Official 2008 Beijing Olympics Thread

[Roy Hobbs]

I'm going to have to say Phelps is the greatest athlete ever, he will/has overtaken overtaken the likes of Tiger/Jordan/Federer in terms of dominance of their sport IMO.

I would maybe agree with "most dominant athlete in his sport", although I think there's probably some competition from some of the great Olympic wrestlers, etc.  I don't think "most dominant athlete in his sport" necessarily equates to "best athlete" or "greatest athlete", though.

[Hollywood]

To bad for Alicia sacramone-I've had a crush on her for a few months and it stinks she mucked up twice. (Also, I was watching this with my gf so it is only semi-lame. Semi)

The thing about it was you could tell she was shell shocked after the balance beam. She was so amped for the floor you knew something was going to go wrong.

 I was trying to think of an event where an athlete could be allowed to trainwreck like this without be subbed out:

Football comes to mind with either the QB or the kicker usually getting a long rope, or baseball where a catcher keeps letting past balls go by him-like Josh Bard with tim wakefield.

If anybody has some big time train wrecks I'd like to hear them

Yup

[Amonkey]

I have to say Phelps is the most dominant athlete right now.  I don't think Tiger Woods is even close to his imortality right now.  The difference is that there arent as many events for swimming as there are in golf.  However, this guy is not winning, but completely tearing up every record and winning gold by a wide margin.  What's incredible is that he'll go in a race, then race again 1 hour later.  When you are in the Olympics, do you know how incredibly difficult that is when your opponents are the best of the best and have been training for 3+ years.  If Phelps wins the 8 medals, there's no doubt he'll be the most dominant athlete of 2008.

[Amonkey]

Something that is interesting.  This article is in portuguese, but just look at the graph.  The author is just comparing how Phelps would fare if he was a country.  Basically, he would be 5th place in gold metals, matching Brazil's best Olympics (in gold medals) from Sydney.

http://globoesporte.globo.com/Esportes/Pequim2008/Noticias/0,,MUL722846-9823,00-E+SE+PHELPS+FOSSE+UM+PAIS.html

The graph on the right is Phelps if he was a country.  The graph on the left is if USA didn't have Phelps.

[ederson]

Phelps is the only athlete with +10 gold Olympic medals. Think of all the other legendary athletes like Nurmi that didn`t succeeded this.. Impressive to say the least. What i don`t like is that so far his achievements have somewhat overshadowed everything else. 

USA-Greece today... If Greece was i good shape then i would have been e very interesting game. But so far Greece uses the games like friendlies in order to get in game rhythm. Due to the qualification tournament Greece couldn`t arrange friendly games and for the 3 weeks before the OG they didn`t play any games and that`s why the team looks rusty.


A lot of athletes have covered rather large areas on their hands and feet with red and blue tape. Not the small tape that`s used for taping the fingers but twice as big. Anyone knows what`s the use? 

[cordobes]

Phelps is the only athlete with +10 gold Olympic medals. Think of all the other legendary athletes like Nurmi that didn`t succeeded this.. Impressive to say the least. What i don`t like is that so far his achievements have somewhat overshadowed everything else. 

USA-Greece today... If Greece was i good shape then i would have been e very interesting game. But so far Greece uses the games like friendlies in order to get in game rhythm. Due to the qualification tournament Greece couldn`t arrange friendly games and for the 3 weeks before the OG they didn`t play any games and that`s why the team looks rusty.


A lot of athletes have covered rather large areas on their hands and feet with red and blue tape. Not the small tape that`s used for taping the fingers but twice as big. Anyone knows what`s the use? 

Well, Phelps is a swimmer and a freestyle/butterfly specialist. And he swims mid-distances. That's a very good combination to win medals. If he was a breaststroke specialist it would be harder for him to win the medleys (and he'd have less relays to compete). Also, if he was a long-distance swimmer, for example a 1500 meters specialist, he wouldn't have so many races available. And he represents the most powerful country in competitive swimming, he wouldn't be able to win the relays if he was Zimbabwean.

