Watching some of the dressage that I recorded since I was gone while it was airing. I always find it funny that this is one event where the older you are (horse and rider), the more beneficial it is. Such a big deal is made out of other sports when someone is making their third or fourth appearance in the Olympics. Some of the equestrian riders are on their sixth. In horse racing, 4 or 5 is considered retirement age. In dressage, jumping, and other forms of competition 10 and under is considered almost too young.

One of the older riders had a 9 year old gelding and they did a fabulous job for such a young horse. He's sitting 4th at the standings I'm watching at the moment.

I loved the Opening Ceremony this year. I was a bit concerned that, no matter what they did, people might be disappointed in it just because the Beijing Opening Ceremony was so spectacular. But Danny Boyle did a wonderful job. I think what really saved it was that it was so different that it couldn't even be compared to Beijing. Apples and oranges. It reminded me of a giant Broadway play. I loved every segment of it. I think my favorite moment was the rings coming together.

I was a bit disappointed though that the Olympic Cauldron was down by the ground this year.

(By the way, did you know that there are already conspiracy theories surrounding the opening ceremony? Apparently a bunch of people think it was secretly some kind of demonic summoning or pagan celebration. )

I watched Women's Fencing last night. It wasn't as interesting as the Beijing ones, surprisingly. It seemed slower and a bit dull. The Beijing ones were fierce. I didn't get to watch the whole thing. In fact, I didn't get to watch any U.S. competitors at all. I checked the schedule and it didn't show Mariel Zagunis as playing this year. But... I know she came this year... I saw her carrying the flag. Was there some kind of error?

Right now I'm watching Women's Volleyball. That team from Korea is just too good.

Apparently I missed Michael Phelps, if my news source is correct that he's already competed. What happened with that? And will he be competing more?

~Riella

Oops... forgot to comment on the Opening Ceremony .

I dearly loved them. I thought the whole show had a solid, British feel and it was a great way to touch on the culture and history. I do wish there had been a Narnia or LotR reference, but I understand that they had to limit what characters they brought in for the show. However, I did see a picture on TORn's facebook page comparing the look of Sauron's tower to the Olympic torch and found it a funny coincidence that they are a similar shape.

jillPole caught the sounds of the TARDIS in the music retrospective.

Ithil, Phelps competed in the 400M today and didn't do very well. He's got another several races he's scheduled to compete in. I personally think he should have ended his run last time on a high note instead of risking a major disaster this time around. I do wish him luck though.

jillPole caught the sounds of the TARDIS in the music retrospective.

I saw that! I'm glad we had some kind of Doctor Who reference, even if we didn't get to have the Tenth Doctor carrying the torch. I heard there was going to be a Doctor Who themed segment, showing all eleven Doctors, but it had to be cancelled because the athletes took too long in the parade and they were short on time.

Ithil, Phelps competed in the 400M today and didn't do very well. He's got another several races he's scheduled to compete in. I personally think he should have ended his run last time on a high note instead of risking a major disaster this time around. I do wish him luck though.

Aww, that's too bad. Does he still have a chance of grabbing that record?

~Riella

I'm not sure. I think he only has to win 3 medals to grab the record (I think I heard that somewhere) and he's scheduled for more events than that still. I'm not 100% certain on that though.

Oh that's odd. They were saying on the tape delay broadcast that the parade of nations actually went faster than it has in the past. They must have had it timed very specifically then.

Oh, Phelps will get that record. I think he's swimming 8 events here (same as Beijing) and he only needs three medals to take the record. Considering that this is MICHAEL PHELPS we are talking about, I don't anticipate that being a problem. The event he swam today was one he swore he would never do again post-Beijing, so for him to be doing it at all is a feat in and of itself. His best events are yet to come.

The Opening Ceremony was quirky; a bit odd but I did enjoy it. The forged Olympic Rings were WAY cool and I loved the green, grassy hill. Those of you who watched the NBC broadcast missed a tribute that they did to the victims of the '05 Tube bombings; a full-length rendition of Abide With Me. Very touching and I was sad that NBC cut it from their broadcast.

Anyone know where the Olympic Flame is currently being housed? I know it's not in the middle of the stadium anymore, but nobody seems to know where it is, lol. Maybe I just missed it...

