I'll watch Michael Phelps do his thing swimming any time rather than women's beach volleyball. ~Gag me~~

Each stroke or length of the swim takes an enormous amount of skilled training to get to Olympic champion levels. Good for him! RAH! :-)

The Olympic broadcasts seem to always focus on one or two individuals. Mr. Phelps is one of them this time.

It's a plot by Marylanders to gain worldwide media attention.

Phelps is from Baltimore County.

Every time he wins a gold medal, we hear The Star Spangled Banner, a celebration of the City of Baltimore.

There's even a hidden reference to the Baltimore Orioles in the The Star Spangled Banner.

I LOVE IT!

--Stitz--

Hip Hip Hooray for Phelps. I would rather read/hear/watch a Michael Phelps than to hear anything about a Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.

I've never had a DUI but I have done things in my youth I wouldn't want published for world consumption :>)

I could have missed sychronized diving last night and still feel like my life has not been a waste.

Brooke

I like watching Olympic sports events measured by distance and time.

Bruce, as a former swimmer I can say winning that many races with different strokes is not easy. I was excellent at freestyle and the backstroke, super speedy. However, my breaststroke was slow and for the life of me I could not coordinate my body well enough for the butterfly. I do think it is a bit much when they have so many races with just varied lap lengths.

As fars as Phelps, I'm not bothered by him. I actually bothered by the insane amount of olympic coverage in general. Yesterday morning, I caught a bit of the Today Show, about 30 mins. In that half hour, the had three seperate people cover the same story (ironically about swimming). Seriously, if someone said the US men won at the beginning of the hour, I don't need to hear about it again told by two other people 15 and 20 minutes later. Too much repeat coverage.

Sarah

I will say that the men's 4 x 100 relay a couple nights ago was THE most exciting race I've ever seen, and the announcers set it up perfectly by saying that we didn't have a chance of beating the French. And I do recognize the fact that different strokes can require a different set of skills. But, somehow, having freestyle, breastroke, butterfly, and backstroke doing the same distances is like having a 100 meter track sprint conventionally, then running backwards, then on your hands, then skipping, etc., etc. Do all these different variations deserve medals, and international acclaim? Maybe so, but why not combine the times so that an athlete who does well in all of them gets recognized once?

Does Phelps deserve the title, "The Greatest Olympian," as NBC enjoys proclaiming over and over? He's good, I give him that, but the multiple races, coupled with the new suit, just doesn't add up in my book. And the fact that Speedo dangles that insane reward in front of him just because his medal count will help them sell fifty cents' worth of lycra many times over, is just insane!

There are so many inspiring Olympic stories (both present-day and in the past), some which include incredible adversity and sacrifice, that I just can't see Phelps gaining some uber-title when he's the beneficiary of so many different factors.

-Bruce

Sorry, but to me the greatest sportsman on the planet has to be one Tiger woods. Why, because he has strength and skill.

But Mr. Phelps and other swimmers deserve some recognition. Can you imagine the tedium of all those years of swimming up and down, up and down......

As for the most boring thing to watch. Perhaps the football or the long distance cycle races. Like watching paint dry.

On a side note to Phelps, there is an interesting debate about Speedo. Speedo now has that highly advanced swim suit the Americans are wearing. It is supposed to help them more than ever. Some are questioning if Speedo is giving the Americans an unfair advantage.

Sarah

The only reason I'm not sick of all the coverage is because I've not once watched anything regarding the Olympics this time around. I've been too busy with synchronized gardening!

I stopped paying attention to swimming when they stopped wearing bikinis. Same for basketball and the long shorts. Men will soon be competing in sports wearing burkhas and wondering where their audience went.

Well Shady with those comments, perhaps we know the double entendre of your name. ;)

Sarah

I just watched the men during the medal ceremony for the 4 x 200, and Phelps was so disrespectful -- joking and carrying on a conversation with the swimmer next to him while the national anthem was playing. Most of the other athletes will quietly sing the words, or at least stand at attention.

I'm glad that the other American athletes are at least presenting a better picture to the world, and a bit of balance to his self-centeredness.