That's why the top medal winners in the history of the games are generally swimmers or gymnasts from powerful countries at that sport: American swimmers, Japanese and Russian gymnasts, some fencers. They have lots of chances to win medals. A tennis player, a rower or a boxer can't do that. Nurmi was a freak. That being said, I don't think Phelps achievements are overshadowing the greats of the past. He's just joining them. It's great to have the chance of watching something like that happening, I think.

[cordobes]

I'm going to have to say Phelps is the greatest athlete ever, he will/has overtaken overtaken the likes of Tiger/Jordan/Federer in terms of dominance of their sport IMO.

I would maybe agree with "most dominant athlete in his sport", although I think there's probably some competition from some of the great Olympic wrestlers, etc.  I don't think "most dominant athlete in his sport" necessarily equates to "best athlete" or "greatest athlete", though.

The WSJ published a very interesting piece a few months ago: "The World's Greatest Athlete".

With the Olympic Games approaching, The Wall Street Journal set out to answer this parlor-game question: If Earth had to send one man to the Intergalactic Olympics, who should go?

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121392004594090355.html

From a subjective point of view, and assuming it's kind of useless and futile to compare athletes from different sports and eras, I'm firmly staying on the Carl Lewis camp.

[ederson]

Well, Phelps is a swimmer and a freestyle/butterfly specialist. And he swims mid-distances. That's a very good combination to win medals. If he was a breaststroke specialist it would be harder for him to win the medleys (and he'd have less relays to compete). Also, if he was a long-distance swimmer, for example a 1500 meters specialist, he wouldn't have so many races available. And he represents the most powerful country in competitive swimming, he wouldn't be able to win the relays if he was Zimbabwean.

That's why the top medal winners in the history of the games are generally swimmers or gymnasts from powerful countries at that sport: American swimmers, Japanese and Russian gymnasts, some fencers. They have lots of chances to win medals. A tennis player, a rower or a boxer can't do that. Nurmi was a freak. That being said, I don't think Phelps achievements are overshadowing the greats of the past. He's just joining them. It's great to have the chance of watching something like that happening, I think.

I didn`t mean that in any way Phelps is now the greatest of all time !
As cordobes says

it's kind of useless and futile to compare athletes from different sports and eras

But he can be consider as a sports legend and possibly the greatest swimmer ever (but my swimming knowledge doesn`t go too far back in the past) By overshadowing i was talking about the rest of the olympic events in Beijing. 

I agree that only a mid-dstance swimmer could have down this. But there have been many excellent athletes like Popov or Biondy (sp?) who didn`t do this. The fact that he is literally unbeatable in butterfly and freestyle it`s not very common and certainly not easy.

BTW anyone watched the 100m frestyle final? This French guy Bernard i think is huge! This guys body is undelievalbe even for a swimmer!

[jackson_34]

I'm going to have to say Phelps is the greatest athlete ever, he will/has overtaken overtaken the likes of Tiger/Jordan/Federer in terms of dominance of their sport IMO.

I would maybe agree with "most dominant athlete in his sport", although I think there's probably some competition from some of the great Olympic wrestlers, etc.  I don't think "most dominant athlete in his sport" necessarily equates to "best athlete" or "greatest athlete", though.

That's kinda what I meant by greatest athlete. Because let's face it, you can never truely compare or judge different types of athletes against each other.

[JSD]

Any way to watch the USA Greece game online? If not what channel is it on?

[Bankshot]

Any way to watch the USA Greece game online? If not what channel is it on?

Yes.  Go to NCBOlympics.com and click on "basketball live".

[Amonkey]

Good to see team USA playing some good intense basketball.  They're actually playing defense and they are having more meaningful dunks.

[JSD]

Any way to watch the USA Greece game online? If not what channel is it on?

Yes.  Go to NCBOlympics.com and click on "basketball live".

Tp, Thanks

[WillC]

Bosh and Wade are playing MAJOR!

Man I love the intensity I'm seeing from those two, and of course from the whole team on defense. There has been some crappy officiating (3 on Kidd, 2 on CP3, 2 on Deron Williams, 2 on Bosh - you only get 5 fouls) but we've overcome that with some great heart so far.

[JSD]

51 to 32 at the half. good showing by USA