I like how they have gotten more and more creative with the Cauldron itself and how it's lit...Vancouver was wonderfully inventive; born out of necessity since they had an indoor arena and couldn't house it there permanently. So I think it's definitely opened up more creative ways to have the flame lit and then "move" it elsewhere for public viewing. Anyway, I thought it was cool.

Men's gymnastics prelims were today and BOY were they dramatic. Underdogs USA finishes FIRST, which kind of boggles the mind. Reigning Olympic and World champions China finished all the way down in SIXTH place, with gold medal favorites Japan just ahead of them. Both teams struggled mightily, and have certainly dug themselves a very deep hole to climb out of.

Even more shocking was 99.9999% All-Around gold medal lock Kohei Uchimura having several falls and qualifying to the AA down in 9th. 8-o He won the silver in this event in Beijing and has won the gold medal in every Worlds sense, but looked completely off today. I still have my money on him to win in the final, but he definitely does not look as unbeatable as he has these last four years.

But anyway, my USA guys did awesome. Jon Horton got some sweet, sweet redemption on high bar and qualified to finals, and Danell Valley qualified to the AA final in first place. All the other men made finals of their own, so the USA will be very well represented and have several chances to win medals! They weren't perfect; Leyva had a sub-par parallel bars routine and will not be able to defend his World title on this event here in London. That's definitely disappointing, but I'm sure he'd trade that PBars gold for an AA gold any day, and it's definitely within his reach.

Women's prelims are tomorrow, and I'm SO nervous, lol. I hope the good luck of the men will rub off onto the girls! I'll let you know tomorrow afternoon how it went...

About the equestrian competitors--there's one show jumper from Canada who is 65 and has been in every Olympics since 1972 (except for the one that they boycotted.) And there's a dressage rider from Japan who's over 70.

Now that I've had a chance to view the opening ceremonies, I can offer a few comments here:

I liked the earliest parts of the program best, and then the end with the Parade of Nations, the cauldron being lit, and the live performance of "Hey Jude." The middle seemed to drag for me.

I also rather enjoyed the singing of the children's choirs at the beginning. Did anyone else catch the hymn sung by the children in Wales? I cannot remember the name of it.

The children singing at the beginning was one of my favorite parts - so low key, low tech, but still so pretty. The Welsh choir sang "Cwm Rhondda" - better known in North America as "Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah" (or "Redeemer"). It was also sung at William and Kate's royal wedding last year.

I also liked the agrarian-to-industrial conversion segment and the forging of the rings, as well as the Bond segment with the Queen.

jillPole caught the sounds of the TARDIS in the music retrospective.

Thanks in part to this heads-up, I was listening for it. It came during "Bohemian Rhapsody," right before NBC went to commercial break.

While I recognized most of the music during that part, that whole section seemed kind of long and well, boring.

And like others I would have liked to see a Narnia or LOTR reference, but there was an awful lot to choose from when creating the program.

I guess there's been a little controversy about the cauldron being 'hidden' so that tourists can't get pictures of it. Nevertheless, the design's pretty cool (or hot ).

We happened to watch Men's Gymnastics (the qualifications, was it?)and Swimming yesterday before the news. I had no idea what was precisely going on (Hey, I'm just watching this for fun. ) , but I watched and followed along. I might be watching it tonight, too. I was really impressed by the Gymnastics. John Orozco and Danell Leyva or Jake Dalton were amazing to watch.

I was looking around on Kenya Olympic Wiki Page (I'm hoping they'll show some track on my TV station so I can happen to see some Kenyan competitors, among the many others!) and I saw something that shocked me - the flag bearer of Kenya, Jason Dunford, and his brother David Dunford (who are both representing Kenya in swimming) are sons of the owners of the Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi, Kenya. My mom knew their parents really well because she knew them due to business contacts and for going to the restraunt. Small world. I got really excited about that and thought I'd share it in here.

I watched parts of the Opening Ceremony, but I shall reserve my thoughts on it as I am sure no one wants to hear what I really thought of it.

I want to hear! I want to hear!
I watched the first hour of it for the first time ever and while I liked some select parts of it, there were others that I did not. (some of the music was just one of the things I didn't like...) but there were, I guess, traditional Olympian rituals/traditions that I personally was not fond of.

