WRAL’s Ryan Craig will be checking in throughout the 2008 Olympic Games with his thoughts on what’s happening across the world.

No words for "Phelpsian" feat:

There is nothing I can possibly say to do justice to what Michael Pehlps was able to accomplish over the course of the last nine days, so I might as well not even try.

Perhaps Aaron Peirsol, the man that swam the backstroke leg of Phelps' last final in the 4 X 100m medley relay, said it best after the race when he uttered the following:

"The term 'Spitzian' is outdated. I guess it's 'Phelpsian' now."

Eight events -- eight golds -- one unbreakable record.

Phelps' eight first place finishes in the 29th Olympiad (along with seven world records) is up there with Wilt's 100 points, DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak and Cy Young's 511 wins. It's a record that can mathematically be approached, and even surpassed, but realistically is beyond reach.

His 14 gold medals are already a record, rendering the London Olympics nothing more than a pad-your-stats swim meet for the world to see. 

He's already said he won't swim eight events in 2012, but are 20 golds possible?

Would anyone bet against him?

Usain Bolt, World -- World, Usain Bolt

It’s one thing to win the title of world’s fastest man – and it’s another to win it in world record fashion.

But, it’s entirely another to win in such dominant form that the race itself is almost comical.

That was Usain Bolt’s 100m dash victory.

The 6-foot-5 Jamaican was so far ahead after the race’s first 80 meters that he began celebrating Deon Sanders-style, nearly high-stepping his way past the line and to the gold.

Did I mention his shoe came untied during the race? Or that he considers himself a 200 meter specialist? No matter.

He probably could have taken home the gold running barefoot – backwards.

The newly-crowned Olympic champion probably cost himself another tenth of a second with his sideways, posing-for-the-cameras, finish, but when you’re already winning the race by two full tenths, why not add some style points?

A lot like any 200m freestyle or individual medley swimmer that happened to be born in 23-year-old Michael Phelps’ generation, any 100m meter sprinter that had hopes for Olympic gold at any point in the next decade can probably get started on finding a new hobby.

I hear there are plenty of openings on our company softball team.

Bolt is 21 years old – barely old enough to enjoy a celebratory beverage in the States, and yet already light years ahead of his nearest competition.

He broke the world record the fifth time he ever ran the event, and looks to be on his way to posing next to his name with a “WR” on the end many more times in the future.

Maybe that’s why he slowed up at the end – to ensure that he could break the record at a yet to be determined time and place.

After all, the man they call “lightning bolt” seems to already be at a place in the track and field universe where he, and perhaps history, are his only rivals.

Day 7:

27 minutes:

That’s all Michael Phelps had between his 200m IM final and his 100m butterfly semi.

Phelps, naturally, won the gold in the former in world record fashion.

Then, after a brief warm down, massage and medal ceremony triumvirate, he again took to the water.

To put Phelps’ ridiculous schedule into perspective, the guy who will be his closest rival in the 100m butterfly, American Ian Crocker, swam just his second race of the Olympics when he lined up for the semis. Sir Michael was swimming in his 15th.

15 – one for every time that every other male competitor has probably cursed Phelps’ parents for ever producing their son.

Phelps’ accomplishments during the 29th Olympiad, six golds and six world records in six races, are as much a testament to speed as they are endurance. It’s like he’s a 100m sprinter and marathoner combined.

Add a boxer’s competitiveness and an archer’s focus, and you have an all-but-unbeatable half-man, half-porpoise that is two races away from vaulting himself into the greatest individual athlete of all-time conversation.

The Ole’ 1-2

Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson went gold-silver in the women’s gymnastics all-around, and broke the Chinese stranglehold of the event in the process.

The three previous gymnastics medals given out, for the men’s and women’s team and men’s individual all-around events, had all found their way around the necks of representatives of the host nation.

But the 5-foot-3 Texan (Liukin) and the 4-9 Iowan (Johnson) decided that the United States needed to be heard on the world stage before this whole Olympics thing was all said and done.

With the gold all but sewn up for Liukin, Johnson needed a 15.4 to ensure her ownership of the silver. Naturally, the world champion delivered a clutch 15.525.

Congrats to Nastia and Shawn – yeah, we’re on a first name basis.

