Olympics - some of the events

Ok when I think "Handball" I think of two or four people in a room with a glass back, everyone wearing fingerless gloves and taking turns whacking the little black or blue ball against the from wall ...

Well apparently "Handball" is what they call Water-Polo during a drought ... Below is a photo of what I'm talking about

YEAH

Got to watch us win two more gold tonight!

But watching the local forecast I see that Vancouver is going to be getting into the 50's this weekend -- YIKES

This is going to make the cross-country/down hill events very interesting - they are in horrid conditions now (did you see how many of the gals wiped out on the downhill today????) I have to think they will only get worse from here.

The commentators were commenting that the ice for the speed skaters is really slow because it is so close to sea-level and they were having such a tough time with the equipment to maintain it, that there didn't think there would be any world records being broken this Olympics.

I'm thinking we will see several events not being able to be completed before the end of games -- what a shame! But in Winter games, if its too warm for some sports, what can you do?

2010 Winter Olympics

Rats - we are second for the medal count, and there is like a 3 way tie for first if you go just by gold medals, and we are behind them .... boo hoo.

That said -- I just heard a story about female ski jumpers sueing the IOC in Canadian court based on discrimination. They did win the case but the court admitted that they had no power to compell the Olympics to include them.

i did not realize that there was no female ski jumpers - I always assumed that it was simply a sport i didn't watch ... I don't watch a lot of the ski events so it wouldn't surprise me if I missed it.

So why aren't there any? Well I guess in 2006 one of the members of the IOC said that 'it wasn't appropriate from a medical point of view' === WHAT???? what the heck is that supposed to mean? Some said there weren't enough "good" female jumpers == yeah, right -- and there aren't any good female snowboarder or free-style mogulers either, huh??

Christophe Dubi, an IOC official said at a press conference when asked about this question:
" What an Olympic medal is about is to be the Best of the Best among a large number of participants" um, Fox News says there are 16 countries with female jumpers that add up to at least 160 - that's more females than participate in Luge & Bobsled ... take that!

In the youth Olympic games 2 yrs from now they will let the girls jump - but not women. (insert eye roll here)

Another official said that it simply is not safe for women to ski jump ....

it is however safe for them to speed skate .... luge at 90mph ... bobsled at 100mph ... get thrown around the ice skating rink ... fence ... kick-box ... weight-lift ... skeet shoot ... jump horses ... flip around those parallel bars ... jump from a high dive ... etc. oh and in the up-coming summer Olympics they will be allowed in the boxing ring.

but ski jumping is "too dangerous" ... get real!

Why not just have competitions then like ... tea service ... dish washing ... bed making ... crocheting & needle pointing ... and baby birthing! Don't get me wrong, I understand that these can actually be seen as real sports (well maybe not the baby birthing - but there are a few shows out there that make it seem that way) BUT I'm just saying that the IOC has a very very OUTDATED veiw of women.

and you would expect them to do better ... especially considering the oath they take at the beginning of the games ...

oh - and the committee that decides the events for the ski portion? ALL MEN!!

Olympics: BMX

Okay so this time around they are demonstrating 'bmx supercross' ... youngest son is into watching those Xgame things on the weekends, so I thought i'd check it out (somehow this sounds so familiar - I'm having deja vu) ,,.. any how - so they are showing the shots between races of the guys on their bikes.

I am laughing my ass off right now -- these are grown men riding on what looks like bikes made for 8 yr olds, their knees are up near their chests ... but that's not what's making me laugh - although it is hilarious ... no, its the shot they got of one of the guys riding away.

his butt looked so big on that little bitty seat that it looked like he was trying to wear it as a thong .... oh my gods ... I swear one bad bounce and they were going to have to do a bicectomy on the guy.

Olympics: observation

Okay so I am watching the internet Live broadcast of the Tae Kwon Do matches ... its the little guys (at least thats what the commentator is calling them) ... the contestants for Brazil and Iran just came in.

You know the gals that hold the signs with the countries abbrev. on them? well the one gal must not have moved far enough out of the way for the one team because they rudely - very rudely in my opinion - walked thru her, no 'excuse me', no apologies after wards -- but they did give her a nasty look.

I was wondering if it was a cultural thing though - because it was the Iranian team.

To me there was no reason they couldn't go around the gal ... there was nothing blocking their path, the camera guy was in the front and they had more than enough room behind them -- but no they were going to walk in one path and one path only, damn to who was in their way.

what a bunch of jerks. wish I could rewind the footage and check it out again just to make sure it wasn't by accident, but it really didn't look like it.

OlympicsL Gmnastics, Team - women

Okay so I have always had a love of the gymnastics - it started before kindergarten when my brother, who was 10 yrs older than I, joined the high school gymnastics team ... well that's actually kind of misleading because our school went from grades 7 - 12 and the coach let him start a tad early because he loved it so much.

my folks often told the story of how I insisted that I get a set of white underwear just like my brother - they even had a photo of he & I - he in his uniform tights, me in my white tights, white gotchas, and my white sleeveless t-shirt tucked into the gotchas ... well they used to have a photo of it.

