2012 SUMMER OLYMPICS WRAP-UP

 

My friends and associates know that I’m not kidding when I say that I watched the entire Olympics. On all the channels, except for the Spanish one. I find enough fault with the American broadcasters; I don’t need to be irritated in two languages!

I had no more than five hours sleep a night, usually only two. By the end of each night, I was ready for the loony bin! But I plugged on, having more than passing thoughts on every single aspect of the games and NBC’s coverage.

I tried to take notes as it went along, but, honestly, there just wasn’t enough time to go into depth on each one. (Lucky for you guys!) I started to put them into a cohesive column, but it’s just too daunting a task, so here they are, random thoughts as the games wore on, most in the order that they came to me, which is usually in the order each sport was shown.

As a former teacher, it always chaps my hide to hear all the grammatical and pronunciation errors made by the broadcasters. But when you watch sixteen days of sports in a row, it gets even more grating. I began to write them down, to report them to you, but I realized there just isn’t that much time in life. So, I aborted that little project, but still had to make quick note of the situation. I know they’re sportscasters, and not scholars, but, as one of them, Dick Enberg (whom I enjoy, but he insists on mispronouncing “Nadal,”) says, Oh My.

I did take numerous photos from the TV to go along with this column, but, through a weird fluke, most of them got erased, which is, of course, making me sick. They were mainly close-ups of the athletes small costumes anyway, if you get my drift. Think male divers. Many of the pix were going to be a column unto themselves, too, which was really against my better judgement, anyway, so perhaps their loss was divine intervention. But, sadly, I don’t have many to showcase in this article. So, please just imagine what I’m talking about as you read along.

Also, please don’t judge how much better it all can be written because I know. I’m just exhausted. (And raring to get into the outside world, which I did for just one brief moment one day, necessary medical tests another, without which my TV watching days may have been permanently over, and for the event you’ll read about tomorrow.) But please do share your own Olympics thoughts in the Comments section below.

Here are just some of mine:

We watched the entire six-hour bike race on Day 1, and then they not only didn’t tell us the medalists countries, but not where the Americans or Brits came in!!! And how about the top twenty places!!!???

All the announcers are disappointing idiots, who are supposed to be leading us! Rowdy Gaines said to not worry about Phelps’ time, and then he didn’t make the final. Justin Gimelstob said, “Roger [Federer] may go out in the first round at a tourney, but it’s not going to be tonight.” And then it almost was!!! The bike guys said, re: the peloton (the big chase group,) “They’re in the perfect position.” And they turned-out to be far from it! And I saw that Tyler Phinney finished fourth, but the announcers didn’t!!! They proclaimed that he was way down.

Why do female volleyball players have to hug after every single point??? Just get on with it, girls!!!

At least volleyball is fast.

Why do the gymnasts speak like munchkins? That must mean the sport retards something in their development!

Why do so many athletes begin every sentence with “I mean???” You didn’t say anything for us to mis-understand yet! I used to think it was just the foreign ones who said it, as a way to get into speaking another language, but it’s just about every athlete!!! I can’t do what they can do, but al least I know how to speak!!!

I know I may not be popular for saying this, but I’m sure many of you think it, too: I don’t like Gabby Douglas. There’s just something about her. I do admit, though, that she speaks pretty well. But she has nothing interesting to say. And those creepy teeth that she thinks are so great are far from it! Ugh! Hopefully she can spend some of her new-found earnings on braces. And whitening. Maybe she can call the synchronized swimmers (which I’ll refer to as just “synchro” from here on out,) to find out how they do it. [Note: this is the first of many references to how great those athletes are, so be prepared. And let the info sink in, and you’ll find that you agree.]

Regarding Michael Phelps’ record of having the most Olympics medals ever: there are hundreds of races, so of course a swimmer could have it!

On the above note, it’s not fair that certain sports give multiple medals, like swimming and gymnastics, while volleyball and basketball, etc. make you go through so much for just the one.

Pals of both sexes often think I’m kind-of manly with all my sports watching. I have to semi agree with that assessment. But, I realized I’m still more of a girly girl because I have been the most fascinated by all the females nail designs. And hairdos. The Olympic Village must have manicurists and hair stylists on hand twenty-four seven.