Day 6:

Pommel Horse = Kryptonite

Every event in gymnastics requires running, jumping, flipping and some kind of contortionist ridiculousness, except for the pommel horse, and yet that was the event that gave the world’s best absolute fits.

I don’t get it.

The horse doesn’t move. There’s no run up. It doesn’t require nearly as much strength as the rings, or insanity as the vault.

And yet competitor after competitor faltered on the apparatus as if the pommels were greased up like a 1970’s offensive lineman.

Our boy Jonothan Horton, who was so impressive last night during the team finals, couldn’t do a simple handstand. I guarantee that kid has been doing those since he was four, and yet on the kryptonite…I mean…pommel horse, he looked like the awkward kid in eighth grade gym class.

In one rotation, Kohei Uchimura of Japan and Daeeun Kim of South Korea each fell off the horse completely – twice.

Twice?

I can’t imagine how disappointing it must be to know you’ve trained for four or more years for a single purpose, only to kiss any chance of victory goodbye just a third of the way through the competition.

That is why the Olympics is as tough a mental test as it is physical. There’s no “ok, we’ll get ‘em tomorrow,” because tomorrow for these athletes doesn’t come until 2012.

How is Hiroyuki Tomita alive?

The 5-foot-5 Japanese gymnast put a scare into the thousands in the crowd and the billions watching across the world when his left hand slipped of one of the rings when he was wrapping up his routine.

The result?

One of the nastiest looking falls you’ll ever see at the sport’s highest level.

Tomita went pin-wheeling towards the mat, clearly disoriented. His legs crumpled underneath him while his head snapped to the side. At the time you figured he probably tore a rotator cuff, broke at least one leg or ankle and suffered a serious case of whiplash.

Of course, with this being the Olympics, Tomita wouldn’t think of quitting.

Instead he took a bag of ice to the shoulder for about 13 seconds and continued on his merry way towards the vault.

Weird – that’s exactly how I would have handled it...

No golds today for Phelps

Slack Michael…very slack…

(Full disclosure - with the races he was scheduled to swim today it was impossible for him to bring home any hardware. But still, if he was really that good, they would give him the medal after the semis…huh? Yeah, how about that?)

(More full disclosure - Yes…I’m an idiot)

If I was head of men’s gymnastics for a day…

I would make the following five changes, in no particular order.

1.) No more pink spray water bottles near the chalk stands.

2.) Replace the kryptonite horse with a gymnastics version of HORSE (someone does something insane and the other guy has to match it). This might take a while, but I feel like we’d see a lot of cool stuff.

3.) Get rid of the scoring system they have now – I know it’s supposed to favor people who take more risks, but if you nearly fall into the judges after your vault and still beat the guy after you who almost sticks it perfectly, something is weird. Mistakes should be penalized, not rewarded simply because the potential for greatness is there.

4.) Allow the athletes to smack the face of any photographer that shoves their camera six inches from the nose of an athlete that just made a devastating mistake.

5.) No more video reviews - I swear the next Winter games are going to start before this entire meet is over with the amount of time some of these judges take to post their scores.

Day 5:

Rowdy being Rowdy

Line of the Olympics so far goes to Rowdy Gaines, the swimming color commentator for NBC.

Michael Phelps, going for his second gold of the night (he already set the world record in the 200m butterfly on his way to gold there), had gotten the US out to a huge lead in the 200m freestyle relay.

The last swimmer for the US still had three laps to go, but the Americans’ lead was clearly insurmountable.

It was at that point that Gaines uttered to the world: “my mom could probably anchor this race and they’d still win.”

It was an exaggeration perhaps, but not by much. The U.S. broke the world record by almost five seconds, and cleared the rest of the field by even more than that.

Goggle-gate

The 4 X 200m freestyle relay almost lost its luster even before the athletes showed up on the pool deck.

That’s because Phelps had a harder than expected time in the 200m butterfly (if you can call breaking the world record and winning the gold medal a harder than expected time).

Well, that might be because the kid couldn’t even see the walls he was swimming towards.

Something went wrong with Phelps’ goggles before the race, allowing water to rush into his eyes from the very moment he hit the water. He says it started when he first dove in and then got progressively worse with each passing meter.

By the end, he admitted he couldn’t see the final wall.

Some might have considered it a bit much to say that the all-time leader in gold medals could beat the rest of the world with his eyes closed.

