Where were you tonight?

I know the Michael Phelps hype-train has probably gotten pretty old buuuuuuuut what happened this week in the Olympics is pretty amazing. The dominance he displayed (8 gold medals with 7 world records and 1 Olympic record) in all 4 swimming strokes against the best competition in the world, is likely to never be replicated.

 

I'm not a fanboy or anything but I do appreciate the significance of history when it's made.

Phelps=Poseidon.

 

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h133/02z.../mikephelps.gif

 

/salute Phelps

 

I've been pretty 'meh' about the whole thing.

Phelps=Poseidon.

 

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h133/02z.../mikephelps.gif

 

/salute Phelps

 

LOL thats awesome

I think it's amazing. I haven't watched every race, but the ones I have seen have left me saying "Holy Sh**" a bunch. =D

Phelps > Norris

it is pretty exciting watching him swim.

I was pretty floored by the "miracle touch" finish... huge WTF moment, no idea how he pulled that out

the touch thing happens. those pads on the wall can be very quirky.

 

I've come in 2nd before back in high school when i was on the swim team because the pad didn't register my touch the first time and i had to hit it again.

 

There is nothing a judge can do about it really either. so GG to him on that. He's an amazing athlete.

Maybe if they were being followed by torpedoes and countries were being taken out left and right I might have been interested in Phelps swimming. Feel like I'm missing something since literally everyone seems enthralled by him in the Olympics. Lets get some MMA in there.

^^ agree, no better way to settle national disputes than having dudes punch each other in the face

No doubt! MMA Olympic Medal > any other medal...ever.

 

Phelps is a mouth-breathing retard who fell into a spot on the hype train because there are so many damn events in swimming. What other sport offers that many medals to one person? Maybe gymnastics, but that actually takes more diverse skills. If you're good at swimming you've got a shot at a bunch of medals. Besides, any time someone reaches girly teeny-bopper drool status to the point where Bob frickin Costas talks about how many Facebook friends you have, instead of something relavent, there is something fundamentally wrong with the world.

 

Phelps should melt down his medals, sell the gold, and use the money to fix whatever unfortunate malady is causing his jaw to never close.

Phelps is Poseidon.

I have watched each race won by Phelps. He is amazing really amazing. The best athlete I have ever seen most probably. Only one bad note he has not won the 100m butterfly. Well you know he won but he wasnt the first to touch the wall. I wish he would have had a clean win. Still he is the king of those games.

What other sport offers that many medals to one person?

 

i do agree with at least this one part of your argument.

 

swimming is such a focus in all the olympics because there's about 27489374893754 swimming races to medal on. if he was, as you point out for comparison a gymnast, he probably wouldn't get as much attention as he is. most of the gold medal records he's beaten were held by... wait for it! swimmers. it's the sheer volume of races that allow them to get a billion medals in the olympics.

 

anyway, regardless of the media hype surrounding him, he is a pretty ridiculous good swimmer. i saw the breakdown on tv of the breakdown of his wingspan, how long his legs are, how big his feet are, etc... he does seem to be engineered to swim.

Where was I?...

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h190/Eomiir/WoW/afk-feanore.jpg

 

...Chillin wit my homie.

 

Oh right, Back on topic: 'gold medals with 7 world records and 1 Olympic record'...That's pretty frickin amazing

Phelps=Poseidon.

 

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h133/02z.../mikephelps.gif

 

/salute Phelps

 

That won the internet imo.

rofl. Definitely, T

Aigle, take a look at this picture of the 100 M Butterfly finish. You can see here, Phelps won it fair and square. He is is the one on the left.

 

http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0808/oly.phelps.sequence/images/opgm-37117-mid.jpg

People can say what they want about swimming and the 30 billion events blah blah but at least it isn't ping pong. We had a discussion last night at work because one of my coworkers was so eager to point out that China is beating us in the gold medal count. I had to remind him that 6 of those gold medals were for ping pong and 5 were for badminton. I mean srsly what's next? Olympic tetherball? Kudos to China though on beating Japan for the gold in Judo, that had to sting a bit.

Pingpong and badminton are frigging awesome.

 

Did anyone happen to see the men's doubles gold medal game? They get on runs where one side is on the offensive, where the back guy jump-spikes like 6 hits in a row. The guy on the defensive side literally blurs, and somehow the shuttle gets flipped back over the net only to get jump-spiked again.

 

They hit the shuttle literally 200 mph. That's, like, with a 2...

 

Folks in China believe ping-pong lengthens their lives and significantly increases their IQ (due to the exercise but moreso the major demand on reflexes.) I can buy that

 

Someone's gotta explain to me though, how baseball and softball are getting canned from the schedule in 2012, but we still have... Synchronized diving??

Lets forget about the war we have Olympics to watch.

 

 

My faves tho are Beach Volleyball and Gymnastics.

The thing I heard about softball and baseball are variations on the same theme. The IOC wants 'dream teams' like they have in basketball, teams with stars that will sell out stadiums and put fans in the seats. Despite all the feel good stories about the spirit of competition and the Olympic dream, the decision is being made based on cold hard cash.

 

The problem is that the US baseball team is made up of minor leaguers few people have ever heard of and even fewer care to watch for $1000 a ticket. So, from a financial standpoint, it is under-performing what the IOC had hoped for.

 

On the flip side, the US softball team, with pitchers Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman and Monica Abbott are a victim of their own success. They are as close as a softball team can be to a 'dream team. The thing is that since 1986, the US team has yet to NOT win the gold medal in Olympic or World Championship competition and based on their performance this year in Beijing, the rest of the world really isn't getting any closer to ending that dominance. After yesterday's game against China, the US team ended the first part of the tournament with a record of 7-0. During that time, they outscored opponents 53-2 and 3 of their wins were no-hitters. The lack of real competition most likely doesn't draw huge crowds either. Hell, 90% of America is probably bored watching these games. I'm guessing that if the US wins everything in basketball for the next 20+ years it could turn up on the same chopping block.

 

All in all, I've been pretty much wrapped up in all things Olympic in the last week or so. The US women's beach volleyball team is pretty amazing. I'm stunned by Usain Bolt's performance setting the world record in the 100m Saturday and more than likely the 200m tonight. The dude doesn't even run 100% the whole way and still crushes the other runners. It's awesome. And like it or not, no one that reads this will ever see anyone win 8 golds in the same Olympics ever again.

Edited August 19, 2008 by Daghostmaker

Oh man! I saw that too, Ghost. I was so surprised that he didn't even need to sprint for the last 15 meters or so. Giving all that crowd service and still keeping ahead of those who were pushing like crazy behind him. How fast.

Beach Volleyball isn't very interesting. Those girls have won THE LAST 109 GAMES THEY PLAYED STRAIGHT. xD