SPO: Day 1

Due to complications from last night, namely a rogue dancer stepped on my bad foot, my ankle did not feel very adventurous today. So it was one of those days in which I didn't leave Wudaokou, eating 2 meals at Lush and soaking in a lot of rather mundane Olympics action and missing Michael Phelps' 400 IM heat because the people at Lush were dumbasses.

I saw a ton of highlights of the first Chinese gold, in women's weightlifting. I'm already sick of the gold medal winner and that sport. There were some pretty squeamish "highlights" of various girls failing to lift the bar, with a particularly brutal one where a Taiwanese girl successfully lifted the bar, then lost her balance and dropped the barbell and fell down backwards. The barbell almost broke landed on her knees and may have broken them. I can't imagine maxing out like that without a spotter... not a safe sport. Also, weightlifter girls...not my type...or anyone's.

The gold medal for most boring sport on TV has to be Shooting. First, the athletes are expressionless, locked in concentration, and in an added bonus that further takes away any possible charisma, their eyes are blocked by odd eyeshades. The TV feed just shows them aiming straight ahead and then has a computer generated image of the target on the side. They create a point to represent where the shot hit. Um ok. I literally did not know how far away the target was, what the shooter's view was, and why it was so difficult. Just terrible coverage. Also, the shooters would take a long time before their shot, during which the TV would be focused on them the whole time, and it was rarely clear when they actually shot. A Chinese dude won gold, yet the TV never caught him smiling. I'm afraid this guy will use his shooting expertise to become a serial killer.

But let's not joke about that, cause the death by stabbing of the American tourist here shook most of us a little bit. With safety concerns returning, we all thought that the dead American easily could have been us. It seems that the violence was senseless, so as heartless as it sounds, I won't try to make sense of it. Just pray that no one else dies.

Back to sports, I also watched a ton of women's basketball (the US team was surprisingly compelling and dominant, even though the sport is normally a bad joke), gymnastics, cycling (totally boring even if they bike to the Great Wall and back...7 times) women's handball and volleyball. The last two sports were awesome to watch. I can't wait to go to my handball semifinal match now, and see a combination of alley oops and fastballs. Volleyball was also exciting as I got into a well-played match between the US and Japan. The two were clearly good teams and featured several good rallies with spike after dig after spike. The US won 3-1 and gold looked pretty promising.

Tomorrow should be a full day of sports as I plan to spend the entire day at a sports bar called All Star. I think it sponsors the US and is open 24 hours, contains a restaurant, bar, like 20 tvs, and a dance floor. Should be wild.