olympics Page 107 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Beijing Opening Ceremony Performers And American Astronauts Have Much In Common
Say, remember those Opening Ceremonies from Beijing the other night? Pretty awesome, right? There was a globe! And glowsticks! And a scrim! And all kinds of crazy shit! As we now know, many of the elements from the ceremony were faked (or as fake as something involving a staged presentation can be)...
Behold, The Power Of Cheese: Phelps Wins No. 6
The surgeon general is frantically trying to keep a lid on the latest story out of Beijing, in which Michael Phelps has revealed his daily diet. He won gold medal No. 6 on Friday — in the 200-meter individual medley — leaving him one away from Mark Spitz' record with two races to go. And he has 12 g...
Andrea Joyce Got Off Easy
The video below made the rounds a couple of months ago, but considering recent events, it really needs to be revisited. It purportedly shows slippery-footed American gymnast Alicia Sacramone punching some dude and knocking him out (following the jump). As you can see, Ms. Sacramone has a pretty dyna...
China: The Smog-Filled Land Where Nothing Is Real
In case you hadn't heard, all of those spittle-mustachioed grumblings from Bela Karolyi about the ages of the gold-medal winning Chinese gymnastics team may just not be the embittered rants from a slimy old man. He Kexin, "16"-year-old uneven bars specialist is reportedly not of competitive age, th...
Farwell and Adieu, You Slant-Eyed Spanish Ladies....
Amid all the controversy (or non-controversy — if you're European) surrounding the Spanish men's basketball team's "slit-eyed" photo it's hard to tell who's really wrong here. Is Spain just a culturally backwards country or are we a bunch of hypersensitive whiners overloaded on politically correct b...
Jason Kidd Calls Out NBA "Double Standard" For Failure to Speak on Spain Photos
The NBA's love affair with China—and vice-versa—has been well chronicled by the national media. But in the wake of the Spanish team posing with slant-eyes or slit-eyes (I'm still not sure why there are two names for this), NBA players are starting to take note that the NBA is much quicker to penali...
Team USA Reenacts Battle Of Thermopylae, Massacres Greeks
This was supposed to be the first true test for the Redeem Team: Facing off against the Greek team that Clubber Lang'ed them in the semifinals of the 2006 FIBA World Championships. How big a deal was it to the American players? Carmelo Anthony said he's had this game circled on his calendar for two ...
Redeem Scream: U.S. Cooks With Greece
Greece: You're the one that I want (Oo Oo Ooo ...) Stopping their vaunted phalanx, I mean, pick-and-roll offense, the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team got their revenge against Greece, 92-69 ... mmm, rolls in Greece ... to improve to 3-0 and clinch a spot in the medal round. Kobe Bryant and Chris ...
Andrea Joyce Makes Tiny Gymnast Cry; Enjoys It
Problem: We want captured terrorist suspects to talk, but conventional torture methods are morally troublesome and politically dangerous. Solution: Andrea Joyce! Judging from the way that the NBC correspondent interrogated emotionally brittle gymnast Alicia Sacramone on Wednesday, I'd guess that Al ...
Can The Redeem Team Win The Gold With Kobe Playing Like Pete Myers?
Judging by jersey sales alone, the Chinese people love Kobe Bryant. But those enthusiastic fans can't be very impressed by what they've seen from him so far. His first two tournament games have been the Olympic basketball equivalent of going to see The Dark Knight but being forced to sit through Bat...
So, This Is What It Looks Like When Your Elbow Decides To Quit On You
The horrific video of Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai's elbow dislocation has been pulled from YouTube apparently, but I'm sure there are some more floating around.(Like after the jump.) Lucky for everyone who just could not stand watching the thing, the Daily Mail has all the dislocation shot...
Which NBA Player Was Hitting On Kara Goucher?
The sinewy young lady in this picture is Kara Goucher, who will be representing the U.S. in both the 5,000m and 10,000m in Beijing. She's a pleasant, friendly woman, who's been "writing home" about her Olympic experience for the Duluth News Tribune. She had an amusing little anecdote in her entry on...
Of Empty Seats And Merciless Scalpers
The Olympics have begun and they're in China, so, you know, it should be a rather fascinating world event, if you're into fascinating world events. And we are proud to welcome back our Deadspin Beijing Bureau, our own trio of correspondents living in China and reporting on everything they see, Olymp...
She Bangs: South Korea Beats Us In Baseball
I was unaware that the Mets' bullpen had even made the trip to China, but every day you learn something new. In an upset of William Hung winning American Idol proportions, South Korea made Kim Chee out of the U.S. relievers to take an 8-7 win in an Olympic opener. Lee Jong-wook hit a sacrifice fly w...
LeBron, Jason Kidd Are Huge Fans Of The Swimming
Highlights from Beijing, where today's weather forecast is dark and sneezy, with a chance of afternoon soot ... I'm on record as saying this before the Games even started: Just try and keep the U.S. men's basketball squad away from the Water Cube. Here we see King James, Kidd and 10-time Olympic med...
We Welcome Our New Michael Phelps Overlord
The goggles, they do nothing! Despite leaky specs in the first race of the morning — the 200 meter butterfly — Michael Phelps claimed his fourth gold medal of the Beijing Games. He then went on to capture No. 5 as the U.S. became the first team to crack the 7-minute barrier in the 800 freestyle rela...
Rave Reviews For Michael Phelps And His Amazing Technicolor Swim Cap
• Stunning!: “It may be once in a century we see something like this. The rest of the world is catching up to the U.S., the way I look at it – quite a bit. For him to be doing what he’s doing at this moment in time, with the rest of the world coming up the way it is, I think that speaks volumes. And...
Tonight: Watch Young Girls Sacrifice Their Womanhood For A Shot At Something Shiny And Gold
Tonight is the showdown between the U.S. Women's Olympic Gymnastics team and China, which according to SI's E.M. Swift is the "marquee event" of the Summer Olympic games. I thought that was team handball? What's most interesting about tonight's contest is the underlying controversy, triggered the al...
Chinese Badminton Bad Boy, Super Dan, Sets the Ladies Swooning
Lin Dan, or Super Dan, is China's top badminton player. He's also had a few run-ins with authority figures. There was the time he tried to hit another player's coach with his racket. And the other time he took a swing at his own coach with a racket. None of that, however, has stopped the 24-year-ol...
Spain Beats China In Overtime As "Slit-Eye" Picture Controversy Grows
Thanks to Pau Gasol's 29 points the Spanish team overcame a 14 point deficit to send the game into overtime tied at 72. Then, much to the chagrin of millions of angry Chinese, Spain overcame karma and pulled out an 85-75 victory. But not before their team picture exploded into controversy. To such a...