My Olympic Highlights and Lowlights

Here are my personal highs and lows from these 2008 Beijing Olympics:

Highs
- 32-year-old Jason Lezak's unforgettable final leg swim, running down trash-talking Alain Bernard of France, in the men's 4x100M relay.
- Despite the loss of perhaps their two best gymnasts, the U.S. men's gymnastics team's earned a surprising bronze medal in the team competition.
- Michael Phelps: 8 gold medals and a thrilling 0.01 second margin of victory in the 100M fly.
- 41 year-old Dara Torres wins a silver medal in the 50M freestyle.
- Shawn Johnson finally gets a gold medal. Her cheerful attitude, charisma and spirit was a lift on the sideline so if anyone deserved a gold medal for her performance, heart and positive attitude, it was her (even if she reminds me of Robocop).
- The son of illegal immigrants, Henry Cejudo, wins the 55kg wrestling gold.
- The U.S. women's indoor volleyball team making a surprising run for the silver, and the U.S. men winning the gold for grieving coach Hugh McCutcheon.

Lows
- Alicia Sacramone's torture after her failures on the beam and floor.
- Gymnastics Judging. American women were obviously cheated out of medals on the individual vault and uneven bars. Why don't these incompetent judges ever make deductions for the Chinese gymnasts? Gymnastics needs to either simplify their scoring system by returning to the old 10.0 scale or simply rank competitors relative to each other. You'll never remove the human element so at least keep it understandable.
- Boxing Judging. When a boxer's glove hits his opponent's head and snaps it back, then it's supposed to be a point for the guy doing the hitting--not the guy getting hit. Get rid of the stupid 3 of 5 scoring system.
- Pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski being criticized and put-down by her coach Rick Suhr, after she had just won the silver medal.
- Lolo Jones hitting the ninth hurdle just meters from a certain gold medal.
- After winning 22 games in a row, and outscoring opponents 57-2 in this Olympics, the U.S. women softball team are stunned in the gold medal game. To make matters worse, it looks like this might be the last softball game played in the Olympics as the IOC voted it out for 2012.
- U.S. men and women both dropping the baton (and their gold medal hopes) on their 4x100M relays