Did everyone notice the grill US swimmer Ryan Lotche was sporting after he won the gold medal (beating out Michael Phelps)?
If you didn't, you gotta check this out:
I had to do a double take at first. From my television screen, at a distance, I thought at first he had braces. Of course, upon further inspection I realized that he must have "robbed the jewelry store and told them make me a grill." I bet even Nelly would approve of this bling bling.
Hmmm...Nelly? Or Lotche?
After all, this grill was designed by none other than rapper Paul Wall and Johnny Dang, a "Houston jeweler to the hip hop stars who goes by the handle of TV Johnny." The cost? About $25 G's (or $25,000 to you non hip hop lingo folks).
Mixed reviews on whether people liked the grill or not. Lotche was not allowed to sport the patriotic piece on the stand, or else he wouldn't have received his gold medal. I guess an Olympic gold medal takes precedence over a $25G pimped out grill.
In other swimming news, Michael Phelps is now officially the most decorated Olympian of all time with 19 medals (as of yesterday, that is. I haven't caught up with all of today's events. Remember, I'm trying to not be spoiled). Congratulations to him, that is quite impressive. However, I would like to point out that I don't think that makes him the best Olympic competitor ever. In swimming, athletes have multiple opportunities to win medals, should they qualify. There is not just the individual races, which have multiple opportunities within each stroke category, but the IM's as well. Most Olympic sports don't give you that opportunity. Even in gymnastics, the most you can win is 6 for the women, 8 for the men and that's if you win a team medal, an all around medal and a medal on each apparatus. Not a very easy thing to do. But is it possible for a swimmer to win in the 50 free, 100 free, 200 free, 400 free, 200 IM, 400 IM, etc.? Not easy per say, but easier in the fact there is more opportunity and if your specialty is freestyle, you have a lot more opportunities than if your specialty is say, the vault in gymnastics.
That said, I'm not diminishing what Michael Phelps has accomplished. It is still a big deal. I just don't want to hear he's the best ever just on the amount of medals. There are other factors to consider. Most decorated? Absolutely. Best Olympic athlete ever? Totally debatable.
In gymnastics, both the men's and the women's teams had high expectations, though the women more so than the men. However, after the qualifying round the US men impressed and finished first as a team, so there were high expectations for a team medal.
Unfortunately, it was not in the cards for the US men. The team finals brought mistake after mistake, and the men's team was unable to overcome those mistakes, finishing 5th overall.
The women's team, on the other hand, did not disappoint. The "Fierce Five," as they are calling them, delivered stellar after stellar performance, including an utterly amazing vault by McKayla Maroney and a solid floor exercise by Jordyn Wieber. The Russians and the Romanians had multiple mistakes, where the US women did not. In the end, Team USA beat out Russia for the gold by 5 points - it wasn't even close.
The 2012 Women's Gymnastics Team becomes the second in US history to win the team gold. The first, of course, would be "The Magnificent Seven," who won in Atlanta and included that epic vault from Kerri Strug. Congrats to the women's team, it is well deserved. Looking forward to how the women perform in the all around and the individual apparatus competitions.
The final Olympic sport I seem to have caught a lot of, is synchronized diving. Not to be confused with my favorite sport, synchronized swimming, of course.
This sport is fun to watch, but I always wonder how exactly the judges are able to tell just how synchronized the two are. The scores seem to pop up quick and I'm thinking, "how in the world did they know that he was off by 1/8th of a somersault?"
And of course you watch some amazing diving routines and the announcers will say "ohhhh, and that just wasn't good enough." I'm sitting here baffled going, "um...did you see what they just did?" Same goes for gymnastics though I find the errors in synchro diving much less noticeable than those in gymnastics. We know if you fall or don't stick the landing points are docked. In diving, if you splash too much they take off points. Intense.
Much more drama to ensue as the Summer Olympics continues...
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