Did you see the women’s 100m sprint final? Shelly-Ann Fraser of Jamaica blasted away the field and won her first major event.10.78 seconds at just 21 years of age.
I think more inspiring was the exuberant celebration afterwards. Fraser skipped and pranced around the track laughing to herself. She was overjoyed.
During her interview with an NBC reporter, she talked about the pride of Jamaica. Then she burst out in a case of the giggles. I found myself laughing with her. She displayed a little bit of humility and genuine joy, rather than the arrogant cockiness that some of the male sprinters displayed.
The badminton I am familiar with is the backyard variety. A net set up in someone’s backyard. Team Middle Aged against Team Perky Youth. The birdie gets hit into trees, over fences, and more often than not gets stuck in someone’s racket.
Olympic badminton is a whole different bird game! This ain’t your backyard badminton. The gold medal match between Indonesia and China was really exciting. It was fast paced. I was amazed at how hard and fast they hit the birdie. It looked more like ping pong. They had several rallies where the birdie was hit 30-40 times in a row. Unbelievable!
It was fun to watch. I must admit I was happy to see Indonesia win, though I have no connections to the country. They hadn’t won a medal yet at these Olympics. It’s nice to see each country get at least one. They played well and they deserved it.
These guys are tough competitors. So, it was really nice to see a show of sportsmanship and goodwill during the Men’s Indidvidual All Around competition.
Gymnasts were competing on their own without their team mates to cheer them on. Each took their turn at the apparatus. Then something odd happened. The other gymnasts cheered for them. When they finished their turn and bounded down the steps to the chairs, the other participants and coaches from every country patted them on the back and shook their hand in encouragement.
It’s refreshing to me to see such comraderie at such a high level of competition. It was nice to see.
In what may be one of the finest moments that NBC neglected to show a gymnast not considered medal worthy took the bronze medal in the Mens Individual All Around competition.
The cameras and commentary were focused on Yang Wei of China, Kohei Uchimura of Japan, Jonathan Horton of the USA, Alexander Artemov of the USA, and Sergey Khorokhordin of Russia. Though Yang Wei was near perfect, it was a disastrous night for many in the competition. The pommel horse chewed up one gymnast after another. Uchimura was having a terrible start to the competition, but he wasn’t the only one. Falls and slip ups were common this night.
That opened the door for a relatively unknown gymnast, Benoit Caranobe, of France. While his routines weren’t considered as death defying as the other gymnasts, he executed them well. He was in third place after the third round. Fell in ranking in the fourth round. But, major missteps by other gymnasts allowed him to sneak in for the bronze when it was all said and done.
He sat on the side with his coaches, tears streaming down his face. It almost seemed that he would need a medic as he was so shocked to be medal winner.
Too bad NBC missed it. Their focus on who they thought was the best made them pass over the Frenchman. It wasn’t until around the fourth round that they realized he was in medal contention. They missed out on some great drama–and so did we.
Did you watch the opening ceremonies? China did a wonderful job of displaying their culture and heritage and making it entertaining.
I was intrigued by so many things. Each presentation was more awe inspiring than the previous one. The running man (former gymnast, Li Ning) was so cool. I wonder how long he trained so that it looked so smooth?
The entertainment is fine, but I think my favorite part was and always will be the parade of nations. I can’t help but get a tear in my eye for the country that sends one athlete or a repressive nation that is allowing it’s women to compete.
Perhaps the most touching moment of the night was when the little school boy joined Yao Ming as flag bearer. That boy survived the devastating earthquake this year. He was in one of the schools that collapsed. He saved two class mates because he was a hall monitor and “that’s what hall monitors do”. Yang Ming was big, but the little boy had a bigger heart.
Now it’s off to competition. Hopefully, we’ll see some wonderful displays of athleticism and sportsmanship (sportswomanship, too!) the next two weeks.
