slept on the couch for the first time on saturday night, i must have fallen asleep somewhere in between replays of our teenage gymnasts and the live start of the women's road race, which it seems is over when i briefly wake up at six or seven or later. sure i could move to my bed, but there'll be no int'l sports seeping into me as i sleep, and for the next few days that's not sleep at all. there is an extra tv in one of the closets, and i wonder how long it will take me to set it up somewhere, perhaps on the balcony. (i also wonder if the free tibet movement isn't a huge distraction from darfur and palestine.) at ten i am awake just just just in time for the start of the epic usa vs. chine basketball game, with bushes and hintao in attendance. i don't like it when w doesn't wear a tie.
the stadia are mostly empty, the weather is super-humid when it's not raining, and the chinese government gave such a hardtime to tourists worried about protesters that it seems the lot of 'em said "screw this: i'll watch from home" and so they did. there's an article at the guardian.co.uk with a quote from a bemused cabdriver: "(where are all the people?)" except at the hype games and swimming finals (held in the morning, primetime in EST), even gymnastics events were nowhere near capacity.
the usa men's volleyball team beats venezuela a day after their coach's in-laws are stabbed at a tourist tower by a lone nut who jumps to his death.. the father-in-law dies, the coach takes the game off, america barely beats venezuela. "lone nut" generally, but not always, means "mk ultra," right?
canada comes in last in the 4x100 freestyle WMS final.
canada gets whooped by spain in water polo 16-6.
brazil beats mexico's greatest ever beach volleyball team.
and good for kyle shewfelt. feels nice to feel nice.
missed over 4 hrs of the roadrace but caught the last lil bit when cancellara catches the group but is good only for bronze. i guess he's officially my favorite rider, seeing as i've never chanted for vande velde or contador the way i did that morning: "fabianfabianfabianfabian."
that was all day one, after a fireworks display right out of the end of 2001: ASO, unrelenting, mind-expanding.. that little man running slow-mo around the stadium, the gigantic cauldron and BOOOM: the greatest fireworks displays in the history of man.
back to usa vs. china in basketball, usa's led by 11 at the break and by almost 30 in the last quarter. packed crowd is very quiet and bored. cbc commentators are also bored, praising china's athletics programs and saying things like "i don't think... the usa... will be first in the over medal count... for a long long time" when yesterday they led 8-2 over all, tied with china on gold.
here's china's redemption: they're honest about what they do. "it's our tibet. we control it: it's our." america denies its empire, and so are liars And oppressors. china are just oppressors, which seems more honest, seeing some of the people got serve some of the people some of the time.
soon there will be a thirty-minute pothole in olijpijc coverage, as i failed to add nbc when i switched my channels this morning. in between cbc stopping (?!) for the duration of sunday afternoon, and new country canada channel "bold" starting the rowing heats—i will escape to the mall and buy some team canada gear. when i saw it last time i laughed at its awful designs but now it is so, so clear: i need one of those shirts, i've found something about canada i can get behind, almost as if on a 24 month cycle...
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