Post-Olympic Thoughts

• The Canadians are such wonderful, humble and proud people and it must have brought them incredible pride to have their athletes perform so well during these Olympic Games. It was also fitting that they won more gold medals than any other nation because "O Canada" is the best national anthem. Even though I'm an American, I used to sing my kids to sleep with "O Canada". Love it.
• I think it was far more important for Canada to win the men's hockey game. Hockey is part of Canada's identify while the sport is just one of many to Americans. While I was personally rooting hard for the U.S. Team, I appreciate that the Canadians really needed this win much more than we do.
• I have always wanted to do a ski trip to Whistler, but after witnessing the dearth of snow, the warm winter temperatures and relatively poor ski conditions during these games, I'm not so sure now.
• Really liked most of Mary Carillo's and Tom Brokaw's features during NBC's two weeks of coverage. They did a great job spotlighting the best of Canada--or was it just paid advertising by the Canadian Tourist Bureau? Learned alot and especially enjoyed Brokaw's piece on Gander.
• During the Closing Ceremonies, Al Michael's one sentence mention on the great Russian goalkeeper Vladislav Tretiak was one of the biggest slights by the TV commentators. Michaels referred to one of hockey's best goaltenders merely as a player "on the 1980 hockey team that was pulled after the first period". Okay, as an American, he's just a Russian goaltender we beat in the "Miracle on Ice", but Michaels could've given the guy a little more credit.

Olympics Agonizing Moments

After watching the first few days of Olympic events, my list of agonizing Olympic moments runs the spectrum from almost-gold-medal performances to spectacular failures:

- American Johnny Spillane fought valiantly in the nordic combine. He led for most of the final kilometer but faded with the finish line (and the gold medal) in sight, and was caught right at the finish by American-born Frenchman Jason Lamy Chappuis. To Spillane's credit, he seemed quite happy with the silver medal.

- American figure skater Jeremy Abbott finished a disappointing 15th after last night's men's short program (essentially eliminating him from medal contention) after singling a triple axel and then doing only a double lutz in lieu of a triple. How excruciating must it have been for him to have to complete his program knowing full well that he was completely out of medal contention? That final minute or so must've have felt like an eternity to him.

- In the men's 1500 meter short track speed skating final, two South Koreans battling for second and third place, knock each other out just before the finish to let Americans Apollo Anton Ohno and J. R. Celski snatch the silver and bronze medals.

- Dutch speed skater Annette Gerritsen falling in the Women's 500 meters. Years of training for hours a day, and your medal dreams are over just seconds into your Olympic experience.

And of course, to put all of this in perspective, we can't forget about the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. There was absolutely nothing more agonizing than that...

Is China spending its trade surplus at the Olympics and other events?

Americans are currently addicted to cheap Chinese goods and the resulting trade imbalance flows hundreds of billions of dollars to China each year. Some people believe that, with intelligent investing in infrastructure, technology and research, that China will use this huge positive cash flow to their long-term strategic advantage.

Well, it's not much, but after watching the Olympics, there were many examples of China spending money on image-building, and not infrastructure. At least some of the $40 billion China is spending on the Olympics is going toward extravagant, one-time expenses such as the elaborate opening and closing ceremonies, good-will expenses, decorations, landscaping, etc. etc.

And, according to the Wall Street Journal, Shanghai will spend $40 billion for the 2010 World Expo and Guangzhou is estimating $27 billion for the 2010 Asian Games.

On top of all that, U.S. companies are finally getting in on the action for all the infrastructure spending. Maybe there's some hope to balance our trade someday after all...

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

The Un-Olympic Spirit

Jenn Stuczynski should be totally thrilled and extremely proud in the aftermath of her silver medal performance in the women's pole vault. She "lost" the gold medal to world-record holder Yelena Isinbayeva. Considering she's pole vaulted for all of four years, and that she was competing against a dominant, umpteen world record-breaking champion, she did really really great.

However, if you caught NBC's short coverage of the event, then you saw her coach Rick Suhr verbally berate her immediately after winning the silver medal. You could see how visibly dejected Stuczynski was after her coach's negative remarks.

I was stunned that someone would choose that moment to deliver those words to an athlete who had worked so hard and performed so wonderfully. Unconscionable. Jenn Stuczynski should find herself a new coach. And, if my kid were a pole vaulter, I would never consider sending them to his pole vaulting school or academy. His behavior was reprehensible and his "win the gold or you're a worthless piece of sh!t" attitude runs counter to everything the games should be about.

Olympic Swimming Relays

My wife and I got really confused as to how the swimming relay exchanges are handled. As nobody on NBC bothered to explain it, I had to do some research and here it is.

Basically, swimmers can (and should) be in motion during the relay exchanges, but the outgoing swimmer must maintain contact with the starting platform until the incoming swimmer has finished. The incoming swimmer's finish is registered by the electronic touchpad on the finishing wall, as is the outgoing swimmer's contact with the starting platform. The two times are compared by an electronic timing system (with a .03 second "allowance"), and if the outgoing swimmer is off the platform early, that team is disqualified.

The above also explains why only the first leg of any swim relay counts towards official records, as it is the only leg that is comparable to a non-relay race.

Olympics, Kids and Chinchillas

Poor Alicia Sacramone. After yesterday's women's gymnastics team competition, much focus was placed on the poor young lady and her big mistakes. The underlying point was that her mistakes cost the U.S. team the gold medal. I don't really understand this because the Chinese beat the Americans by 2.375--a signficant margin of victory. While I'm not a gymnastics expert on scoring, I don't see how, even adding back the deductions for Sacramone's fall off the beam and on floor exercises, how she cost the U.S. the gold? Even if none of the American girls hadn't stepped out of bounds, I don't think the total sum of all the deductions would have made up the difference. Thus the Chinese girls definitely earned their gold, and we shouldn't diminish the Chinese performance by blaming Sacramone and implying the Americans "gave it away". Now if only the Chinese girls were actually the required 16 years of age to be eligible to participate...

Then, very late last night (at least on the East Coast), Andrea Joyce interviewed (or should I say grilled?) Sacramone on her performance and its impact on the team. Exactly how many different ways can one ask the same question about the girl's mess-ups? Why didn't you ask her when she planned to commit suicide? Very cruel.

Anyhow, after the interview ended with Sacramone near tears, NBC cut back to Mary Carillo in the studio. Clearly distraught after watching Sacramone suffer through Joyce's interview, Carillo blurts: "Uh, it's a killer... it's a killer watching... I mean they're just kids... as a parent... this is why some people just raise chinchillas." Buwahahaha! I love it!

Olympics and Diversity

I've been watching a lot of Olympic coverage these past four days! There were a few interesting examples of our nation's diversity, and the rest of the world's lack thereof. During the medal ceremony for the men's gymnastics team competition, did you happen to notice just how homogeneous the Japanese and Chinese teams were, while the U.S. team included men of Russian, Indian and Chinese descent?

Meanwhile, in women's gymnastics, Nastia Liukin's parents were both former Russian gymnastics champions who decided they could have a better life here in America. They opened a successful gymnastics club in Texas. And Shawn Johnson's coach is a former co-captain of the Chinese men's gymnastics team who immigrated to the U. S. to pursue the American dream in Iowa.

Aren't these examples of what makes our country special? We nurture the best and the brightest, and because we embrace diversity and provide opportunity to all, we also attract the best and the brightest from around the world.