Batgirl’s Weblog

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/volleyball/news?slug=ap-vol-us-brazil&prov=ap&type=lgns

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE GOLD MEDAL US MEN’S VOLLEYBALL TEAM!!!

WHOOOOOO!!!! Thank you nbcolympics.com for giving me live updates so I could freak out and cheer once they won it. I cannot wait to actually watch the match tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Congratulations to Hugh and the team!!! You guys deserve it!

It’s hard to believe that the closing ceremony of the Olympics is on Sunday. Where did the time go? All I’ve been doing is watching the Olympics for the past 3 weeks. It hasn’t been as fun as it was during the swimming finals, but there have been crazy moments (Usain Bolt, gymnastics, men’s volleyball, US track and field relays).

I’m currently sitting here, rewatching the US Men’s Volleyball semifinal match versus Russia even though I stayed up until 3 a.m. to watch it “live” this morning. They’re reshowing the 5th set which was the tiebreaker set. The US won the first 2 sets (25-22, 25-21) then lost the second 2 (25-27, 22-25). They just had to go to 15 in the final set and ended up winning it 15-13. It was a nailbiter, and I was on the edge of my seat. Once they won, I was jumping around and dancing (I’m even clapping my hands and yelling right now even though I’ve already seen this). I’ve adopted this team as my own, and I am so excited for them. Their team was associated with tragedy at the beginning of the games, but they’ve taken it and grown as a team. I’ll be cheering for them on Sunday in their gold medal match versus Brazil. Good luck guys!!! (I really want a a US Men’s Volleyball jersey now, and I wouldn’t mind joining their huddles after every play)

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/volleyball/news;_ylt=ArYbp_ivo3XoqgNdLzMuZdytaJh4?slug=ap-vol-usrussia&prov=ap&type=lgns

P.S. I’m happy that the IOC will be investigating the Chinese female gymnasts to see if some of them are underage. I don’t like that the IOC has already said that they think they won’t find anything. You haven’t even started investigating yet!!! I hate how they trust the passports even though those can easily be doctored and created. Get a clue, IOC. You don’t have to continually kiss up to the host country.

Also, I want to high 5 Jeremy Wariner for telling the NBC interviewer “That’s enough” after he kept asking questions about his loss and changing coaches after he won the silver medal. That interviewer is possibly the most annoying one on the Olympics broadcast. He’s always talking to the athletes after they’ve lost and asking questions that makes them feel even worse. Back off. The only announcers I’ve liked so far are the swimming and volleyball announcers. Nothing has been worse than the gymnastics announcers who would make comments during the routines but not explain them. The only time I liked them was when they pointed out that the scores were too high in the individual events after people obviously didn’t do well.

There have been articles recently about how NBC claims that their Olympic evening coverage is “Live” on the West Coast. Unfortunately, all of us on the west coast don’t get to watch the live events until 3 hours after east coast viewers. That means the results from Michael Phelps’s races are already posted online (and sometimes as headlines on Yahoo), making it easy for West Coast viewers to be spoiled before they’ve even had the chance to watch the race themselves. It’s not fair that the rest of us have to wait 3 hours to watch the events and risk being spoiled (I try to stay off the internet until after 11 p.m.) and then have “live” Olympic coverage until 12:30 a.m. or later. Why can’t NBC show the races at 10 p.m. EST and 7 p.m. PST thereby making sure that everyone is able to view it at the same time? I understand that they want to show them during primetime hours so they can make as much money as they can, but it’s not fair to the viewers. I want to be able to watch Michael Phelps win his gold medals when they actually happen. NBC needs to get a clue and adhere to what their viewers want or risk not having any viewers at all.

P.S. Why does the gymnastics coverage only show China and the US competing? From past Olympic viewing experiences, I remember being able to see all the teams compete and I would like to see more than the 2 teams. Even the Men’s All Around last night only focused on the competitors from China, the US, and Japan, not even giving any time to the French gymnast who ended up winning Bronze (I guess he did well enough; I wouldn’t know since NBC rarely showed him). Hopefully the individual events will show more gymnasts but somehow I highly doubt it and we’ll just see then same people we saw during the team finals and the all around.

New Favorite Olympic Sports: Handball, Volleyball, Water Polo, Whitewater

This message has been approved by the 4 x 100m free Gold Medalists. That race is the best Olympic moment so far.