I'm trying to finish a little piece with palm trees but not getting very far.
And which sports are you watching. I'm watching the swimming, the gymnastics and equestrian (when I can find it). I'll watch the track and field stuff when that coverage starts.
- I stayed up to watch the Men's 100M relay swim; I'm rooting for Phelps to beat Mark Spitz record for gold medals in an Olympics even if I think Mark Spitz is cuter
DS is making all sorts of comments about the Chinese female gymnasts - mostly that none of them look 16 more like 10 or 11. Told him that he should read (gasp, read a book) Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. It's about the training figure skaters and gymnasts go through and I can't imagine the Chinese are more gentle and certainly aim for the "girls in boys bodies" look. Most of the other teams seem to truly have 16+ girls on them. The Germans have a woman in her 30's and she was great.
I'm watching anything Olympic, although I miss the time when all but some Communist teams were amateurs.
Don't you just love the cutaways to his mother in the stands? He might be an arrogant SOB in the swimming world but at least he says his success wouldn't have been possible without her.
As the mother of a former gymnast, I can vouch for training routines that might stafe off development and puberty. When my daughter's hormones finally kicked in, she grew 4 inches in a few months. Despite the possibility that their training has delayed maturation, the very gifted Chinese girls, imnsho, are definitely not 16.
So far I am trying to watch, but the coverage of beach volleyball seems to be overly obvious. I can't find the equestrian, the swmming is obnoxious with all the tabloid reporting, who cares, and the coverage is disgusting once again. So I am bored to tears.
One of those Chinese gymnasts looks ten years old and she is not the only one. The pressure to win is not making it any fun to watch. Competition has become the sport, not the actual event.
I am tired of men havinig suits which cover their ass cracks, but everry woman's event has them barely covering their crotch. I have no idea how they are scoring using the new system, and I don't hear anyone explaininng it, either.
Then there's the very unsportsmanship comments by the French and the whole thing is just a big bore.
Have to admit, we actually stayed up watching swimming last night. And while I love France, the US win in the mens 4X100 relay was awesome. Just that you could suddenly see when it seemed hopeless, the anchor guy, Lyzak, just reach into his gut and pull it off - with an amazing world record split. And those stunned French guys - learned the "don't give the opponents words for the bulletin board" trash talk lesson. Very prevalent in hockey - as in telling kids you coach to keep their mouths shut!
Watched tennis at 6 a.m. Watched gymnastics last night. Our take in this household - some brave, likely to be imprisoned, Chinese journalist will eventually talk to the parents of some of those little girls and find out they're no more than 13 - but it will be in months after they medal. They are phenomenally talented - but seriously, at least 3 of those girls in no way appear even close to turning 16 in this year.
LOL - see above. My babysitters when we first moved to FL were swimmers. One was an alternate for Mexico City (diving), the younger sister swam. They actually got me to my first competitive AAU team as a tyke. I don't think I ever thought Mark Spitz was really cute, but, what the heck. Must say, I'd rather see swimmers in some of these interesting technical suits than little speedos. May be bad memories of my last assistant swim coach - parading around in his tiny orange speedo - and nearly breaking my wrist on backstroke turns (in the olden days we weren't allowed to turn over and do the front flip/turn going under).
Great story about the 33 yold German - who is really an ex-pat fram Uzbekiztan or some other FSU - that couldn't get medical treatment for her son with leukemia - so hooked up with the German coach (likely another ex-pat) who was her friend, went to Germany, trained, got her son healthy, changed citizenship.
The Chinese are still one of the remaining governments that takes very young kids and puts them into away from family strictly athletic school/life. Even though most of these young athletes end up in very time consuming, often away from home, training regimens - I think in the west, they're not moving out from home til around 12,13. These Chinese girls probably know nothing but gymnastics since age 3, barely knowing their parents. Oh, well. At least they don't look like men - or the old German & Soviet athletes of the 60s-70s.
All my serious tennis pals just played a lot during the year (3-4 hours a day), more on weekends, then went to tennis camp during the summmer. The living at tennis camp thing is a more recent phenom - but even then - they don't usually go until somewhere around 13 for the year round thing. One of our friends (hockey ref, ex-pat Russian) - his daughter is world-ranked in top10-15 depending. When she was still in the 16 & under group they had to decide what to do with her. Mom still in Russia. So, ended up with her here in the states, she turned pro at 16, gets tutoring, and is training out of a specialty sports facility by U MD (head guy used to be the CAPS strength guy, former Olympian in T&F). It's a tough life - but they've balanced it. Cracks us up when we see Vera on TV - she looks just like her dad.
I watch it all! The Olympics is one time the TV is almost never turned off and I get a lot of stuff done -- stock-making, laundry caught up, bread baked, etc. I also manage to knit a sweater, crochet an afghan, or make major progress on a quilt!
Of course, around here in the metro dc area & Baltimore he's well loved. Also, I think it's Katie Hoff who is local - from Great Falls. He certainly seems a decent enough guy. FWIW - I think with world class athletes they all share some of that ego, arrogance or whatever - necessary to psychologically make yourself push beyond.
The other thing, with all those girls who live/train together - the phenomenon of their menstrual cycles synching, or lack thereof. I always think gymnastics is so amazing. DH & I were talking about this - when I was in 10h grade, our gym teacher decided we had to do a semester of gymnastics. We'd always done probably 6 weeks from elementary thru middleschool, but. In this case we actually had to do a basic balance beam routine, vaults (of course) and....parallel bars - both the boys even ones, and girls uneven. I still can't believe that I made it thru the balance beam - the "hard" move - being squatting down on one leg, doing the other leg swing alongside and turn. Of course, I think our phys-ed class was the section with all the supposed athletes - hah. It was fun - but not something I'd be doing again. And certainly added to my admiration for the gymmnasts.
