- Women’s basketball won again. Men’s basketball lost again. No surprises there.
- Not to say that an OIympic delegation is necessarily representative of the ethnic demographics of a country, but… there sure are a lot of black people in France. Speaking of which, Malia Mettala became the first black swimming medalist with her silver medal in the 50m freestyle.
- The softball team beat Japan to finish 7-0 in pool play with a 41-0 scoring margin.
- Okay, fine. I kind of like Svetlana Khorkina, too. In similar style, it was fun to watch Sweden’s Carolina Kluft win the heptathlon.
- Hellloooo, Brenda Taylor. Yum.
- NBC did a piece on the women from Afghanistan, and female representation from historically oppressive countries (and Iraq’s soccer team). Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the President of the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee and the Woman Who Made the Games Happen, also got a mention. (Hey, did you know the mayor of Athens is the city’s first female mayor as well as the first female mayor of an Olympic host city?) I was a little verklempt watching Robina Muqimyar on the track, three seconds behind everyone else in her 100m heat, in her t-shirt and long pants.
- Paul and Morgan Hamm are fraternal twins. Except when they’re identical.
- Stacey Dragila! Nooooooo!
- I was watching weightlifting, and I chuckled every time they said “snatch.”
- Rowing is fun to watch just because the name of the venue is fun to say. Schinias. Skeen-yahs.