Well, that might not seem so ridiculous after all…

Can I see an ID please?

Bela Karolyi wasn’t mincing any words about the Chinese women’s gymnastics team and the questionable ages of some of their athletes, so neither will I.

I own socks that are older than some of those girls.

I’m not saying that the host nation didn’t deserve to win the competition, but there’s no way that each of those athletes is going to celebrate their Sweet 16 before year’s end like the rule says they have to.

Do I think it was an advantage for them to have younger team members? Absolutely not.

But the rule is in place to protect the athletes, not the game, and should therefore be monitored far more closely than it apparently is now.

Most times when there is an age eligibility issue, it’s for the opposite reason. Usually a sport’s governing body is faced with trying to prevent older athletes from participating and dominating younger, less mature, opponents.

I remember in 2001 when Danny Almonte pitched in the Little League World Series with a thicker mustache than I could hope to grow in a month.

Gymnastics, however, is so hard on an athlete’s body, that in this case the rule is in place to, in essence, protect the athlete from themselves or their team. A child’s growth can be adversely effected by the pounding the knees and ankles take on a floor exercise mat or the wrists must absorb during the vault.

Sure, you might win the gold today, but at what cost to those athletes’ futures?

You have more than a billion people in your country, China. I think you can find a half a dozen gymnasts that fit the guidelines.

This is not sour grapes from a fan of the silver-medal winning American squad, but a fan of the sport asking one of gymnastics’ powerhouse nations to take better care of its athletes.

Day 4:

Phelps 3 for 3

Michael Phelps continued his assault on everything Olympic medal related last night with his runaway victory in the 200m freestyle.

Leading from the very first stroke of the race, Phelps left no doubt that he would avenge his only individual non-gold from the Sydney Games four years ago. As a 19-year-old, Phelps watched as then-world record holder Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband touched the wall before him.
Last night it was Phelps lowering his own world record by nearly a second on his way to tying Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz, Larysa Latynina and Paavo Nurmi with nine career Olympic golds – the most all-time.

And Phelps still has five events to go…scary…

Of course it wouldn’t be a normal day for Phelps at the 29th Olympiad without having to head back to the pool at some point for more swimming duties. This time, he had to take care of the formality that was the 200m butterfly semifinals, and as you would expect, Phelps ensured with an Olympic record swim that he would be the top seed heading into tomorrow’s finals.

Now that we didn’t expect…

Taking the floor without a single competitor that could boast any previous Olympic experience, the men’s gymnastics team shocked the world and took home the bronze nobody thought they could.

With China and Japan the heavy favorites to finish 1-2, the Americans headed to their weakest event, the pommel horse, along with Germany, with a medal on the line.

After two solid, but not spectacular, performances, Alexander Artemev, competing in his one and only event of the night, turned in a clutch effort and ensured the Americans would take home some hardware.

After the Hamm brothers, Paul (the reigning Olympic all-around champion) and Morgan, had to pull out of the competition, nobody figured this team of alternates and Olympic novices could muster the intestinal fortitude required for competing on the global stage.

So much for that…

Other than a little bobble on the floor exercise, the United States was unyielding, while the others around them faltered.

Congrats to the men’s gymnastics team.

Now quick, turn to your buddy at work and see if he can even name one guy on the team…

Didn’t think so…

14? Really?

I know the athletes for some of these events are young, but 14? Come on.

Even women’s gymnastics thinks that’s ridiculous (they have a rule saying you need to turn 16 during the calendar year of the Olympics), and that’s saying something.

But that’s what the birth certificate says for one Thomas Daley, who competed on a team with Blake Aldridge for Great Britain, and finished last in the men’s synchronized 10m platform final. I have to be honest, I’m not that heartbroken. After all, the kid probably has another four chances at Olympic gold ahead of him.

It’d be like a freshman winning the Heisman Trophy. A freshman in high school that is.

Let someone else have their day I say.

I would tell him to go out and have a beer to relax and forget about it, but even across the pond he still has another four years to go.

What do 14-year-olds do to get over something like this? Buy a Miley Cyrus poster? Splurge on a moped?

When I was 14 I was still trying to figure out whether or not it was cool to wear sweatpants to school.

The kid does jump off the equivalent of a three-story building into a pool for a living, so my guess is he’ll figure something out.