Of course we're watching the swimming at our house. . .
That relay was incredible. We were all cheering at our house. Hard to stitch and watch though, because those races are so FAST. Those Lazr suits really are making a difference.
We also cheered when we heard the Latvian men beat USA in beach volleyball - my parents were both born there so it's part of our heritage and just not something you would expect them to excel at LOL!
I made a commitment to only work on one of two pieces during the Olympics. My now very old Celtic Christmas and Amethyst Dreams. Slow going on the Celtic girl. I've been forcing myself to do the beading down the sides. That's where I bogged down years ago. She's been on scroll rods since 1998.
LOL - I feel better now! Just got back from day of errands, and setting up for the 2nd round of Amethyst Dreams. Settling the job situation. And, maybe I'll go stitch this evening - or in a while. So much to do.
There was one Chinese female gymnist who was given over to the government to train and a while back she begged to be back with her family and was denied. They showed her routines last night and claimed she is now twenty years old. She looked 13.
I think this insane, frivilous training regimens are not healthy. I understand why we have the sport, but to completely stop your growth, stop menses due to no body fat and disrupt your ability to develop your body is a bit frightening to me.
I totally agree. And I was completely appalled that they put on television that Michael Phelps' coach basically said at age 11 it was time to start training him for the Olympics. I know a few parents who are convinced that their child is headed their - one has SERIOUSLY talked about moving to CO Springs to be part of the team there so they can train at the Olympic Development facility. The kid is 10. His parents are very average sized. He may be a phenom of sorts now but who knows what is going to happen when he hits puberty. I already know a couple of kids who did fizzle at 13.
My dd's swimming routine is enough for now. I don't think she needs to add to it yet. A week at swim camp - maybe. Moving? No way.
Certainly not at that age. Personally, to take this issue further, China made an agreement with the IOC that they would completely address and fix their human rights issues, their manufacturing torture projects where children work 14 hours a day and live in appalling conditions in the city heat, bunks three high, three feet apart, etc. They have not done anything they agreed to do so they are breaking their contract with the IOC. Let's see what happens. Geeze I am just in a conundrum about this.
I have the cheap cable selection, so I only get NBC proper, Telemundo and USA. Whoever's broadcasting is who I have on.
I impress myself with how much of the Spanish I understand on Telemundo. :) My "huh" moments seem to be limited to the occasional word that I don't know, rather than that an entire sentence has whished past me with no comprehension.
In preparation for this, I had, on Opening Day, downloaded a Spanish-language newspaper that had a schedule, so I could at least puzzle out/look up the names of the sports before it started. Now if only Telemundo and the newspaper would use the same name for the events! (Escuestra (sp?) and equitacion are the same thing, I have discovered, but only because Telemundo had a picture of a horsey on the screen when they were discussing the one I couldn't puzzle out without a dictionary!)
I can vouch for it, too. I was so overactive/underweight as a result of dancing hours per day that I was an extremely late bloomer.
I also agree that I have some serious doubts about some of those Chinese girls. Someone claims to have found birth records that would make one of them 14. I'm not even sure I buy that. I have my money on 10-12.
German TV had an interview with a couple of "female" East German athletes a couple months ago. They say they were given "vitamin pills" by the team doctor, no idea what they were taking. Being good little Communists, they did what they were told and took the pills without asking questions.
As adults, one got so frustrated with being called a man in a dress that she simply decided to dress as a man and not have to explain all the time. Another went all the way and had sex change surgery. Another died quite young of something likely caused by the steroids.
Our TV hasn't been switched on for almost a year. We hear about the Olympics on the radio and read about the Olympics but our newspapers are usually a couple of days late in arriving. We don't feel particularly deprived...
My freshman roommate had been a gymnast -- quite good apparently, many hours a week in the gym. Both her parents were petite, so it was no concern to anyone that she was short. However, senior year of HS she blew out her knee, had surgery, and during the recuperation period when she was not allowed to do gymnastics, she put on a lot of weight, most of it in the chest.
When she got back to the gym, she found out that it's extremely difficult to do gymnastics when your balance has to compensate for a pair of Ds up front. End of gymnastics career.
You are not missing anything; if you were in the States. The coverage, as usual, stinks. I really don't like Bob Costas nor do I care for the smarmy commentary and ongoing and very annoying reporting on the details of just a few people.
It's not Phelps' fault, but this is an American swim team. It's not the Phelps team. He's a nice kid and I'm happy he is winning. The NBC coverage, not so much.
Wow, how long was the recuperation for her to go from boy to D's? The problem is that many kids do not come out of it. When you delay it, it can cause the body to stunt forever.
My point is not to slam the sport. But this pushing and pushing and pushing is not healthy. When Olga Corbet and Nadia were in the sport and you could get a 10, it was fun to watch. Now the judges are not impartial, do carry prejudice, will react based on the home court effect and any number of things.
I also was a dancer when I was a kid. My body was a far cry from the body I have now by a hundred pounds. That said, I was injured under normal training circumstances with a lumbar sacral sprain an it ended my dreams. Shortly after that I was firmly diagnosed as having FMS by my pediatrician. Back then it was a wastebasket diagnosis, but it was correct. Eh, now I'm making this about me...I'm going to hush up now! LOL
InspirePoint website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.