Bush’s Golden Girls

The skies Thursday morning for the women’s beach volleyball final were gray and leaking. The air was heavy with foreboding, as if Mother Nature were ready to lend an assist in bringing down the indomitable United States team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh.

A near-sellout crowd braved a steady rain, wearing pastel-colored plastic ponchos that made the stands look like rows of dyed Easter eggs, to cheer on the Chinese team of Tian Jia and Wang Jie. They were No. 1 on the program because of a quirk in the international volleyball federation’s rules and No. 1 in the hearts of the home crowd, but a decided underdog to the defending Olympic champions.

May-Treanor and Walsh won their second gold medal, prevailing, 21-18, 21-18, at Chaoyang Park in a match that was every bit as close as the final score. The victory was their 108th in a row.

NYT report.

Usain Bolt, Insane Time – 200m WR

There will always be another. This is the eternal lesson of track and field. On a sweltering August night 12 years ago, Michael Johnson lashed the 200-meter world record to his back and seemed to drag it deep into the future. He ran 19.32 seconds, so fast that young men accepted that they would not see the record broken again in their lifetimes.

Usain Bolt was 9 years old on that night, growing up tall and skinny — “I was tall when I was little,” says Bolt — in Trelawny Parish on the north shore of Jamaica, an hour’s drive from the vacation resorts of Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. He loved to play cricket with his friends, and if he was talented, he was also a little lazy.

But one afternoon two years later, he ran too fast at a school field day and found himself on the track team, because Jamaica will compel a sprinter to sprint. Somewhere a clock began ticking, counting down the life of Johnson’s record, unseen and unknown, but inexorable.

At the age of 12, Bolt ran 52 seconds flat for 400 meters on a grass track in Manchester, Jamaica. He won the world junior 400-meter title at age 16, beating athletes who were four years older. He was impossibly precocious. “We knew what was coming,” said Bert Cameron, a Jamaican national coach who was also the 400-meter world champion in 1983.

On Wednesday night in the Olympic Stadium called the Bird’s Nest, Bolt ran 19.30 seconds to take down Johnson’s world record.

Great article in SI.

How much is Phelps worth?

A new race is now on for Mr. Phelps: the rush to transform the swimmer’s Olympic feat into a marketing juggernaut, akin to Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. But the window for marketing Olympians — even those with the rising stature of Mr. Phelps — can close fast. Many of the new legions of so-called Phelps Phans likely will not see his muscled torso in a pool again until 2012, an eternity for advertisers.

Even if all goes according to plan over the coming weeks and months, few expect Mr. Phelps to reach anywhere near the earnings of Mr. Woods. That’s because the golfer, who is estimated to make around $100 million annually from both his winnings and endorsements, is competing year in, year out on television.

By comparison, Mr. Phelps made an estimated $3 million to $5 million a year through his endorsements before these Games, a huge sum for an athlete in a sport rarely televised outside the Olympics.

Now that figure could double or more, as a result of his performance here, according to Mr. Carlisle.

“What is the value of eight golds in Beijing before a prime-time audience in the U.S?” asked Mr. Carlisle, riding in the back of a Volkswagen minivan through the streets of Beijing on Saturday. “I’d say $100 million over the course of his lifetime.”

WSJ.

Phelps 8 Spitz 7

Phelps v. Spitz: By the Numbers

Number of medals: Mr. Phelps exceeded Mr. Spitz’s seven by one, with two more men’s swimming golds available. He matched Mr. Spitz’s mark of seven world records.

Head to head: In their six common events, Mr. Spitz won by an average margin of 1.58%, compared to just 0.67% for Mr. Phelps. Mr. Spitz set world records in all six, by an average margin of 0.93% compared to the pre-Olympic records. Mr. Phelps set new marks in five of the six, for an average margin 0.75% faster than the previous standard.

Across all their events, Mr. Spitz’s average winning margin was 1.47%, compared to 0.86% for Mr. Phelps. Mr. Phelps’s new records exceeded the old by 0.7%, compared to 0.87% for Mr. Spitz.

Interesting analysis.

200m Final – Bolt to Showboat?

Bolt will be hot favourite to make it a golden sprint double at the Olympics Games in Beijing after cruising into the 200m final.

After winning the 100m in a world record 9.69 seconds, he jogged next to rival Shawn Crawford in the last 60m to win his semi-final in 20.09 secs.

BBC Video.

I think Bolt should run ‘through’ the line this time without celebrating during his race. You know what they say, ‘pride comes before a fall.’

I would hate to see Bolt trip over because he is trying to watch himself on the big screen while running…

I say go for the record – smash it - set a record that will never be beaten!

Current 200m WR holder, Johnson said “I’m ready to kiss it goodbye … if he keeps on doing what he’s doing.”

See 200m videos of Bolt and Johnson here.

Was Sotherton Lying?

