overheard in providence

Since my last post, in which I heralded the arrival of the 2008 Olympics, this blog has been inundated with over 2 comments. The most recent comment even contained the word “Olympic”. Either America has a bad case of Olympic fever or this blog’s popularity just skyrocketed. Either way, the only sensible course of action is to kick things up a notch with some in depth, olympic-sized commentary on my olympic-filled weekend.

• Swimming: In terms of raw Olympic excitement, swimming has so far been the highlight. Thanks to the introduction of the Speedo’s LZR swimsuit (as well as Beijing’s top notch pool), world records are being broken in spades. In last night’s 4 x 100 men’s freestyle relay, for instance, the top 5 teams all broke the previous world record. Even better, the US team, which completely smashed the world record by nearly 4 seconds, pulled out a dramatic come-from-behind victory by overtaking France in the final split second (apparently France had been quite confident about it’s chance at victory), and in so doing kept alive hopes of Michael Phelps winning a record 8 gold medals. What’s more, this dramatic race was broadcast live at 11:30 last night, a rarity given the 12 hour time difference (related fact: China, which is as long as the US, uses only one timezone).
• Volleyball: NBC has been broadcasting quite a bit of volleyball, an excellent sport which is having its most exciting century ever thanks to its switch to “rally scoring” in 2000 (meaning a team no longer has to be serving to score). One problem with volleyball is that anytime you get a chance to play it, it’s usually with a sizable chunk of people who don’t know how to hit a volleyball (it’s “bump, set, spike” folks, come on), but at the olympic level they don’t seem to have that problem.

  Also, since 1996 the Olympics have featured beach volleyball, which is definitely one of the “cool” summer olympic sports. It’s set on a beach, the player’s outfits keep things casual, and there are, apparently, cheerleaders in bikinis. Beach volleyball is also genuinely exciting to watch (much more diving than most terrestrial sports), and this weekend it just so happened to feature a stunning upset in which the US team (reigning world champions) lost to Latvia (the 23rd seed out of 24 teams). Fear not, though, our boys on the beach have since trounced Switzerland in straight-set blowout.

• Badminton: Like volleyball, badminton involves a net, but the similarities stop there. For one, badminton is one of the few summer sports in which the US has never one a medal (the other two are table tennis and team handball). Sadly, based on the events of this weekend (and today), it doesn’t look like that’s about to change. Part of the problem, I think, is that many American’s view badminton as tantamount to croquet, or possibly horseshoes, in terms of it’s potential athletic prowess. In contrast, many Asian nations take the sport quite seriously, which why China has gone out of its way to construct one of the finest badminton venues ever built. As NBC’s announcers have been quick to point out, the gym, located at the Beijing University of Technology, has been specially built to keep airflow below 0.5 mph, but at the same time maintain a cool temperature. To accomplish this, over 9000 vents are located under the spectators’ seats. Badminton (and perhaps table tennis?), may be a tad delicate for America’s tastes.

  Additional Badminton Fact: In badminton you hit a shuttlecock, which according to the internet consists of a piece of cork embedded with 16 overlapping feathers from the left wing of a goose.

• Equestrian: I don’t actually know anything about equestrian events, but I was watching dressage for like 15 minutes at some point, and there were a couple of observations I wanted to put out there. 1) The apparel for this event seems oddly formal for a summer sport (it’s kind of the anti-beach volleyball). 2) There is a 67 year old competing. In contrast, swim fans get all excited when a 41 year old competes, and in women’s gymnastics, 31 is ancient. 3) Equestrian sports are the only sports in which Men and Women compete against each other. 4) Horses have passports, and from what I can gather, they appear to be a good deal larger than human passports.

Update: Croquet, it turns out, was an event in the first Olympics, along with some other odd choices.