Beijing: Lasting Memories

Wow. What a great Olympics. Sets the bar pretty high for London in 2012.(I'm sure they will do awesome) So I give you my personal lasting images from the Beijing Games.

1. Michael Phelps 8 gold medals: I wrote an entire blog about this already, comparing Phelps' domination only to Tiger Woods. A performance for the ages.

2. Usain Bolt: Fastest man ever? It is a ridiculous question to ask, but as far as athletics goes it could be Bolt. He set world records in the two fastest sprint events in the 100m and 200m. And he made it look easy. A huge congrats to Bolt and the entire Jamaican track team. They put on a show.

3. Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson Although they didn't win team gold, Luikin and Johnson performed with precision. In fact, I feel every event could have been won by either gymnast (I don't follow the scoring, too inconsistant). They were clutch with style. Great to watch.

4.Kerry Walsh/Misty May-Treanor: Nobody had gone gold in back to back Olympics until they did. Watching them celebrate was like watching the Olympic spirit. You could tell they are ecstatic to start their families with Olympic gold. The entire US volleyball did amazing with 3 gold and 1 silver.

5. The Host Nation: The government may have tried to hide the poverty, but the people showed their pride. The opening and closing ceremonies were the best ever, and the athletes won an incredible amount of gold medals. A great perfomance, even if they do have athlete factories.

6. US Women win gold in soccer: without Abbey Wambauch I thought the US would still medal. Their complete team performance to win gold against Brazil ushered in a new era of US soccer.

7. The Redeem Team: Not only did they dominate, they represented themselves as great Olympians by attending a variety of other sports. Class.

8. Swimming success, Track tribulations: Even without Michael Phelps, our swimming team has great success. They won a fair share of gold and silver. The track team has some answering to do. I believe their training was very poor, and half our athletes looked flat. We won a fair amount of medals, but clearly we struggled in some strong events.

Did I forget anything? I look forward now to Vancouver in 2010. And don't forget the World Baseball Classic next spring.