Though the hurricane pattern suggests that we were right on in our travel planning for the Orlando trip this year, we missed meeting Michael Phelps at Typhoon Lagoon by two days. After 10 days in Florida, I piled up a bunch of unread newspapers. So I finally caught up on the Olympics this week. Apparently, it was a fairly interesting event this year.
Eritrea won its first Olympic medal. It would have had two, but marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi is now an American citizen. Like me, you might have wondered if Eritrea is a country. Apparently so. But it was part of Ethiopia 3 Olympics ago.
Israel finally won a gold medal. But they still faced Arab scorn as Iran's flag-bearer, Arash Miresmaili, refused to wrestle against an Israeli competitor. It could have been worse. The terrorists never got past the gate.
Check out these medal statistics:
Bahamas: 300,000 people, 2 medals.
India: 1.3 billion people, 1 medal.
But that's still 1 medal better than rival Pakistan.
Is my memory failing, or did Germany win a lot more Olympic medals when it was two countries?
It was sad to see the Iraqi men lose the bronze medal soccer match. But at least the Hussein brothers aren't around to torture them with electric cords on their genitals as a punishment for losing.
All but five participating nations sent female athletes. Can you guess what one characteristic those five nations share?
USC has sent more athletes to the Olympics than any other university. In every Olympics since 1912, one or more USC athletes won a gold medal. This year, swimmer Klete Keller was the one to extend the streak. Several others followed, including two of the women's basketball team.
The men's basketball team sucked. Until this year, they were 192-2 overall. This year, they went 5-3. But there is a silver lining. Now all of America has a taste of what it's been like to be a Laker fan for the last two seasons.
Michael Phelps was awesome. The American women's soccer team was awesome. And the softball team gave up just one run in their unbeaten gold medal tournament. Uber-awesome.
Paul Hamm got the gold, but he was not awesome. I don't think that someone who falls should still be eligible for the gold medal, and the post-medal analysis proves that he shouldn't have won, but the scoreboard rules. Would you give it back? Me, neither.
Several members of the Greek Olympic team were Americans of Greek ancestry, who had never set foot on Greek soil before. If Dublin ever gets an Olympics, I wonder if I might be able to compete for Ireland as an archer or something. I don't think that will ever happen, though. The IOC would probably be terrified that the crazy defrocked Irish priest would take out a bunch of other athletes.
That still leaves poker as my best shot at Olympic gold.
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