I predicted on this blog 17 days ago that these would be the biggest, most lavish, most over-the-top Olympics in history. I believe that prediction came to fruition. China had great new facilities. Just some wonderful, awe-inspiring venues, from the National Stadium (for track) to the Water Cube (for swimming). Other brand new venues included […]

[Read more →]

China won 51 gold medals here, to 36 for the U.S. That isn’t close, friends, and represents the first time China has finished atop the golds standings. The silver lining for the U.S. … is a silver and bronze lining. Thanks to being second- and third-best quite often, the Americans actually won more medals than […]

[Read more →]

After having kids telling you “hello, goodbye, good morning and can I assist you?” for a couple of weeks, you tend to go soft. Especially when you’re spending the rest of your time chasing sports events all over town. But let’s not forget what sort of government they have here. One that quashes dissent, denies […]

[Read more →]

I liked it. A lot. And it makes me want to see the 2012 London Games … when until about 10 minutes ago I thought I would be bored by the idea. These “preview” things, at Closing, can be tricky, and not always work out well. They are dwarfed by the scale by the current […]

[Read more →]

I never got around to ranking them, again. My list genereally is the same, but I tweak it a bit from time to time. I got to hear two of these live, and more than once. The others … I still just like. The top five. 1. Great Britain. 2. France 3. Russia 4. Germany […]

[Read more →]

It’s a wreck as a piece of music, but that’s not the point. Here are the lyrics, in case you want to get all fired up about quasi-socialist governments out to make a buck but not really let their people govern themselves. The punctuation and capitalization is straight out of the Closing Ceremonies media guide. […]

[Read more →]

The place isn’t quite like I envisioned it. It is far more economically advanced that I imagined. The infrastructure here in Beijing, anyway, puts the U.S. to shame. The airport, the roads, the hotels, most of the big buildings …most of them are modern. Our cities are falling apart, in many cases, but in China, […]

[Read more →]

It’s been clear to me since Day 1 that China would prefer the U.S. Olympic team fail as often as possible. The Chinese saw the Americans as the only team capable of keeping them from winning the gold-medal count, and every American failure was good news to them. It was just sort of in the […]

[Read more →]

I’m going to have to file this after the Closing Ceremonies, because organizers appear to have shut down internet accessability. Afraid we’ll somehow send out images of the ceremonies, I guess. They said they would do the same for opening, but a lot of people filed, no problem. Tonight, however, no. It’s almost as hot […]

[Read more →]

When I win a major sports competition …. you know, an Olympics medal, Wimbledon, anything with a trophy or a medal – I am not going to do what everyone else does.

[Read more →]