jediwands

Continue.

everwoodfan52

May & Walsh just did it again (Beach Volleyball)! They are just phenomenal!
They're in the finals against a Chinese team. That match should really be exciting....but I can't see them losing to anyone.

Kobe and Le Bron were in the stands cheering them on. They're really enjoying this Olympic experience.....becoming real fans!

jediwands

Man I missed it! I like Larry King too much I think. LOL.

Do you know when the final is?

That's so awesome. Were they sitting together? That's just beyond cool.

everwoodfan52

I don't....but I'll try to find out.



They were standing next to each other.


ETA: Canadian girl just got a silver medal in trampoline. Wow....what a sport!
Guess who got the gold medal? You're correct! Now, if we can just eliminate all the Chinese from the competitions......just see how many gold medals the Americans and Canadians will get!


ETA: Women's Beach Volleyball final is Thursday, 11:00 am ET. With the Women's Soccer final being 9:00am....it's going to be one heck of a morning!

Everwoodian Kopite

I saw you were talking about handball in the previous thread, and I just wanted to tell you that it's not as obscure a sport as one might think. In Norway, Denmark, quite a few Eastern European nations, and maybe even Germany, Austria, Spain and France it's the second most popular team sport. I'm pretty sure it's being played professionally in all of these countries.

In Norway womens handball is especially popular, because they're much better than the men when competing internationally...

So far we've only got one gold medal (a feller in a kayak), two silver, and two bronze, but when the handball girls win we'll get 14 more.

As you can see, summer and sports isn't really our thing, but just wait until the winter Olympics return! We'll win loads of competitions that only a couple of countries care about, and we'll bask in our greatness until London 2012

everwoodfan52

When I saw the handball match it was Norway vs Rumania.
I know it's not obscure. I've heard of handball.....I just had never seen it...hence my puzzlement as to what I was watching!
It looks like a great sport....it has the elements of many sports.

I know. You guys have always been great in the winter olympics. The Scandinavian countries always perform really well in the beautiful sport of Ski jumping/flying and all of the Nordic events.The US always does really lousy in those sports! LOL



Michelle, did you hear what they said about the softball team? The run ratio with the other teams is 53-1 and the one run was by Canada and was unearned!
I honestly don't think there should be softball in the Olympics. It's not a universal enough sport.

everwoodfan52

I just want all of you to know that I just read the results of tonight's gymnastic results (women's balance beam) and I'm saying that you should not be afraid to watch.
That's all I'm saying!!

jediwands

Wow that's insane. It's not even close. I was once under the naive impression that people from around the world played these sports such as softball. This is interesting. Alex once told me that in France at the college level women don't play sports like American college women do, not sure if that's in France only or other parts of Europe. All I know is I kept thinking to myself, "Thank God I'm American for this reason alone since I would have died without sports opportunities in college." LOL. For that matter, the organized sports and traveling sports growing up. Thank God I was able to do just that. I couldn't imagine my childhood without soccer and basketball. That would have sucked.

Oh man I'm counting the minutes!

Yeah, I'm tuning in tonight for gymnastics. Heh.

everwoodfan52

Wow, I just watched the US defeat Italy in 5 sets (women's indoor volleyball). What an exciting game.


Alex is correct. I believe that that is also the case in Canada with ice hockey players.
Tos, please correct me if I'm wrong. If Canadian hockey players want to play college hockey......they usually attend an American university.
In addition.....many of the non-American olympic swimmers attend US Universities and are on their swim team. The same can be said for track and field stars.
You probably can say the same for Female soccer players around the world. If they want to develop and play in college, they go to the United States.

Of course....many world athletes do not attend college and play professionally after high school (Soccer, hockey players, etc.)



ETA: US women just defeated Australia in water polo. They're on to the gold medal match.

'Tos

Ooh, second thread. I'm loving all this Olympics talk. If I don't get to watch a sport, I come here to hear about it.

Watched Canada get a nice silver in the men's triathlon yesterday, which was really really cool. We've now got 13 medals, one more than Athens, so after all the whining and complaining by the media, they've finally shut the insert your own expletive up.

Thanks for the info on handball, Matty! It's actually a really really fun sport to play, and it's also a really hard sport to play, so I can imagine it being very big in a lot of countries. A mix of basketball and hockey sounds like it'd be the best of both worlds in North America, so it's maybe a bit surprising that it's more obscure up here.

Why, whatever are you hinting at? Hehe. What time is it on? Like, I know primetime, but any idea what exact time that will be or do they just say it'll be primetime? I saw a bit of the uneven beam controversy last night, but only the aftermath.

That is correct, indeed. Although we do have a hockey team here at UBC, but I believe it might be at a lower level or something. Maybe because they're not in the NCAA? That might be important for the NHL, I don't know.

Donovan Bailey, who had held the record for the 100m run until Usain Bolt did it so easily the other day, was on CBC last night and he was saying that almost 80% of athletes (I don't know if he meant in track or just in general, though) trained in the US.

jediwands

So sweet, I saw some of that.

Yeah, this is very interesting. I knew that about Canadians attending American Universities for sports scholarships and competition but I wasn't aware of Europe and how the development isn't there at these levels. I wonder why. Funding?

Whenever Alex told me this I was stunned. I would have gone nuts not playing sports as a woman throughout all my years of schooling from childhood through college. I think she even said for guys it's not super huge either.

You made a good point about how some don't attend college and skip right to pro. I guess they just train and develop individually with personal coaches or something in preparation for the big leagues.

Missed this! So outstanding.

everwoodfan52

Ha, ha...I'll never tell.
As far as the exact time of airing....I haven't seen anything specific. It only says the it will be aired between 8:00pm-12:00AM ET.
They usually have teasers in the beginning of the broadcast and show the high interest events a little later.
There's also track and field events, BMX cycling, diving tonight, I believe.


ETA: US woman's basketball is into the finals.

jediwands

US Women in basketball are so much fun to watch. They are phenomenal. I can't get enough of watching these amazingly talented basketball players. Such fun stuff and GOLD here we come.

everwoodfan52

The sports commentators mentioned earlier that the US women's teams are surpassing the men's teams in gold medals.....from rowing to possibly soccer (with water polo, volleyball, basketball, softball, gymnastics, etc in between.)

The Crow

On a subject from the previous thread, the dropping of softball from the Olympics. A lot of sportswriters and fans have implied it is because of the USA's dominance overall, and maybe that is part of it, but as I saw pointed out in a blog earlier this week, the US won EVERY gold medal in basketball from 1932 to 1962, but that was never removed from the Olympics, and our men have never lost the 4x100 IM relay, but that race is still in the Olympics. I think that the removal has more to do with the fact that the sport seems to be most popular outside of Europe. It is gaining a foothold there slowly, but the main areas of interest are Asia, Australia, and North America.

Of course, Team USA winning every game by the mercy rule probably didn't help.