I was really impressed by the only 18-year old Rubio, he's had an amazing tournament, I think in a few years he will be the best European player. Kudos to Aito (whom I don't like at all) for calling up such a young player and playing him in the decisive moments.

Still, I would like to say a few words about the referees, although they didn't do such a bad job, but if the tournament is played by FIBA rules, they should be applied. The Americans make a lot of travelling violations and (almost) none are called, they sometimes make fouls when double-teaming (which is then followed by fastbreaks and easy baskets) and again they're never called.

Still, the US team was the best and won deservedly, they were finally a real team, maybe not "dreamy" :-), but close.

But why do the spanish Basketball players have names like: Ricky (what a talent, though), Berni and Rudy??

Because they play in the NBA too?

Tia Hellebaut's Gold in the highjump yesterday was very deserved too, for the Belgians.

I guess the "traditional" names are not fashionable anymore, it's probably the same in many countries, here too, the parents try to be original and sometimes they're really egotistical and go IMO over the line with making up names (ok, with the examples you gave not really, they just used foreign names; and yes, some do play in the NBA, Navarro, Pau Gasol, Calderon, Garbajosa used to, etc.). You have to think about the child who will have to live with that name.

Or look at some of the American athletes, how many LeBrons, Dwyanes, LaShawns, etc. are there?

Incredibly great job by China for out-Gold medaling the USA, although they still finished second in the overall medal count.

<Who's sad that the Olympics is over?> I am, at least now I had an excuse for not doing anything at home.

-Germany's weightlifting gold medal winner Matthias Steiner when he showed his dead wife picture after receiving his medal.

-China's gold medalist X (can't remember his name) who after having won gold in table tennis celebrated by throwing his paddle, his shirt, and his shoes to the crowd.

-USA Kerry Walsh and Misty May winning gold in beach volleyball without losing a single set for the second time in olympic games, both in Athens and Beijing!

-USA "redeem team" for redeeming themselves in the world of basketball as the #1 team.

-Jamaica's dominance in track and Usain Bolt 3 world records in the 100m, 200m and 4x400m!

-Argentina v. Brazil in the football semifinal match.

-USA's Michael Phelps dominance in the pool for breaking 7 WR and winning an unprecedented 8 gold medals in a single olympics.

-Germany's Britta Steffen when she out-touched USA's Dara Torres in the 50 swimming freestyle final by 0.01 seconds.

-South Africa's Natalie du Toit swimming in the open water race despite having only one leg.

-China's men gymnastic team for winning 7 golds!

-Spain's Rafael Nadal winning in tennis and finally claiming the #1 rank in the world.

-Brazil's swimmer Cesar Filho for winning 50m freestyle race and winning the title of the world's fastest swimmer!

-USA's women football team for winning their second consecutive gold in olympic games by beating Brazil (again)!

-Japan's upset in softball by beating the heavily favorite team of the USA.

-USA's men volleball for winning gold by beating world's #1 Brazil, after coach McCutcheon's father-in-law was killed at the beginning of the Olympics.

-China's 51 gold medals!

-Sweden's wrestler Ara Abrahamian tossing aside his bronze medal as a protest.

-Cuba's taekwondo Angel Matos banned for life for kicking a referee in the face after being disqualifed in the bronze medal match.

-Hungary's weightlifter Baranyai when he dislocated his elbow during a lift.

Well, a bit misleading I'd say. Remember that the actual singer was one of those who had been handpicked among many, many others exactly because of her 'prettiness' to begin with. And it was more that the one doing the lip-synching was refused for not singing well enough than the other way around.

<The following is a translated transcript of a radio interview of 陈其钢 Chen Qigang, chief music director of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

(...)

The director requested first and foremost adorable kids, and we identified about 10 children accordingly. We then listened to the singing of those kids, and not all of them had good enough voice to perform. The request from the director was that, first the appearance must be good, and of those, the one with the best voice and ability to sing should be picked. We went through a few such candidates through the process and they helped our music creation effort tremendously.

The first kid was about 10 years old. She contributed the most towards the preparation stage of this part of the performance. All the early practice runs were based on her recorded singing. But the director felt she was not the best visual for the scene. She was considered somewhat older than envisioned, a bit adolescent that is. So regrettably she was dropped. We then focused on searching through younger kids. The age criteria was to find someone about 7 years old. A number of them were selected, including both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi.

We went to the Central Broadcasting Radio Station to make recordings. It was felt afterward that Lin Miaoke’s voice wasn’t exactly suitable in terms of tone control, range and depth. In the end, we decided that Yang Peiyi should be the one to provide the voice. We thought it was in the national interest to put the one with the best appearance and expression on the stage. Lin Miaoke was a very good choice for this role. But in terms of the music, we all felt that Yang Peiyi had the flawless voice.>

So,in the end, they chose to have the best of both worlds. It's only fair in a way. Why give all the honour to just one of the girls when they could give it to both? The best possible image <and> the best possible voice. Seems fully reasonable to me.

In Western media I've often seen it presented as if Yang Peiyi had been considered "too ugly", which of course is ridiculous insulting nonsense but that goes in line with the general campaign of demonizing China..

Also,

<It now seems that organizers and directors of the ceremony never intended to deny the credit to Yang Peiyi for her (potential) role in the flag entrance scene. The official Beijing Olympics opening ceremony program guide was scanned and posted on the net. (H/T spring2007 for pointing it out in a comment) The picture below is the page showing the credit for the performance. The highlighted section is as follows:

演唱: A 杨沛宜, B 林妙可, C 雷茈昕
Singing: (A) Yang Peiyi, (B) Lin Miaoke, (C) Lei Cixin

So Yang Peiyi is actually listed ahead of Lin Miaoke in the credit. I wonder if the third girl on the list, Lei Cixin, is the 10-year old Chen Qigang referred to in the interview.>

<ThunderBolt>, <Phelps> and <redeem team> was the highlights for me.

Great result for our tiny nation (Norway), 16 gold medals! 14 in ladies' handball ;), also men's single sculls rowing (Tufte) and men's javelin (Thorkildsen), both defending their Athens gold medals...