Iowa went 1 for 2 in terms of Olympics results tonight. Lolo Jones, the favorite in the women's 100m hurdles, clipped the ninth hurdle and ended up coming in seventh, which was a devastating finish for her given how great she looked in the qualifying rounds. Granted, she was honored with a likeness of herself carved in ice at the Iowa State Fair, but I'm sure she would have rather had gold instead.
However, Shawn Johnson finally won her gold medal, coming on the last night of competition in the balance beam final. I should have gone to Katrina's tonight to celebrate her birthday (happy birthday, Katrina!) and watch some Olympics with her, but I emailed her this afternoon to politely decline the invitation because I wouldn't have been able to stand watching the final apparatus final with someone who was cheering for Nastia Liukin instead. I have nothing against Nastia at all, but Shawn is adorable, and I wanted to see her come home with a gold. Happily, Shawn and Nastia won gold and silver, closing out an amazing performance by both of them at these games. Shawn indicated in the post-event interview that she was interested in coming back in 2012, but you can't expect that she'll perform as well there as she did here, if the performances of other 20-year-olds (Cheng Fei, Alicia Sacramone, Chelsea Memmel, etc.) are any indication. Then again, the 33-year-old who competed for Germany came away with a medal, so I suppose anything is possible.
The other 'great' segment of tonight's coverage was Mary Carillo's feature segment on kite-flying in China. I think that her commentary sometimes borders on offensive, although I felt that the most when I was watching her segment on Chinese food, and then later remembered that I am a perpetrator of a great crime against Chinese culinary culture by playing the Shrimp or Feet game and laughing hysterically at the dim sum Cart of Horrors every time it rolls by our table. Anyway, apparently there are dueling kites, in which the strings are made out of crushed glass and glue -- man, if only the US safety standards were less stringent for children's toys, we could take care of some overpopulation issues and teach kids the art of kite-flying at the same time.
Now I'm going to bed without finishing tonight's coverage; I skipped the two men's apparatus finals because I started watching coverage later than usual tonight and had to prioritize so that I can go to bed. I had an 8:30am presentation to the directors this morning, managed to drag myself out of bed and get there on time, only to discover when I got there that they wanted to push me to 9:10. I was surly about my lost sleep the rest of the day, but unwillingly made up for it on the shuttle ride home -- this particular driver handled the bus like it was my old Pontiac Sunfire, stopping and starting abruptly, which was exacerbated by heavy traffic, and so I was only able to work for five minutes before I began to feel queasy and so went to sleep instead. Hopefully I get a better driver tomorrow, since the shuttle is more productive when I can get some work done on it. Goodnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment