Today is the last day of the Olympics and the finals of one of my favorite sports, basketball. Today Lithuania took on Argentina for the bronze and Spain vs. USA for the gold. Argentina won easily but the highlight of the day was watching Spain give the US a run for it's money. I thought The Dream Team 2 was going to blow out Spain and was expecting a boring game. But right after the tip off Spain turned it up and had Team USA struggling to keep them back the whole game.

Although the Gasol brothers were a dominant force for Spain with their NBA experience. I was most impressed with point guard Ricky Rubio. At only 17 he had an impressive game, dishing out some nice no look passes that left Team USA stumbling. 3 more years and this kids in the NBA for sure.

The half time show was done ala NBA with the Beijing Stunt Team doing crazy aerials. Here's the Olympic mascot doing an old Michael Jordan move.

In the end Team USA won as predicted but I'm sure they were worried the whole way though. As the score came within 2 points at one point, they managed to fend off Spain for an impressive finish and the gold medal. Finally after 8 years of embarrassment, the best in the world finally showed their stuff.
Both teams celebrating their respective Gold and Silver finishes.Two of my favorite players, Jason Kidd and Dwight Howard heading to the locker room.

This Olympic experience has been so amazing. The whole city, or rather the whole country had Olympic fever in a serious way. I have been coming to Beijing since 1978 and have seen it slowly grow to the present day. I know what China was like before and even as recently as my 1994 trip I would have never thought China could have done what they have done. As a Chinese American, I'm proud of the strides and leaps China has made. There won't be an Olympics like this for at least another 50 years. Chong Guo Jia You!!! I will remember this experience forever.
On a side note I've decided to stop trusting the western media. Outlets like CNN and others obviously have their agenda by trying to play down the amazing feat China has pulled off by dishing off nothing but criticism. I spent a month prior to the Olympics watching CNN broadcast nothing but negative news about China. It scares me because they are running the same fear machine that the US government pulled against Iraq. But what do expect from the conservative right? That's why we Americans need to get Obama in the office and stop this bullshit. China should be a good partner to the US, why make it an enemy?
If any of you were there please leave comments below about your experience!

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Athletics

Went to the Athletics event last night at the Bird's Nest. Where did the name Athletics come from? I thought it was called Track and Field? How is Athletics a better name? To me it sounds like high school P.E., physical education. What was I being physically educated about? We were just playing sports.
Anyway, I got tickets for this event to see Liu Xiang show the world that he wasn't an anomaly, and that Chinese can succeed at sports dominated by westerners. Unfortunately as we all know, Liu Xiang wasn't around to show the world that. I wonder where he was and what he was doing? Here's his rival and current 110M hurdles champ Dayron Robles doing his victory lap. Couldn't help but cheer him on even though he didn't break Liu Xiang's Olympic record.
We had awesome seats, right down in front of the sand pit for the triple jump. As I watched the triple jump finals, I couldn't help but think, "this is the least cool event for athletics". I mean getting a medal in the 100M dash means your fast, the high jump shows you got hops, the 10,000M means you've got endurance. But the triple jump? All you do all year round is do three hops and land in a pile of sand. I'm not saying it's easy but visually, it's an awkward looking sport and it would probably bore my brains out if that's all I did. Look at the photos below and you'll see what I mean.
British triple jump contender.
China's triple jumper. He came in last.
cWinner of the triple jump, Nelson Evora

The other big surprise of the night was the men's and women's 100X4 relay qualifiers. The US was favored to win both, actually all they needed was to make it into the top four and they'd be in the finals. But I guess it wasn't in the US's favor this year because both teams dropped their batons and came in last. What's even weirder is that they both dropped it at the third pass off. Crazy. I felt sorry for them.
The Women's javelin finals were last night as well. Russia took home the Gold and Silver. But the coolest thing about javelin was this little remote controlled car that carries back the javelin after it's been thrown.
Jamaica's 200M champ Veronica Cambell-Brown
The Jamaicans are making a strong presence this year in all of the raw speed sports. My favorite athlete of the games is this guy Usin Bolt, The Lightning Bolt. This kid is fast. If you saw the 100M and 200M finals you'll know what I'm talking about. He was way ahead of everyone else, broke the record and did it all without the slightest grimace. Easy. Plus his little dances are funny. I wish I could have seen him up close. Last night was his 21st birthday and the whole stadium sang to him.
My best photo of the night. Again Cuba's Dayron Robles celebrating his win.

Men's and Women's Olympic Gold

I wrote a nice long blog about my first Olympic event but when I tried to upload it, it disappeared so all your going to get from me here is the photos. Congrats to Nadal for the gold!
On another note my heart goes out to Liu Xiang for pulling out of the Olympics. I don't think any single athlete in the world had as much pressure as he did. I can only imagine the dialogue going on inside his head for the past few weeks. I hope he gets through this all right.
Elena from Russia took the gold.
Russia also took silver and bronze.
A victory lap for Russia.
World #1 and now Olympic Gold medalist Nadal smashes in a serve for Spain.
Gonzales from Chile put a good fight with some monster serves.
But he couldn't fend off the power of Nadal and was beaten in three straight sets.

Beijing 2008!!!

The picture above is why I never liked wrestling. I did it for a summer as a kid and didn't like having a sweaty guy in tights rubbing all over me. At least this never happened to me. I think his family jewels are sitting on top of the other guy's forehead. Nasty!
Anyway, after six weeks of relentless work in Taipei, I've finally made it out alive and to Beijing to catch a bit of the Olympics and give my support. The city looks great. Better than I've ever seen it before and I've been coming here since 1978. I am really surprised that the pollution problem was actually solved. It's so much better than when I've been here in the past. Too bad in less than two weeks, the factories will be cranking up and the construction will resume, bringing all that pollution back.
More from here in later blogs.