Beijing Olympics 2008

The 29th Beijing Olympics opened at 2008-08-08, 8.08pm.

Honestly?
I don't really care.

My athletic-sense is zero and I never held interest in sports longer than the Omega advertisement on TV. Especially in an international sporting event tainted with politics and pollution.

However, I get caught in the tide. Very easily.
With the olympian fervor going on, it's difficult not to get excited about the Games. Especially when your country has a good shot at winning a gold medal; and the unbelievable record-breaking trails.

So I watched the Opening Ceremony. Impressed, I was. The fireworks especially. And the performances were pretty cool. Except that I personally think that the use of humongous number of performers was akin to an overzealous hammering of the notion that the host have people power. Literally. "Don't mess with me, I can outnumber you in a blink."

But I digress.

Nonetheless, I was awed by the show. Had new found respect for the country that has been struggling so hard to prove herself in the eyes of the world.

Until news came pouring that the glossy performance was rigged with piracy.

Fake child songbird on stage.

Fake fireworks.

Fake ethnic child performers.

I do not particularly care about the latter two piracies, but the first really disgusts me. Had a pretty girl to fake the performance simply because the original talent had no looks deemed suitable to be on stage? What kind of message are they trying to send across in a G-rated international event?

The opening ceremony aside, competitions thus far had been amazing. In that we are witnessing some really marvelous sportsmen and sportswomen. However, it's swimmer Michael Phelps of USA who had grabbed the thunder of the Beijing Olympics 2008.

Phelps, the new God of the Pool

Golds in all 8 swimming events he participated, of which 7 were world record-breaking, and 1 by 1/100 second victory; giving him a total of 14 Olympic golds. This is the new history.

Not to be outdone, Kitajima Kousuke of Japan emerged as the Asian superstar in the pool, with 2 golds, in what I understand was a performance Asians were very proud of.

Pride of Asia in the Pool

Closer to home, Malaysia managed to enlist into the finals of badminton men's singles via Lee Chong Wei's brilliant performance. Thanks to him, Malaysians were given an opportunity to be hopeful and to be proud of in the international arena. He pushed his way into the finals, and like many Malaysians in the motherland and all over the world, I eagerly followed the finals match. How can I be not excited, when the athlete from my homestate is playing for gold in the Olympics. The catch, however, is that he has to play against the person seeded above him: Lin Dan of China.

So, I started off ambitious.
Slam the top seed in his home ground and bring us our first gold.
Maybe not so harsh.
Just bring us our first gold.
But Lin Dan is a great player and not ranked top seed for nothing.
Okay, play 3 games and win 2 with slim majority.
Lin Dan had been playing pretty effortlessly so far.
Fine, silver medal, but play 3 games. 21-18, 18-21, 20-21.
Alright, silver with 2 games still okay. 18-21, 20-21.

Ultimately, we lost 2 games: 12-21, 8-21.

I had wanted that look in the finals

Pretty disappointed that it wasn't a good game at all. Lee Chong Wei made a lot of errors, the most vexing one being the gold medal point: Lin Dan got it free due to his mistake. Sien. Lee Chong Wei didn't appear to be in top form, but to be fair, Lin Dan was really good. He simply outclassed Chong Wei. The smashes were evil. And during the first game, he had Chong Wei running all over the court whilst he appeared to barely break a sweat running.

Oh well, a silver is better than none. Thank you, Chong Wei.
At least, he made it to the final game.

Thus it appears while my athletic-sense is zilch, I do still enjoy watching sports. Heeh.

～みはる～

Disclaimer: None of the images are mine. All were google-d.