And, by the way, the German team’s opening ceremony outifts made my mouth water!!! Who would have thought the Germans could be capable of such fun colors???

Mr. X and I hated gymnast Danell Leyve’s stepfather, who thinks it’s really about him. He seems to see his son as his puppet, or appendage. In a profile story on them, Danell even quietly told Ryan Seacrest, “He’s stealing my thunder again,” when the senior grabbed Danell’s lucky towel out of his hand to display it himself. Creepy guy.

NBC is showing us less coverage of the main sports, like gymnastics, which is odd since they have so many more hours of coverage than ever!!! Just ask my tired eyes.

Why are so many of the athletes round-shouldered? Especially gymnasts and swimmers. I don’t get it.

I don’t find any of those parents entertaining. Perhaps it’s because I have no family anymore myself, but I don’t like when they feature the fams.

I love watching archery!

You know how hard I am on people’s looks, including my own. So trust me when I say that British decathlon champion Jessica Ennis is one of the most appealing-looking athletes I’ve ever seen. Her body is what I always thought an athlete should look like. She also has good clean hair, a cute enough face, a nice genuine smile, the right amount of make-up for the situation, she’s feminine, is of ambiguous ethnicity, (I did have to look it up,) has just the right butt, white enough teeth, and the best abs ever!!! She’s really adorable. I’m so glad she won.

I do always want the competitors to share the wealth of medals, but I’m truly crushed that Roger Federer didn’t win the gold medal. I’m happy that he came away with at least the silver, but he deserved the gold, in general, and, at what will be a couple of days shy of thirty-five, he just might be too old for Rio. The final against Andy Murray was the worst I’ve ever seen Roger play. The rowdy British crowd just might have been too much for him.

John McEnroe should be ashamed of himself for very openly rooting for Andy Murray. That’s not what the commentators are supposed to do. He broke the first rule of commentating. Can you just imagine how nuts he would have gone if someone had done that against him ever???

I love that several announcers used “penultimate” correctly.

Could NBCSports daytime anchor Michelle Beadle be any more annoying or full of herself? I think not. And her sharp voice actually gave me a headache.

I love learning about what, to me, are unusual sports, such as shooting, archery, and fencing. Seriously.

How do the athletes wear jewelry, other than earrings, which are obligatory to me,) during competition? Especially running and beach volleyball. Kerri Walsh even wears a thumb ring, which I don’t get when her hands take so much pounding!

Seriously, synchro is the most mind boggling sport ever!!! I don’t know how they do it. And what did they do with that talent that took up most of their time, before Cirque du Soleil was invented??? (Same with rhythmic gymnastics.)

I hope that the idiot America’s Got Talent judges were watching; these commentators rarely used the word “amazing,” even though many of these athletic feats were!!!

I would rather throw the discus, weightlift, or run the marathon than synchronize swim!!! Forget even having to breath under water for so long–I don’t want to get chlorine in my hair ever day!!! And what must their nails go through???

The most incorrect thing of all time uttered by dumb sportscasters in all sports that discuss height of jumps, bars, etc., not meaning a person’s actual height, say “Heighth” all the time. That is so incorrect!!! There is no such word!!! They sound like idiots! It’s like when people say “I” rather than “me,” in the wrong grammatical situations, thinking they’re so smart.

Regarding the super-taut feet position on the synchronized swimmers: mine look like that only when they’re cramping!

Decathlon silver medalist Trey Hardee has the perfect men’s body for me, even with his back tattoo. At least it’s of the Olympics rings, so I could handle it.

Now that I have hi-def, everyone better watch out. Let’s just say that I’m glad I’m not doing my show anymore!!! But I can tell you that Alyson Felix has the most gorgeous skin in the Olympics!!!

I wonder why the other American female runners hate Lolo Jones! Is it because she’s beautiful and they’re far from it, or is she not nice? I have got to know!

The Japanese soccer team probably has gorgeous hair. Yet they chose to have short hair, or ponytails, on the medal stand. Go figure.

I hate when the commentators are kind about the other team only if they lose. I would have loved to hear Brandi Chastain’s comments if Japan had beaten the American women’s soccer team.

