Usain in the brain!
Sweet baby Jesus.
As I said earlier, my favorite run ever was Michael Johnson’s 200M world record in Atlanta. Second, before this week, was the 4×100 relay in 1992, when the U.S. destroyed the field, Carl Lewis ran away and hid, and Dennis Mitchell went nuts after he handed off to Lewis.* Bolt’s two world records this week are suddenly in the mix. I shudder to think what the Jamaicans are going to do in the 4×100 relay.
Just think how overwhelming the hype would be if Bolt had been born in Atlanta instead of Jamaica.
You know, Usain sounds a little like Hussein. So if he was from the U.S., he would obviously hate America, want the terrorists to win, and prefer for U.S. troops to die in order to advance his personal agenda. I’m just saying…
How about NBC going commercial-free for the women’s beach volleyball final? Pretty cool. May-Treanor and Walsh are awesome. But, come on, you were all waiting for an ass-slap at the end of the match.
“Tian Jia likes some drama in her matches.” I enjoyed that line.
Sadly, with the men’s beach tournament ending this morning, that means no more of the best broadcast team in the games: Chris Marlowe and Karch Kiraly. They know the sport inside and out (Marlowe played in college, and Karch is of course one of the all-time greats), each has a dry sense of humor and know how to properly deploy it, and they do a great job of informing the audience. My favorite Marlowe line of the games came in the U.S. match with the weird Swiss team. As the psycho Swiss was preening after a win, Marlowe said, without emotion, “Look at me. I’m #1. I am the man.” Pitch perfect so it was right in the middle of being silly and being critical of the player’s actions.
Who knew Karch babysat Misty May when she was little? Thank you, <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karch_Kiraly”>Wikipedia</a>!
The sad thing about the rise of beach volleyball is that indoor volleyball has been buried. And the U.S. is doing well in both men’s and women’s indoor volleyball this year. If you’re my age, you remember the epic U.S. – U.S.S.R. volleyball battles in the 80s.
At some point, we’ll discuss the rumors that ESPN will be bidding on the 2012 and 2014 Olympics.
/* Sadly <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=818cKDgbUzo&feature=related”>this YouTube vid</a> doesn’t show Mitchell’s full reaction. After he hands off to Lewis, Mitchell spreads his arms, yells at Lewis to go, and after a quick look at the competition, he lets out a big “WHOOOO!” of disbelief. It’s as if he was telling everyone else that the race was over. I remember being at a party watching this race and all the guys screaming and yelling. Damn, that was a great relay team.