It has been an interesting Olympics thus far in 2008 I gotta say. Here is my list of matches that you should have seen. Many are the mainstream ones that everyone knows about, but I like to think there are a couple here that might be surprises, and no we don’t win them all.
1) The first Men’s Swimming Relay – Going into the last leg, the US is behind France, only to have what may have been the weakest link of the US to catch up to and pass what may have been the strongest link of the French. A great comeback, one of the better.
2) Another swimming comback came from Soni in the 200m Breastroke (I think that’s what it was). She wasn’t nearly as behind as the men were, but she was behind and a fairly large deal was made about how her opponent’s strongest leg was the last stretch… and to watch Soni come and stay with her the entire time and just completely surpass her opponent was amazing.
3) My last of the swimming was the most amazing of the Micheal Phelps wins. The one we all know so well with him doing the 100m Butterfly (may have been 200m) where he won by 0.01 and you had to keep watching it over and over and over and every time you just could not believe he won it.
4) 3rd US Men’s Soccer team, versus I believe a strong Netherlands favorite. The Dutch were up 1-0 at the half and the men came back and scored 2 in the final half only to have the Netherlands tie it up in the last couple of minutes leaving it a tie game.
5) Women’s Beach Volleyball, the heavy favorites of May/Walsh almost lost to Belgium. A weird one on this list in that no one thought they would lose since they’ve won the last 105+ straight, but Belgium sure gave them a run for their money.
6) Women’s Fencing. I don’t know any of their names unfortunately, but it was a first, and the final match was a good one to watch, even if you don’t watch Fencing. Grats to the women for going 1-2-3 in fencing for the first time in U.S. history.
7) The 2 older women won. Torres 41 everyone knew about going into the games, nearly won a gold in the 100m Freestyle, but still at that age winning the silver was great. In women’s gymnastics I think winning a silver at 33 was an even bigger deal and that is just what one German woman did on the Vault.
These are just several of many of the events that I was watching that really just got my cheering for the teams involved. They were really exciting matches because really they were all close. What is amazing about these isn’t even that they got world records. In fact, I think only 2 (the men’s swimming relay, and Soni) got world records, the rest were just good competitions. Yet, when we watch the olympics, it is all about the world record, go figure.