Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Silver

To continue my self-appointed task of listing Kyrgyzstan's results in the Olympics: Kanatbek Begaliev just won a silver for wrestling, which is fantastic, although I'm not impressed with the French guy who stopped Kyrgyzstan from getting their first-ever gold.

On the Kiwi front, more disappointing results in rowing and canoeing, although full props to Moss Burmester, even if he didn't get a medal. He got a very solid fourth, and if only someone had knocked Phelps over the head beforehand, we might have got a medal....

Speaking of which, I'm starting to dislike Phelps on principle of all the adulation he's receiving. His head's going to be huge at the end of this. They're calling him "the best Olympian" and even "the Olympian king". Ugh.

Which reminds me of my other peeve relating to the Olympics: changing the swimming times so that they fit into US prime-time. I accept that the States are the current superpower, but I don't like the rest of the world (or at least the Olympics) having to reorganise their schedule to suit the USA.

Anyway, at the end of the day, New Zealand is still medalless and Kyrgyzstan now have both a bronze and a silver in wrestling. Hopefully Saturday's rowing will change all that, or maybe an event before then... but we'll see. It's a little embarrassing for NZ's 180-strong team to be coming behind Kyrgyzstan's 15 athletes.

But tomorrow is another day.

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