That Opening Ceremony last night was certainly spectacular. The highlight had to be the Queen and James Bond, but I also loved that unique way of lighting the cauldron. After all that back-and-forth about who would be the final torchbearer, the answer ended up being "None of the above." The slogan of the London Games is Inspire a Generation. No better way to do that than having seven young athletes do the honors. It was also cool that they turned those 204 bowl-things into the Olympic Cauldron, although I'm kind of confused as to how it'll be displayed prominently for all to see throughout the Games. In Vancouver, they had a second caludron located at a different place in the city. No indication of something like that in London, but they have to do something.
Then today the Games got underway with wall-to-wall action. Literally. NBC is offering every event live online for the first time, but with the amount of coverage that was on the air today, I'm not really sure how much that's needed. On the various NBC TV networks, I've watched swimming, cycling, basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball, archery, fencing, soccer, tennis, rowing, handball, badminton and table tennis today alone, with gymnastics and weightlifting both on tap later. I did take advantage of the opportunity to watch the swimming finals live online, though.
I don't know if it's just me or if they've been having problems all day, but watching online wasn't easy. I continually had buffering and freezing problems and had to reboot several times. That could be a major issue for NBC if I'm not the only person that happened to. Regardless, when I was able to watch it, I thought the online coverage was very good. All they're doing is picking up the world feed, but they have a picture-in-picture type thing and everything was archived right away.
As for the competition on Day One, NBC got going early, coming on the air at 5 a.m. for live coverage of the men's road race. Now, the men's road race is traditionally one of the first events of the Olympics, but am I the only person who thinks it was unfair to make these guys compete on the first day? A good number of them were in the Tour de France, a three-week race that ended on Sunday. The Olympic road race is basically a stage of the Tour de France, except slightly longer. With the end of the Tour and the start of the Olympics so close to each other, I would've given the athletes a little more time off.
For all the stink that was made in the British media about the new rule that women's beach volleyball players are no longer required to wear bikinis, it all seems to be (in the words of Shakespeare) much ado about nothing. There were six women's matches today, and 10 of the teams wore bikinis. The only ones that didn't were Kerri and Misty (who wore bikini bottoms and long-sleeved tops) and the Australian team that they played against. At NBC's request, that match started at 11 p.m. local time. When it was probably in like the mid-60s. Be careful what you wish for, NBC. And since the Walsh/May match is being shown on tape in primetime anyway, what difference did it make what time it started?
Wimbledon looks weird. They said that the grounds would look different for the Olympics, and they weren't lying. Instead of the traditional green, the walls are pink. Instead of white, the players are wearing all different colors. The scoreboards even look different. I know it's not Wimbledon, but I still had to do a double-take. I'm impressed with the way the courts look, though. All of the grass on the outer courts looks like it does at the start of Wimbledon, and the grass on the baseline at Centre Court is only slightly chewed up (it's in the same condition as Wednesday at Wimbledon).
Regardless of Wimbledon's makeover, these Games promise to be memorable if for no other reason than all the historic venues. The road race began and ended at Buckingham Palace. Beach volleyball is being played at Horse Guards Parade, which is where the Queen's Jubilee celebration was held. Indoor volleyball at Earls Court, a venue in which every British rock artist/group has performed. Archery's in the centuries-old Lord's Cricket Ground. Oh yeah, and rowing's at Eton Dorney, which is located at Eton College, where Princes William and Harry went to school. And that's just some of them!
In all the team sports that started today (basketball, volleyball and handball), it was the women in action. As a result, the men's finals in those three sports will be on the last day of the Games. Why not stagger it a little bit? Have at least one of the men's team sports play on the first day. (In an unrelated thought, I was watching a handball game, and it was Norway vs. France. The U.S. hasn't qualified in either men's or women's handball since they both automatically qualified as hosts in 1996. I want to know why this is. Hasn't every kid in America had to play team handball in gym class at least once in their life?)
Finally, SPOILER ALERT! Ryan Lochte won the first American gold medal in the men's 400 IM. That probably doesn't seem like news. That's because it's not. This part's the news: Michael Phelps finished fourth. It's the first time Phelps didn't medal in an Olympic race since he finished fifth in the 200 butterfly in Sydney. He barely got into the final and had to swim in lane 8 as a result. Phelps didn't look good in the morning, and he looked worse at night. He never challenged Lochte and barely kept pace with the guys who won the silver and bronze. I knew with 25 meters left that he wasn't going to medal. Hopefully this isn't an indication of what's to come for Phelps in London, but round one goes to Lochte.
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