This time it was mighty Spain. Undefeated in pool play, the Spanish basketball team ran into a buzzsaw today. The final score was USA 119, Spain 82, and it wasn't that close. Spain is one of the gold medal favorites, but they were not even competitive in the second half. By the fourth quarter, their team's body language was obvious. The coach looked disgusted, and the players were looking up at the clock and wishing the game were over.
Halfway through the tournament, if I had to pick the MVP, it would be LeBronze James. He is everywhere on defense, getting steals and blocking shots, and when he drives the lane, defenders bounce off him like pinballs.
There is one more meaningless game in pool play against hapless Germany, and then Team USA will probably face Australia in the first game of the medal around. Lithuania and Argentina have good teams, and it is still possible Team USA could see Spain again, in the finals. If the Spaniards wanted the Americans to be overconfident in the event of a rematch, they did a real good job of sandbagging today.
One good feature of the Olympics is that you get to see obscure athletes in sports you'd never watch, or may never even have heard of. Beach volleyball is such a sport. Two on a side, on a sand court. They're dropping baseball from the next Olympics in London, but beach volleyball is in.
Maybe that's just as well, or I never would have heard of the Silent Laciga Brothers. Paul and Martin Laciga were the best pair of beach volleyballers in Europe, and represented Switzerland in the Olympics twice. They should probably be called the Battling Lacigas because they hate each other. They were a tandem for 14 years, and didn't speak to each other for the last 8, hence the name the Silent Lacigas.
It was actually their father's idea. Instead of arguing and screaming at each other, he suggested that they not speak to each other. Their results improved dramatically, and they enjoyed great success, winning more than $1 million in prizes. They wouldn't speak to each other on the court, or off it. They stayed at different hotels, and never ate meals together.
After the 2004 Athens Olympics, they brokeup. The younger brother (Martin) found a new partner, and when asked if he got sick of Paul at the Olympics, he said, "No, I was sick of him long before that." Paul retired, and now Martin has a younger partner that he can yell at. Their opponents' strategy is to go after his partner early in the hopes that he'll make a few mistakes, and then Laciga will start screaming at him. As entertaining as this sub-plot may be, I won't miss beach volleyball after the Olympics.
I won't miss Bela (the Madman) Karolyi either. After the Womens All Around Gymnastics Final, they showed video of him watching the performances. He doesn't bounce around quite as much as the girls, but one of these days he's going to hurt someone in the studio. The way he was jumping around and flailing his arms, I thought he might actually come flying out of my TV set.
BTW, Michael Phelps won his seventh gold medal. That's not really news as it falls into the category of "dog bites man." It's expected. Michael Phelps losing would be news, like "man bites dog." But it was his closest race, winning the 100 Meter Butterfly by one-one hundredth of a second, the smallest margin possible. I've played the finish back on my Tivo several times, and I still can't separate the two of them. But the touch pad on the wall never lies. Seven down, and one to go.
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