While he’s flying home to the land of tea and scones, maybe he can take the time to send me an email explaining the whole showering off after every dive thing.

I could see if they were jumping into the ocean, there might be the need to wash off the salt, but how dirty could that pool water be? They go from the pool to the shower, to the pool, to the shower...

I’m sure there’s an explanation, but whatever it is, it’s not a good enough one for me.

Somewhere the person in charge of Raleigh’s water restriction ordinances is cringing…

Day 3:

It was a big weekend for our local ties, with a bronze medal, a gold medal, and a world record among the achievements.

Leading things off for the local contingent, was incoming Duke freshman fencer Becca Ward, who came back from a heart-breaking loss in the semifinals to win the bronze medal match in the individual women’s saber event.

Ward is ranked second in the world already, and at 18 years old, clearly has a few more opportunities in front of her.

Ward is also entered in the team saber competition that will commence later this week. I’m by no means a fencing expert, but you have to like her chances for gold considering the Americans swept the podium in the individuals.

Former State swimmer Dan Velez also had an impressive showing in the games, winning his heat in the men’s 100m breaststroke. The Puerto Rico- native set a new personal and national best in the process. Though Velez’ 1:01.80 mark wasn’t enough to earn him a top-16 finish and with it a place in the semifinals, Velez, and fans of the State swimming program, can look back on the experience with their heads held high.

Easily the most incredible 48 hours for any of our local athletes on the Olympics' first weekend belonged to former N.C. State swimmer Cullen Jones.

Jones swam the preliminary round of the 4 X 100m freestyle relay for the United States, helping the four-man team establish a new world record. But, unbelievably, Jones still wasn’t sure if he would be a part of the team that would aim for gold.

That’s because the United States was replacing three of the members of the qualifying team with members they felt were stronger (before you start complaining, keep in mind that Michael Phelps was one of the three), leaving only one spot open for the swimmers that got the US to the finals.

The Bronx native was the one that got the call…and man, I’m sure he’s glad he did.

France was the favorite going into the event, and they knew it. The French were arrogant beforehand, with their anchor leg, Alain Bernard, saying they had come to Beijing to “smash” the Americans.

After eight laps of freestyle swimming, the only things that were smashed were the French team’s chances of taking the top place on the podium.

Is it weird that I jumped up from my couch and started cheering when I saw Jason Lezak, the oldest American male swimmer at age 32, chasing down Bernard, the pre-event world record holder in the distance (he lost the 100m record to Australia’s Eamon Sullivan in the race’s first leg)???

I’d like to think it’ll be viewed as patriotic – I just hope my neighbor sees it that way.

Other thoughts from weekend one:

LeBron James is a smart basketball player – no really…

We hear all too often about how players have high basketball IQs, but very rarely do we get to see tangible evidence of such acumen.

Sure King James can jump through the roof and kill your team in any one of a dozen ways over the course of a game, but the way he has adjusted to the FIBA rules by which the Olympics are played has impressed me.

He seems to be one of the few players that understands the international goaltending rule (or lack thereof), and he is helping the NBA player-laden squad overcome their previous difficulties with playing the international style, something that has been their Achilles Heel ever since they couldn’t just show up and win the gold like it was in the Dream Team Era.

Is there any depth in women’s gymnastics?

I thought I remembered there being several powerhouses in that sport, other than the US and China. Wasn’t it Russia that used to always find themselves in the medal mix? Romania? The Americans barely got through their qualifying rotation, and it seemed like there was never a question they would still enter the team finals in second place.

Two American athletes, Chellsie Memmel and Samantha Peszek, injured their ankles and could only participate in one event a piece. That meant that the Americans could only send four athletes to the mat for three of the four events, and wouldn’t be able to throw out any of their scores for those three (teams are able to have five athletes compete and keep only the four best scores).

Memmel, whose specialty is the uneven bars, fell off the apparatus. Nastia Liukin, one of the strongest members of the team, and a favorite to win the individual gold in the uneven bars, landed on her backside after flubbing the dismount.

Throw in a few out-of-bounds steps on the floor exercise, and this was far from a pretty performance for the Americans.

But never once did you hear any announcer mention another team nipping at their heels – never once did you get the sense that there was anyone else even involved in the competition.