The limits of prediction.

Great Britain’s heptathlete comes fifth.

I am no expert on lie detectors but what if someone genuinely believes something which is wrong?

I am sure many politicians would be found to be telling the ‘truth’ but this is different as we have seen from being ‘right.’

See Sotherton polygraph test here.

Patriotism – Why I love the Olympics

Most people will agree with me – they love the Olympics because it brings out a love for their country and the pride of being selected to represent their nation or to be able to support those selected.

I have had the privilege of wearing a Great Britain vest.

But, some people just don’t get it…

I would far rather patriotism being expressed through sport rather than war.

From the WSJ.

Assorted TV commentators keep opining that the Olympics are all about the brotherhood of man, rather than national ambition or patriotism. But don’t tell that to the fanatically nationalist Chinese — or to Kobe Bryant, the NBA star who is playing with Team USA in Beijing.

In an interview Friday on NBC, the world’s most famous basketball player told Chris Collinsworth how he got “goosebumps” when he received his Olympics uniform. “I actually just looked at it for a while. I just held it there and I laid it across my bed and I just stared at it for a few minutes; just because as a kid growing up this is the ultimate, ultimate in basketball.” The Los Angeles Laker went on to call the U.S. “the greatest country in the world. It has given us so many great opportunities, and it’s just a sense of pride that you have; that you say, ‘You know what? Our country is the best.’”

Mr. Collinsworth seemed either startled or impressed by such sentiment, and asked, “Is that a cool thing to say in this day and age? That you love your country, and that you’re fighting for the red, white and blue? It seems sort of like a day gone by.”

To which Mr. Bryant replied: “No, it’s a cool thing for me to say. I feel great about it, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I mean, this is a tremendous honor.”

Can you beat Bolt?

Great video – your chance to beat the world’s fastest man….be sure to share it!

He is a funny guy…

More ‘Chasing Bolt’ on YouTube.

ChasingBolt.com

Bolt to Victory

Wow.

An incredible margin of victory for this incredible runner. Will anyone go faster?!

Not long ago, it was thought a time like this would not be possible – athletes had reached their peak with modern science and training programmes.

True – but you can never underestimate ‘natural talent’ the gift with which an individual is born. Science and coaches can only work with what they have got.

Will anyone run sub 9.0 in time?

Watch video here on BBC player.

The Glory of Just Showing Up

For many small nations, the Olympic experience lasts only a few minutes

Aishath Reesha, a 19-year-old 800-meter runner, had just finished practice at the Chaoyang Sports Center, a proletarian track sequestered from the Olympic mobs. She sat with her back to a recently whitewashed wall, an ice-pack on her neck, and watched as a French sprinter sped past.

“We can’t compete with people from other worlds,” she said in a whisper. “I’m not scared. My goal is to better my personal best.”

Ms. Reesha is from Maldives, a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean with a population of 379,000, per capita income of $4,600, and a serious worry about being washed away. Her personal best in the 800-meter race is 2:32.97; the Olympic record is more than 38 seconds faster.

“We are not qualified for the Olympics,” said her coach, whose name is Ahmed Faail. He was standing over Ali Shareef, his 100-meter runner, who was on flat on his back with a leg in the air. Mr. Faail was helping him work out a kink. “In the heats there are people with a lot of experience,” he said. “We will not be winning heats.”

Among the 222 countries that have sent athletes to the modern Games since 1896, only 130 have brought a medal home.

What’s billed as a meet for the fittest in truth has a second division of schlumps. Every nation is encouraged with money and training programs to send one man and one woman, even if they don’t have a soul who qualifies. The IOC doesn’t tally how many of the 10,500 athletes here get in that way, but they appear to number at least in the hundreds. Most end up swimming or running, activities where being inept doesn’t automatically result in broken necks.

Olympic universality has bred a line of famous bunglers, from Wym Essajas of Suriname, who missed his 800-meter heat in 1960, to Eric Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea, who took nearly two minutes to swim 100 meters in 2000. Yet for all its promotion of participation, the IOC gives its losers no glory: Its history-packed Web site displays only winning countries and their medal counts.

Asked where to find lists of also-rans, an IOC press officer suggests sending an email to its information center. It’s the sort of reply that’s long griped a small international club of amateur statistics nuts calling themselves the Oly Madmen. Led by Bill Mallon, a shoulder surgeon in Durham, N.C., the Madmen have spent five years building an easy-to-manipulate database that comprises every run, jump, throw, dive and somersault in Olympic history. It folds in Hector Hatch’s ninth-place welterweight boxing tie for Fiji in 1956, and the 51st-place mixed-free-pistol finish Aferdita Tusha racked up for Albania in 1972. The Madmen have compiled the records of 110,000 Olympic athletes and are at work on thumbnail biographies for each one; so far, they’ve done 24,000. WSJ.