Let’s shed a brief tear for the Olympics, until the Winter Olympics in Sochi, 2014! The 16 days of Athletic competition consumed us and leaves us a bit empty when finished.
The 2012 Summer Olympics have come to a close. What an amazing time!
204 countries competed. According to the BBC, 85 countries won at least one medal, three countries won their first medals. (NBC reported that 7 countries won their first medals; I tend to rely more on the BBC)
Gold Silver Bronze TOTAL
United States 46 29 29 104
China 38 27 23 88
Great Britain 29 17 19 65
Russian Federation 24 26 32 82
This was the first time that every country had a woman athlete. What an amazing thing. I hope that the future is brighter for women around the world. Maybe this small feat will bring about some amazing accomplishments.
Malaysia won their first ever medal in women’s diving! Pandela Ringong Pamg won bronze in the women’s 10m platform.
Maryam Yusuf Jamal won Bahrain’s only medal in the Women’s 1500m.
Michael Phelps made history, winning the most Olympic medals ever. Not taking anything away from his amazing accomplishment, but I wonder if being a sport that has multiple events you can participate in had something to do with that? A gymnast would never have a chance at competing in three Olympics, or in so many events at each one.
Usain Bolt proved he could run fast. I am just flabbergasted at how fast this man can run in such a short time. In running the 100m, you have to get up to speed quickly, and Bolt left everyone in the dust. Wow. Apparently, he is a bit miffed at Carl Lewis, who wouldn’t acknowledge how awesome Bolt is.
The United States won more medals than China. That was a surprise to me. But I think China has replaced the Soviet Union in our competitive minds. The Chinese divers were beautiful to watch and set a high standard for all to follow.
The London Closing ceremony was one great concert. I watched both the BBC version and the NBC version. BBC has it hands down.
NBC provides constant chatter, as if the American audience is too dumb to figure out what is important. They talk over the performance and did not provide the entire show. While they give information, they only give what is important to them. There was a shot of two American athletes smiling together, and NBC only gave the name of one, not both. How unfair. Both were competitors, both were Olympic Athletes. But because one held up her medal, she got her name known.
BBC announcers didn’t say much, only talking when there was something important to share, like a name or reference. Loved it! I have always appreciated how BBC announcers are silent and let the audience watch what is happening. Then after the ceremony, they did recap. Could you imagine American announcers waiting till the end to have their say??? Ah the joy of just watching the beauty of the event and forming my own opinion. Thank you, BBC. I hope that I can watch the winter Olympics on your broadcast.
Now to begin the count down for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014..then on to Rio in 2016!!
11 replies on “2012 Olympic Wrap-Up”
We still have the Paralympics to come!
I was quite impressed by the BBCs coverage and their knowledge of the atheletes. It was by no means exclusively Team GB. Also, Team GB? Given our size in comparison to the US and China, GB did pretty amazingly.
It is interesting that every country had a female athlete, but I do wonder how much of that was done so as to allow the male athletes to compete. Weren’t countries that initially refused to allow female athletes being threatened with not being allowed to compete at all? Or am I imagining that?
I loved the BBC’s coverage and I watched it in preference to RTÉ’s. Their website was amazing. I especially loved all the behind-the-scenes videos they showed, my appreciaton of Denise Lewis is enhanced after seeing how excited she got about Jessica Ennis and Mo Farrah.
You’re not at all. It was either not compete at all, or both men and women were to compete. And most of those countries had to scrabble around to find women who could compete – Saudi Arabia being a case in point.
The website was great. I especially loved their live text update pages. And Denise Lewis! Gosh, that woman is lovely.
Thanks for confirming my thoughts on the female athletes being able to compete. It’s something I find difficult to stomach; it’s not women being allowed to compete in their own right, it’s women having to compete so that the men can fulfill their sporting desires. (Gosh, I could have worded that better.)
It is a bit difficult to stomach, but in countries with few female rights, I think it is a step in the right direction. Maybe the next step will be voluntary.
I don’t think it’s by accident that a sport with a longer career and multiple medal events produces athletes that take home a lot of medals, but at the same time, I think it does require a great deal of versatility to be able to medal in all the different variations of swimming. (I can just about competently swim crawl and backstroke, breast not so much and, butterfly… best not to mention my skills at butterfly. He is fast at all four.)  I’m not super “rah rah Phelps!” but he is still a pretty impressive athlete. Perhaps just not the most bestest athlete ever because look at all his shiny.
I love Phelps, and find his accomplishments amazing. I was super impressed with him in Beijing, love how he wasn’t total cocky when Lockte was. Â But I felt it had to be mentioned in light of all the accolades he is getting.
One of the reasons that I love swimming is because there are so many events and that the athletes have a longer shelf-life. You occasionally have a teenage phenom like Missy Franklin, but for the most part, everyone is old enough to vote. Gymnastics make me kind of sad because it seems like their careers are over by the time they’re 17.
I also like that you see a lot of returning performances from Track athletes, too. And the runners seem to really hit their peak when around 30, which is cool.
I absolutely loved the summary Neil deGrasse Tyson posted on his facebook page.
I love this. At times when the hype was huge for USA, I couldn’t help but think ,”but we have so many resources, of course we’re going to do well.” And I can’t help but think that the athlete who brings home a country’s only medal is going mean something to her country that US athletes will never experience.
And I did laugh at a Conan bit (I think it was him) that went something like this- “Upon hearing that the US beat them in overall medal count, China said, ‘that’s ok, we still have all of your money.’ “
Banner year for the ladies, that’s for sure! This was the first year that I really sat and watched the events.
I loved how involved the women were.