Monday, July 30, 2012

London: 2012 Olympics Day 1 Highlights

Lochte dominates 400, Phelps 4th


The long anticipated showdown between Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte ended with a very anti-climatic finish. Lochte won the event by 3 seconds while Phelps finished 4th. Pretty disappointing from a spectator's point of view considering we expected a tightly contested race between the two Americans. Is this the beginning of Olympic domination for Lochte or will Phelps and the rest of the competition take him down in other events. Regardless of whether Lochte wins the rest of his events or not, I just hope somebody can keep it close.

USA Women's soccer continues to roll

The American women's soccer team notched another convincing victory. They defeated the Colombians 3-0 with goals coming from Megan Rapinoe, Abby Wambach, and Carli Lloyd. This game definitely had some intrigue during and after the match. The Colombians might have lost 3-0 but they didn't go down without a fight and I mean that literally. In the 41st minute Lady Andrade of Colombia took a swing at Abby Wambach's face off the ball. A shot that definitely left Wambach in some pain. There were more off the ball collisions between the two teams as the game went on. Former U.S. star Brandi Chastain co-commentated the game and criticized the U.S. defending throughout the game. Well the American players heard what she had to say and goalkeeper Hope Solo took some shots at Chastain via twitter. Here's a little bit of what Solo had to say to Chastain;

Solo tweeted: "Lay off commentating about defending and going until you get more educated @brandichastain the game has changed from a decade ago."
"Its important 2 our fans 2 enjoy the spirit of the Olympics. It’s not possible when sum1 on air is saying that a player is the worst defender! … I feel bad 4 our fans that have 2 push mute, especially bc @arlowhite is fantastic. @brandichastain should be helping 2 grow the sport"

Things are definitely getting interesting in this tournament and we look forward to Chastain's response.

CYCLING MEN'S ROAD RACE ENDS IN DISAPPOINTMENT FOR GREAT BRITAIN

Heading into the men's cycling road race Great Britain had put together a squad well capable of having a gold medalist. Highlighted by Bradley Wiggins and sprinter Mark Cavendish, Team Great Britain was set up for success. They went out to the front right from the start and rolled for most of the race. The team put Cavendish in the right position to make the final sprint and bring home the gold. Unfortunately it did not go down like that. The chase pack caught up to the Brits and just swallowed them up heading into the finish. The medalists were Alexandra Vinokurov (Gold-Kazakhstan), Rigoberto Uran Uran (Silver-Colombia), and Alexander Kristoff (Blonze-Norway). What happened to Cavendish? Well he slipped all the way to 29th but don't lose faith in the hosts.

Day 1 was very exciting and it surely is going to get even better. I am looking forward to the rest of the games. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts about the Olympics from Abdi and I. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter. @EJPOnTheBeat @AGuleed

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