When I was 16 my brother found a huge gaudy locket in silver that he had picked up at some garage sale (my family loved garage sales ... with 7 kids you had to) and gave it to me - well at least that's the way I remember it ... he might think differently. Any how .... I took that photo and made sure I put it in that particular locket.

In high school I wanted to be on the gymnastic team so badly, even though I could tumble worth spit .... I loved the horse though, and the beam ... but I had very bad vision and very thick glasses (1/2" on the edges, 1/16" in the center) and mom silently discouraged the gym teacher from letting me try for much outside of what was necessary for classroom credit.

How I missed it all ... I did get to stay for a while after school and give it a go -- we had a transfer student and Ms. Cebela realy encouraged her, and often paired us together (I thought it was so she could work with me a bit) ... but alas - no gynnastics for me. [sigh] so now I am forced (?) to watch it every four years and think 'what if'...

Now I'm watching the Olympics in Bejing .... and I'm watching the routines of both China and USA .... and the scoring is amazing me. China and the USA teams went neck and neck thru the whole thing - they were paired up for the rounds and they kept pace with each other....until the balance beam.

Then I saw a big difference in how the teams were being scored (first, let me get this out of the way -- if the one girl is 16 sometime this year I'm a gold medal olympian myself) ... on the beam the China girls were doing an AWFUL lot of balance checks that should have been .1pts off for each one, one gal should have lost an entire pt because of the number of checks.

We had, okay okay, USA had some real issues including a fall off the beam (as did the Chinese) but the routines were strong, difficulty was great and except for one where there was a single step, all the landings were stuck.

The unevens - wonderful job by both teams. I did think the small (questionable aged) girl could have straightened out those handstands a bit more, but it may have been the camera angle.

The floor routines - omgs...did the judges totally ignore all the balance steps of the last Chinese tumblist??? it was incredible - I thought for sure we had it all locked up with those wabbles.

But China took it ... we got silver. I'm sorry - but I've got to think that the olympic judges are really pandering to China when it comes to the objective scoring, not just in gymnastics either...in the archery rounds I saw there were shots that were 'lines' but clearly on the smaller score yet they were given that higher score (giving a 9 instead of the 8).

Oh well - we are cleaning up in swimming ... where Phelps won a gold medal with his eyes shut - literally - his goggles kept filling with water so he swam most of the way with his eyes closed so they wouldn't get burned by the clorine `` amazing! i just hope it doesn't turn out that he is taking anything that will get him suspended or stripped of his medals.

Let's see the real picture here.

Russian troops begin ground invasion of Georgia as defiant Putin lashes out at U.S News This is London:

"Earlier in the day, Russian premier Vladimir Putin raised the stakes over the
conflict by lashing out at the U.S. as the fighting continued to escalate in the
region.
The Russian prime minister rejected calls from Georgia for a
ceasefire and declared that his country would pursue its mission to its 'logical
conclusion'."

We are friends with Georgia, yes. But we are also friends with Russia these days. And Putin has to agree that with the Georgian government called 'uncle' they can let go now -- but instead are pushing and pushing and pushing .... but that's okay, just point the finger at the by-standers.

Even if the US did get involved, its not like there is a civil war going on there anyways - well I guess there kind of is, but its being trumped by the Russian invasion of the area.

Not only does this move of Russia's effect Georgia, but it also upsets the bordering countries of Turkey (our ally) and Akbanikrigistan (okay, I can't remember the name of the other country off hand - but its one of those many 'stans' over there) ... Aberbijan,maybe? ... because the Russian's have taken to trying to destroy the oil pipeline that runs thru the three coutries!

now the pipeline is no where near where the conflict is and is well within Georgian territory so should be no question about this being a total raid by Russia! They are occupying the territory like they did Afghanistan.

So what events do the 26 Georgian athletes compete in?

Archery (two)

Volleyball, Beach (team of 5)

Boxing (2)

Gymnastics (1 male)

Judo (6)

Swimming (2)

Trampoline (3) 'this is an olympic event?'

Wrestling (5)

Well - it will be interesting to see what will happen with the wrestling tonight if the Georgian Wrestlers get matched up with the Russians -- I don't think they will be as forgiving as the women pistol shooters (GEO took gold bronze, RUS took silver ... I wonder if it would have been different if the GEO had taken the gold?).

While part of me knows that the athletes are not responsible for the actions of their government, and that it shouldn't be taken out on the Olympians from Russia - part of me wants the Olympic committee to go 'oops, sorry - your country screwed up, you need to go now'. And then too, part of me wants to see the athletes take it out on each other = I'm so mean.

The really sad part about it (well besides the loss of life) is that Russia is so much stronger than GEO forces -- not just by 100s but by 1000s! I wish I could pop over the chart I found on the web last night (its unlinkable) ... it showed that GEO has only 4 aircraft carriers while Russia has like 600 or something, and while GEO has <20 tanks Russia has thousands of them!