retiring. There are Olympic athletes that dominate a generation. Phelps is definitely one of those athletes.
*Usain Bolt is fast. Anyone who watched the final of the 100m race can attest to that. And that final had some big time names in it: besides Bolt, there was his teammate and fellow countryman Yohan Blake, who beat Bolt at the Jamaican Olympic qualifiers and also is the reigning World Champion at 100m, Justin Gatlin, USA runner who won the gold back 2004 & was coming off of suspension, Tyson Gay another USA runner who won the World Championships in 2007. So it was a big time race. And Bolt came through with an Olympic record time & 2nd fastest time in the world only to himself. It was one of those blink and you'll miss it.
A cool side story. After the race, Bolt was being interviewed by a Spanish network. The reporter was trying to ask questions just as the national anthem was being played for the medal ceremony for the winner of the women's 400m, American Sanya Richards-Ross. Bolt politely stopped the interview and pointed to the medal podium and paused while the American anthem was played. Afterwards, he finished the interview with the reporter. Classy move and one that deserves props.
*On the flip side of that, the USA women's soccer team. This tournament has seen them win every match so far (though there were some scares against France & recently in their semifinal matchup against Canada). Along with that, there has been some antics they've done which has been disappointing. After some of their goals (particularly against New Zealand) there were over the top in their celebrations. Now I'm all for celebrations, in the heat of the moment, excited spontaneous celebrations are great. But if you're choreographing them (especially the worm one) that's a bit too much, especially in the Olympics. I haven't seen the women's basketball team do things like that (and they're the best in the world), neither has the women's volleyball team either (and they're undefeated so far in these games as well). I think the soccer team should take a page from those teams and win without losing respect of other teams.
*Speaking of the USA volleyball teams (both men's and women's) both sides look dominating. They both won their groups and are in line for a chance to both get gold. Beach volleyball could have a USA gold medal final on the women's side with Misty May-Treanor & Kerri Walsh Jennings vs. Jen Kessy & April Ross. Unfortunately, on the men's side both US teams got bounced so no medals there. That'll have to be rectified in 4 years in Rio.
*Hopefully in 4 years as well, NBC will have better coverage of the games. This has been a bad summer games for the network as they have gotten a lot of things wrong. Part of it I think is not updating with the times & part of it is having London be a 5 hour time difference from the East Coast. Next summer games, it will be in Rio, which is only a 1 hour time difference. So hopefully more live prime time events will help out. They can get a jump start on this in 2 years with the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which is an 8 hour time difference.
*Usain Bolt is fast. Anyone who watched the final of the 100m race can attest to that. And that final had some big time names in it: besides Bolt, there was his teammate and fellow countryman Yohan Blake, who beat Bolt at the Jamaican Olympic qualifiers and also is the reigning World Champion at 100m, Justin Gatlin, USA runner who won the gold back 2004 & was coming off of suspension, Tyson Gay another USA runner who won the World Championships in 2007. So it was a big time race. And Bolt came through with an Olympic record time & 2nd fastest time in the world only to himself. It was one of those blink and you'll miss it.
A cool side story. After the race, Bolt was being interviewed by a Spanish network. The reporter was trying to ask questions just as the national anthem was being played for the medal ceremony for the winner of the women's 400m, American Sanya Richards-Ross. Bolt politely stopped the interview and pointed to the medal podium and paused while the American anthem was played. Afterwards, he finished the interview with the reporter. Classy move and one that deserves props.
*On the flip side of that, the USA women's soccer team. This tournament has seen them win every match so far (though there were some scares against France & recently in their semifinal matchup against Canada). Along with that, there has been some antics they've done which has been disappointing. After some of their goals (particularly against New Zealand) there were over the top in their celebrations. Now I'm all for celebrations, in the heat of the moment, excited spontaneous celebrations are great. But if you're choreographing them (especially the worm one) that's a bit too much, especially in the Olympics. I haven't seen the women's basketball team do things like that (and they're the best in the world), neither has the women's volleyball team either (and they're undefeated so far in these games as well). I think the soccer team should take a page from those teams and win without losing respect of other teams.
*Speaking of the USA volleyball teams (both men's and women's) both sides look dominating. They both won their groups and are in line for a chance to both get gold. Beach volleyball could have a USA gold medal final on the women's side with Misty May-Treanor & Kerri Walsh Jennings vs. Jen Kessy & April Ross. Unfortunately, on the men's side both US teams got bounced so no medals there. That'll have to be rectified in 4 years in Rio.
*Hopefully in 4 years as well, NBC will have better coverage of the games. This has been a bad summer games for the network as they have gotten a lot of things wrong. Part of it I think is not updating with the times & part of it is having London be a 5 hour time difference from the East Coast. Next summer games, it will be in Rio, which is only a 1 hour time difference. So hopefully more live prime time events will help out. They can get a jump start on this in 2 years with the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which is an 8 hour time difference.
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