Oh man, you guys should not get me started on women's gymnastics preliminaries today. I'm still kind of reeling. To sum it up, the USA qualifed first to the team final (BIG YAY!) and Jordyn Wieber, reigning all-around champion, did not advance to the AA final because the otehr two Americans, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas qualified ahead of her.

Yeah, it's pretty shocking. On a completely logical level, it makes little difference to me; I never really thought Jo was going to win. But on a personal level, I'm pretty devastated for her. It's such an unexpected and crushing blow, and she didn't even have major errors. It was just a matter of her teammates hitting better and her having little mistakes.

That being said, I am thrilled for Aly. Wait until I get on my soapbox about her, because she is one of the kindest and level-headed human beings you will ever meet and has been the rock for USAG for years while getting very little credit for her achievements. For her to qualify first out of all the Americans and second over-all is just a testament to her character and her determination to put in the hard work even when she's had the toughest time of them all just being able to compete AA. She deserves this moment wholeheartedly, and I am beyond ecstatic for her. I just hate that her happy moment is at Jo's expense.

Anyway...men's team final tomorrow. Should be a fun one and is shaping up to be wildly unpredictable!

The whole of the US girls gymnastics team is really good, but I've been especially impressed with Gabby. I maintain that Jordyn is still the best on the team, but it's those tiny, little bitty mistakes that may not seem like very much but tend to add up quick. Aly beat Jordyn on by the thinnest of margins...I felt terrible for her. I'm a bit perplexed as to the rules of how the gymnastics are scored, so a lot of times when I think someone has done really well they end up getting a lower score than I expect. I know when they dismount the beams or uneven bars they're supposed to land on both feet with as little bounce as possible, but it seemed like even when they were doing that (or with the floor exercises) the judges still didn't score them as high as I thought they would. It's like the return of the East German and Soviet judges .

As for swimming, while a lot of people have been bagging on Michael Phelps, it was Lochte that lost the relay race for the team. Phelps actually put them in the lead for a good bit. I just get the feeling Phelps isn't really into it this time around and I'm getting not really a sense of complacency but something related to it. Still some more events coming up so we'll see how that works out. I hate that NBC is saving all the coverage for prime time and not showing it on the internet at least. I hear about what happened during the day and then can't see it personally until it comes on at night. Whoever chose NBC to be the official station to cover the Olympics needs to pick someone else next time.

I have a watched a bit of the swimming and in the news papers everyone was behind the mens australian team to win the relay and thought that the womens team would never win, it proved to be the opposite. That proves you can't really predict anything considering the came 5th

As for swimming, while a lot of people have been bagging on Michael Phelps, it was Lochte that lost the relay race for the team.

I've seen some places place the blame on the coach, who made the highly-risky decision to put Lochte as the anchor, a position maybe he's just not really suited to.

Now, an American has made Olympic history already: Kim Rhodes won a gold medal in women's skeet shooting, making her the first American to medal in five straight Olympics. Not only that, but she dominated the event: of the 100 targets that were fired, she missed one. That 99/100 score is a new Olympic record and ties the current world record.

I'm also glad that the Chinese rep for that event, Wei Ning, rallied in the final to get a score of 91/100 and take the silver. The Chinese are doing quite well in London; they are currently tied with the US in total medals (17) but have a good number more gold medals (9 compared to US's 5). (They're doing surprisingly good in swimming, having two golds from that already.) Of course, it's still early and it should be interesting to see how that medal race will play out over the rest of the Games.

Anyone trying to catch some of the lesser-known sports? Weightlifting is a fun one to watch; many of those athletes are trying to lift two or even three times their own weight! It's one you can't help but cheer for everyone on. (It's also a sport that Asian countries do very well on, for some reason.)

Am I the only one who is pretty much anti-olympic ?
In the end, it's such a huge waste of taxpayers money which could go to much better purposes...

The only agreement you'll get from me on that sentiment, Reepi, is if it went to space exploration and colonization/development. Because just about everything else taxpayer money gets thrown at tends to be a waste.

As it is I think it's a wonderful tradition to have between all the nations of the world and I support it, even if I don't always agree with every decision the IOC makes.