Why don’t some of these chicks want to look their sex??? And why was only Castor Semenya bothered for sex testing? There are so many other candidates!

And the commentators kept talking about how shameful it was to test Castor to begin with. They kept saying it was an affront to her dignity. Then why did they keep bringing it up??? Most viewers knew nothing about the controversy, and if it was so awful to put her through, they should not have kept perpetuating it.

But since they did, they should have told us why a gynecological exam wasn’t enough to satisfy the testers. I know all the details, but still don’t understand it myself.

Last note on that subject: if Castor was so upset about the situation, as well she should be, why didn’t she put in a little effort to at least make her appearance less masculine, to avoid further confusion? She could at least remove her moustache! She speaks like a male as well.

I’m amazed by the number of sports in the world to begin with, and even more by the different ways each one is run and judged. The variation in sports actually boggled my mind this time.

Could the British male divers, Tom Daley and Chris Mears, be any cuter??? Adorable guys!

I absolutely love the free-style dressage! Seriously! I can’t begin to fathom the amount of patience that training takes! I almost don’t even have the patience to watch it, though I really do love it, let alone do it!!! How do you train a horse to dance to music??? It was hard enough to teach Clarence, The Singing Dog to sing, let alone an animal zillions of time his size to dance. My mind is officially boggled on that one.

Serious question that the commentators for equestrian didn’t address: do the judges take points off for the horse pooping or drooling? I’m not being flip; I really want to know.

I’d like to see basketball players, the highest paid ones there, try the other monetarily-less-rewarded sports, such as diving, or synchro. They could not succeed for even a second.

I just don’t get the soccer craze, I’m sorry to say. The athletic prowess is nothing compared to the synchro girls, and other, but I guess some of those just aren’t gritty enough for fans. They want to see athletes sweat and get injured for them to recognize what these people go through in their sport. And, as a fan of fairness, (which I guess I have to get over in life, and soon,) it’s beginning to piss me off.

The beach volleyball announcers gave us everyone’s age, height, and weight, (remind me never to do that sport,) but the rhythmic gymnastics ones gave us nothing on those athletes, which is what I was dying to know!

I give American rhythmic gymnast Julie Zeitlin a lot of credit for pursuing it in a country that gives no credit for such a beautiful sport.

I wish all the idiots would stop pluralizing “final” and “ceremony!!!” Please!

All able-bodied people can run, shoot a basketball, and jump around; most can even swim. But none of us who aren’t trained can do synchro!!! That’s why this sport is getting it’s own column in this e-zine.

Wrestler Jordan Burroughs is almost the most well-spoken athlete there. I really liked him. (But I do hate that he said “me and so-and-so” rather than the correct “so-and-so and I.”) He’ll definitely be a commentator when he’s done, but at twenty-four, that should be a long way away.

Race walking is too dorky for even me!

The women’s handball runners-up, Montenegro, were the loveliest, happiest silver medalists ever.

I had never realized how many truly dangerous sports there are in the world! We, the public, may admire their prowess of basic athletes, such as those in golf, basketball, and baseball, but they’re not dangerous. Try mountain biking, BMX, or diving.

While I appreciate NBC’s efforts to bring us all sports on their many networks, it was really confusing. And my Dish Hopper didn’t help.

And they need to let us know the rules of what we’re watching. I always feel like I tuned-in in the middle of each event, even though it was really the beginning.

Forget Usain Bolt, (though I love him personally, as you might have read yesterday,) and the decathletes; the world’s greatest athletes are the synchronized swimmers!!! By far. I think even Mr. X agrees with me on this one. What they do is tantamount to magic. Think of what their sport entails: not only being in the water all day, which ruins skin, hair, and nails, but holding their breath while they maneuver above and below, smiling the whole time, with their eyes open underwater. How do they do it???

I had written so many notes about how truly amazing the synchronized swimmers are before I started reading what idiots are saying about the sport. I’d like to see those morons try to hold their breath upside down in water for that long, not even trying to do the moves these young ladies do. I have so much else to say on the subject that I had decided to give it it’s own column later on this week. I’m begging you to check back for that one because those athletes deserve their due.