-Bruce

I've always loved the Olympics, but I've never been one to watch to see the US clean house in the medal department. Maybe it seems like just another excuse for the US population to wildly proclaim once again "We're the best!! We're the best!!". I hate that kind of rant.

The finest moments for me are when some unknown underdog from some tiny country somewhere does something no one expected. It doesn't have to result in a medal, but it certainly doesn't hurt. That's just cool beyond words.
I've also always been partial to Italy and Spain. Not sure what that's about. They certainly aren't tiny countries.

Now I'm curious what folks thought about the opening ceremony? I know it was spectacular beyond words, but it really didn't move me like some past ones have. (I still have really fond memories of Sydney and Athens.) Maybe it was just too, too much in every sense of the word? It kind of scared me a bit. No way, no how could any Western nation have pulled off the drum or the cube thing with people alone. What else are these folks capable of? The whole thing was such a statement.

Seems like every time I turn on the telly, its beach volleyball. What's with that???

Jane

Add beach volleyball to the list of boring things to watch.

It's a bit sad that one guy has more gold medals than our team of Aussie Battlers. sob.

The opening ceremony for this year was spectacular! I thought a bit ~over~ done but still amazing for all the effort they put into it.

My personal favourite was the opening ceremony in Spain. That lone archer lighting the Olympic cauldron in the darkness of that beautiful night. ((swooning at the memory)) But I may be biased ... being an archer myself. The whole ceremony had a lovely subtle elegance. ((swooning again!))

One needs to find the other channels of NBC in the USA to see other competitions like archery and kayaking. We've been watching or taping those during the day.

Hooray! Well done Mr. Phelps! What an amazing win by the smallest fraction of a second yesterday. Let the games continue! :-)

C with 3 Ds and no medals (just two fiddler crabs)

I remember watching Olympic figure skating with my parents as a kid, and the skiing and bobsledding... I think the winter Olympics are pretty interesting.

But with my husband in control of the remote, we seem to watch quite a bit of MMA... if that were an Olympic event, we'd probably watch!

I think the guy is amazing! I don't understand the criticism. I don't believe he did anything illegal. He won fair-and-square. I think he's an incredible athlete.

Jane

70,000 people at the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore had smiles on their faces as the result of watching Michael Phelps on a live broadcast win an unprecedented eighth gold medal on the SmartVision screens.

Phelps' fans had to suffer a ho-hum losing effort by the local NFL football team (which will remain nameless) in a preseason effort prior to his historic swim.

"...ho-hum losing effort by the local NFL football team (which will remain nameless)...."

You mean the Cleveland Browns? Oh yea. They did change the name some years ago. :-)

Congratulations to Michael Phelps and the whole USA swim team for making Olympic history. He says he's going to compete in 2012 too.

yeah, it's THAT team. gimme credit for shrouding the name! :-)

Once upon a time, there was an NFL Baltimore team with a proud history--the Baltimore Colts. They loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly--oops, wrong comedy.

This morning was enough. While making breakfast there was a commercial on for buying a DVD of Phelps victories and story. Barf.

I'll be barfing when the bmx junk starts. Wake me, when it's over!

{{gwi:134884}}

Is that like the old saying - the early bird gets the worm but is now the early sperm gets the egg?

Another reward for being the best!

Brooke

I see that you guys are coming SECOND. Lol. There is gloom here too because we are behind Great Britain in the medal tally. We do not care too much about medals but to be beaten by the British at anything is a National Disgrace.

"...to be beaten by the British at anything is a National Disgrace."

What's the mood Down Thar?

The mood here is quite good, especially so since a couple of unexpected Gold Medals were won near the end of competition. Now if only our ladies Basketball team could have beaten a certain team from North of the Equator......

I've been at Orchid Show off and on for the recently and did not discuss the Olympics with a couple of British tourists who turned up to look at the flowers.

I'm not sure how this fits into the conversation, but... yesterday, I saw that the USA took several medals in competition shooting. I believe it was on the cover of "Gun Weekly", which the owner of the house gets.

Hey... at least it's not another Phelps story! LOL!