Today Team USA played its final game in pool play against Germany. Let me say up front that German basketball isn't very good. It's basically Dirk Nowitzki and a bunch of stiffs. Team USA put the game out of reach early (I mean really early) by jumping off to a 20-3 lead. For their part, Germany started off badly, and gradually went downhill from there. The final score was 106-57, and if this game were a fight, they would have stopped it before halftime.
But now that pool play is over, everyone starts with a clean slate in the medal round. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, Spain only lost one game in Athens and did not win a medal, finishing seventh. Argentina lost twice, and won the gold medal. Now it is a single elimination tournament, and every game counts.
The next opponent is Australia, and they aren't very good. They had only an outside shot at a medal to begin with, and they didn't help themselves by drawing USA in the first round. The draw is critical, and the Chinese coach understands that. He is a Lithuanian, and wanted to play Lithuania, not Argentina in the first round. China had already qualified for the medal round, so he only let Yao Ming play 18 minutes in the final game, which they lost. The home crowd was not happy to see their superstar sitting on the bench while the team was losing, but the coach is the supreme overlord, and his rule is absolute. The coach knows the Lithuanian team intimately, and if he knows something and wants to play them, he did what was right for his team, and not the player, even if he is a national icon.
In the end it won't matter, because Team USA looks unstoppable. Unlike previous editions, this Team USA plays defense. They have crushed the teams that were supposed to give them trouble, and have won their games by an average of 32 points. A few weeks ago they played Australia in a "friendly" and won by "only" 11 points. I predict that the next game will not be so friendly, and Team USA will roll over Australia.
They're showing gymnastics again. The women, that is...who would watch mens gymnastics anyway? This means lots of artistic, athletic young women doing all kinds of impossible exercises, sandwiched around my favorite segment of the Summer Games, the Bela Karolyi Interlude.
We were treated to hear from Bela after the vault competition, and again after the floor exercise. Two helpings of Bela in one night! My cup runneth over. First, he directed his wrath at the judging of the vault competition, because Alicia Sacramone finished fourth, and missed out on a medal. She is a talented gymnast who unfortunately had the worst night of her life in team finals. If you watched the earlier team comptetition, then you saw Team USA lose the gold medal to China because first she fell off the balance beam, and then landed on her rear end in the floor exercise. So I'm inclined to think she's actually lucky to make it out of Beijing with a silver medal instead of being covered with tar and feathers. Actually that's being unfair. Even if Sacramone had been perfect, the Chinese would have won anyway. Much as I hate to say it, they were that much better than the Americans.
Bela probably has a point about the judging of the vault competition. I can't say for sure because I don't understand the first thing about gymnastics. I have a vague idea that falling down is bad, and costs you points. Anyway, a Chinese girl who placed ahead of Sacramone nearly fell forward and landed on her face. And the North Korean girl who won the gold medal landed out of bounds on both of her vaults. I don't begrudge her the gold medal for doing two crappy vaults, though, because she's from North Korea. She will probably be the only national hero they have, and she'll receive extra rations of gruel for the rest of her life.
After the floor exercise, Bela was a lot happier. But then the top three places went to a Romanian and two Americans. What more could Bela ask for? I'm not saying he's a homer, but his reporting of gymnastics makes Fox News look fair and impartial.
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