Olympics: Men's 100 Meter Butterfly

Michael Phelps is seriously blowing me away. Heck, he's blowing all of America away. No, more than that...he's blowing the world away. He rocks.

In what is the closest race he has won of the Beijing Olympic Games, Michael won his 7th gold medal in 2008, his 13th gold medal overall, and his 15th overall Olympic medal. Wow. With 7 in one Olympiad, he tied Mark Spitz for the most ever won in a single Olympiad, and he is still expected to win another one tonight in the 4 x 100 Medly Relay. He is just unreal.

This race he won by only .01 second. Seriously...one of the closest races I've ever seen in swimming. And everyone thought he had lost it by taking that last half stroke, but in actuality, that is what made sure that he won. He thought he had lost it. His Mom thought he had lost it. His coach thought he had lost it. The delegation from the silver medal winner's country thought he had lost it. Everyone thought he was going to take the silver, and his hopes to beat Mark Spitz's record instead of simply tying it would be dashed. But instead, he won it in one of the most exciting races you'll ever see.

And frankly, who cares that he didn't break the world record in this race? I don't think that is what anyone is going to remember after this is all said and done.

When I find a decent video of it, I'll post it here.

Olympics: Men's 4 X 100 Freestyle Relay

So I mentioned in a previous post that I am an Olympics junkie, or at least something to that effect. So far in the Beijing Olympics, I haven't had as much time to watch as I would have liked, but I've been recording it all so I can try to catch up on my break. I was watching last night, though...so I saw this.



All I can say after that performance by the U.S. men's team is WOW. Yeah, it doesn't hurt that I've been rooting for Michael Phelps since the Athens games, when he tried to win 7 gold medals in one Olympic Games. He didn't get it in 2004, but he did get 6 golds which is nothing to sneeze about. The first two races he has had in the Beijing Games have been two he wasn't supposed to be able to get gold in, or at least the ones that should give him the biggest problem out of all of his races...but he has come away from both of them with the gold. I can't wait to see what else he has in store for this country.

I don't know what else I'll be blogging about for this Olympiad...we'll have to wait and see. But so far, I am enjoying the games. I think the Chinese crowd have been very appreciative of all of the athletes from what I've seen. And as expected, there has already been a lot of excitement. I'm sure much more is yet to come!