2008 Olympics

As all of you may know, 2008 olympics have started since Friday (8/8/08). I'm not really an olympics fan or have never been excited to watch it. But somehow I've been watching it everyday this year since it started on Friday with the opening ceremony. It's been like an addiction. As soon as I get home from work, the first thing I tune in is the olympics channel...no matter what sport is competing. BTW, I got to tell you that the opening ceremony in Beijing was pretty amazing. I was really impressed with the whole olympic enviornment whether it was the performances delivered by 15,000 performers, the stadium look, or the audience and the backdrop of chinese culture was fantastic.

So far I've watched the following sports where US is competing against another country:
Swimming:
I saw live competition of Michale Phelps 400 m individual medley where he won the gold medal. It was pretty amazing. As soon as he got in the water, he was ahead of everyone and his timing made it to second world record. As of today (8/11/08), he won 3 gold medals!!! Also I saw the female 400 m backstroke which was cool and US won gold and bronze medal in that one too.

OMG! Michale Phelps is on FIRE!!
After Yesterday's (8/12/08) swims, 200m butterfly and 4x200m relay, add two more gold medals to Phelps' achievements!! So far 5 gold medals won and 3 more to go. He's on his way to break the world record to get 8 gold medals in one olympics :). Luckily NBC is showing the live telecast of swimming competition from two days at night so it's so much fun. Don't forget to tune in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for his other 3 swims!! Go Michale Phelps!!!!!

After Thursday's (8/14/08) 200m individual medly, Phelps won his 6th gold medal making world records in all of his races.

Friday's (8/15/08) 100m butterfly race was quite interesting to see. If you didn't see it, the race was very tight in the last 15 m where phelps beat the participant from Australia (I think?) by 1/100th of a second and won his 7th gold medal. With this gold medal, he has tied with another 1972 olympian who also won 7 gold medals in one olympic.
Here are my thoughts on the 100m race. I could see that phelps swam really fast in the last 5-10 m to get ahead of Milorad Cavic but I am having hard time believing that Milorad didn't touch the wall before Michael Phelps. I didn't believe when they showed on TV that phelps touched the wall first and I certainly thought that they cheated somehow to get Phelps his 7th gold medal. BUT, when they showed the underwater video of both swimmers touching the wall, you can somewhat see that even though Milorad had his hands near the wall, phelps' hands came super fast from the sides and touched the wall. I have to see the video couple more times to actually get it into my system that phelps won!! I'm a Michael Phelps fan after watching all his races in 2008 olympics but still the fact is hard to believe :P.

AND Michael Phelps has won his 8th gold medal in his last swim!!!!! In history of 112 olympics, he's the first olympian to win 8 gold medals in one olympics!!!! Go Michael Phelps!! Now that he won't be swimming any more I don't know what's left to see in the olympics game :P.

And for my earlier statement regarding his 7th gold medal which he won by 1/100th of a second, I'm not going to think anymore about it on who touched the wall first because since the difference is 1/100th of a second, it's nearly impossible for a human eye to catch which swimmer touched the finish wall first. So I think anything is possible in that 1/100th of a second. I'm just really happy that Phelps won 8th medal and made his dream a reality on this olympics :).

Women's Beach Volleyball:
This one I've been watching since saturday when they first started playing. In Yesterday's match, Misty May and Karen walsh won against Cuba. This is a really cool game to watch because it kinda keeps you on your toes. You never know who'll snatch the game point when and how. This game has so much interaction which makes it more exciting.

Men's and Women's Gymnastics:
This one I've been watching on and off, so don't really know where US stands in this sport.

Men's Synchronized diving:
This was alright for some countries while other countries like China or Russia were 99% synchronized in their diving. One advantage of watching this sport from home is that once they dive, the recap is shown from like 4 different angles and in slow motion as well where you can clearly see the different timings of actions taken by both team members.

So if you haven't tuned in to the olympics channel yet, do that and I'm sure you'll find a sport that won't let you move away from your seat.

PS: I'll update this post on regular basis if I can on olympics for the games I watch. So come back to read more if you're interested in Olympics news :P. I'm telling you I'm addicted to this thing. I was really sleepy yesterday (8/12) but didn't want to go to bed until NBC showed the Michale Phelps 4x200m relay LIVE!