Liu Xiang, China's first track gold medalist from Athens, said the pain was unbearable. The physical pain and the mental anguish - the weight of 1.8 billion expectations. Unbearable. It will be interesting to see how both Liu Xiang and China handles this. Everyone seem to be saying the right thing for now. Nike didn't miss a beat with their support of one of their athletes, posting a full page ad of Liu Xiang's unsmiling face captioned by "Love the glory. Love the pain. Love sport even when it breaks your heart". We hope for your return Liu Xiang.American Stephanie Brown Trafton shocked the women's discus field with the gold medal toss of 212-05 on her first effort. She was third at the US Olympic Trials, but timing in life is everything! It reminded me of Lewis & Clark's 1996 national javelin champion, Leslie Johnson, who also won on her first throw and, like Brown Trafton, saw the rest of the field tighten-up and try so hard they threw poorly. Leslie had placed fourth at our conference championships, but also put it all together at the right time.
The US team seems to be picking up some momentum now with 14 total track & field medals to Russia's and Kenya's total of eight each. But injuries and mishaps continue to haunt the team.
MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS: Is Usain Bolt just loose, a ham, immature, or just a goof. Watching the 200m rounds, he continues to present a unique image compared to the other competitors. Will his talent be great enough to minimize the distraction of his behavior, am I just so Old School about this, or will he take the advice of his friend and competitor, US sprinter Wallace Spearmon, and tone it down in the finals.
How do you run fast? It's a combination of stride frequency and stride length. The stride frequency rates are about the same for sprinters at their level of speed, but it is stride length that varies and determines the winner. If a sprinter can maintain a stride length of just one inch longer than the competition, he will win by three to four feet - a significant margin in 100m. It was reported that Bolt took two less strides (his 41 to 43 for the other finalists) to cover the 100m. When you are 6' 5" tall and can accelerate those long levers equally as fast as the shorter sprinters, by the time you reach full speed your stride length will result in looking like Bolt's race did - in a league of his own.
The Russian women are dominating some finals. They went 1-2-4 in the steeple, 1-3-4 in the pole vault and 5-4-6 in the 400m (what will their 4x4 look like!?).
More TV ads: the VISA Go World ads have Morgan Freeman doing the voice overs . . . the scripts for each are good, but I just LOVE that man's voice!
Sandya Richard vs. Aaron Ross . . . their future marriage is off to a great start (no pun intended) as Ross shows that he is a smart man . . . says Sandya "That's okay honey, that Super Bowl ring is really heavy". . . smart woman too!
Kinesio Tape - looks cool, but come on, what does it really do. Okay, okay, you can explain all you want, but call me a real skeptic. I have the same feeling towards Icy Hot - smells good, make your skin feel warm, but your muscles are the same 98.6-degrees on the inside. What the heck, this things probably don't hurt or help, but if the athlete believes - go with it!
