Summer Olympics: Athens 2004

[Scarlett Fire]

The Olympics has come! Back to Athens, Greece, its country and homeland. The opening ceremonies happened yesterday and the spectacle was truly an amazing and symbolic one. I was duly impressed, especially by the historical procession that showed us the Greek timeline from the beginnings of the civilization to the present.

The games have begun. Do tell about what you've seen, felt and thought so far.

[Star of Sorrow]

Well, I haven't seen the Olympics yet, but I am however hoping to high hell that my fencing instructor was able to get sponsorship. :D I wonder if they'll film the fencing matches.

[dark angel]

They're actually showing fencing right now :)
The American lost tho :(

Anyways, I stayed up a bit last night and watch the procession of the countries, which was really cool to see. Been watching some swimming today *waves Phelps flag*

And the girls soccer team beat Brazil! w00t!
I'll be watching a lot of the olympics. I love the summer olympics, especially the swimming. So kickbutt!

[AnguishedBlade]

Fencing is awesome.

[Star of Sorrow]

Awwww, Americans lost? T_T I wish I was able to see fencing. Oh well. Maybe I can ask the instructor if he went when school starts up again. ^_^

[~lofo~]

i really wanted to see the opening ceremony...but i wasn't at home so i missed it :-( don't know how much i'll be watching, got other things to do then sit in front of the tv watchin sports..

[Dmytrin]

The opening ceremony was more solemn than the Sydney one, IMO. The Sydney Olympics had lots of colour and sound; this one had drums, and Greek mythology on floats.

USA has lost to Puerto Rico in *GASP* Basketball by a *SHOCK* 19 point deficit.

[Pikachu]

USA has lost to Puerto Rico in *GASP* Basketball by a *SHOCK* 19 point deficit.

/me laughs her ass off.

I like the swimming, diving, sync swim/dive events. Also th gymnastics. Those are usually what I watch..

[De l'enfer]

!!! I love fencing too! Gymnastics was interesting. Khorkina is the best ever. To me that is.

[Star of Sorrow]

I watch the volleyballs.

Go USA!!

[Rady]

.... Oh wow USA lost basketball, that's sad, oh well. Haha. o_O

Watched the opening ceremony live on TV (at bloody 130am) and oh god that was beautiful, leaves me craving for the classics all over again.

[JFA_bobguy]

U.S. mens basketball had a record of 109 wins against 2 losses going into these olympic games. And they are now 113-5. The reason? This team was more designed to showcase NBA players than to win a gold medal. And we were embarassed. It's terrible. It was flat-out wrong.

In the meantime, it was a really fun olympiad to watch, and a strange one too. From Paul Hamm and the judge controversy to the defrocked Irish priest mauling the Brazilian marathon runner, it was a weird olympiad, but also quite enjoyable (I'm not saying the guy getting denied a gold medal was a good thing).

And it seems the whole doping scandal has hit Greece a lot harder than it has hit the U.S. I was listening to a sports talk radio station a while ago and they had US mens basketball coach Larry Brown interviewed. According to Larry Brown, THG, a performance-enhancing (and banned) substance, was originally used in Greece before use began to spread out to other organizations, BALCO being one of them. Although if the test comes out negative, then I don't have reason to believe anyone does steroids. Just wanted to get that out of the way.

Obviously the biggest story to a lot of people was the success of Iraq's mens' soccer team, even though they failed to get a medal. Would have been nice though, since Iraq has only won one single medal ever: a bronze medal in weightlifting in 1960.

All in all I enjoyed the games thoroughly, And I never knew Tae Kwon Do was an olympic sport...XD