In rowing, the US women's 8 w/cox just won the gold medal.

They won by almost a boat length.

Freakin' awesome.

iembalm wrote:

Christopher J. McGarvey wrote:I hope Michael Phelps gets eaten by a shark.

The shark would have to catch that motherfucker first. Maybe if it was right after breakfast.

He is supposedly going on vacation with us this winter. I can always chum the waters before he goes in the ocean.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:

iembalm wrote:

Christopher J. McGarvey wrote:I hope Michael Phelps gets eaten by a shark.

The shark would have to catch that motherfucker first. Maybe if it was right after breakfast.

He is supposedly going on vacation with us this winter. I can always chum the waters before he goes in the ocean.

You know, I don't visit cemeteries when I go on holiday; I would be surprised if Phelps goes anywhere near the water on his.

I swam for 10 years, and it's nice to see the sport get attention. I don't think people appreciate how damn hard it is to be a good swimmer, especially in a variety of different strokes (I never really was a good one). I also actually enjoy watching sports, so I don't mind the olympics.

Watching women's steeplechase at the moment. This strikes me as a dumb sport. Anyone with me on this?

On the subject of 'Nationalism Done Right / Patriotic Bullshit', the back page of the Daily Mail this morning describes 'Team GB' as "Victorious On Land And Sea".

Don't care about this shit. Ants are ten-thousand times as strong as we are. I feel no need to be so human-centric.

I couldn't give a toss about the Olympics, but I've been vaguely following GDP and population adjusted medal tables - they're pretty interesting.

Looks like North Korea are winning the GDP adjusted medals table, and Jamaica the population adjusted table.

Still, given the money, CRAP.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:Which is absurd considering that (at least with softball), it's due to American domination. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't that also eliminate basketball? Oh, right. But those are superstar men so the same argument doesn't hold sway.

The US men's basketball team has gotten their ass handed to them many times in int'l competition.

I mean, it's not going to happen this year. But it happens.

This weekend, a friend suggested a convincing criterion for a sport's eligibility for the Olympics: a sport should only be eligible if an Olympic gold medal in that sport would represent the highest single achievement in that sport. Or, to put it in more personal terms, within that sport an athlete's highest aspiration would be to win a gold medal.

Somewhat difficult to gauge, but I liked it.