Most major football leagues are enjoying their summer vacations or training hard for the upcoming season at the moment so thank god for the London Olympics! With no shortage of sporting events to watch, a sport-obsessed hermit like myself is content to spend 16 days at home in front of the television watching things like women’s field hockey, diving and men’s gymnastics.
As a competitive equestrian, my main priority was to catch the equestrian events, but thanks to the good people at OSN, there were several channels to watch the Olympics on, so I took the liberty of catching ALL the events. But before I get into the sporting action, I feel the need to discuss the opening ceremony… wait did I say discuss? I meant bash.
Aside from having a laugh at the thought of Queen Elizabeth II being Daniel Craig’s next “Bond Girl” and watching Mr. Bean get super bored of “Chariots of Fire”, I spent most of the opening ceremony saying “WTF is this?”. I mean …. Honestly.. I felt like I was being given an overly theatrical lesson in British history, and not in a good way. There was also that part where kids jumped trampoline beds, performing some kind of homage to the National Health Service. Again, WTF? All I could think of during London’s opening ceremony was Beijing 2008’s opening ceremony,which basically left me speechless. Anyhow, I thought it was a very disappointing ceremony, moving on.
Lets discuss Egypt’s presence at the summer Olympics. We have athletes in the following sports: Archery, Athletics (400m, 200m,100m, Discus, Javelin, Long Jump Hammer Throw), Badminton, Boxing, Canoeing, Equestrian, Fencing, Football, Gymnastics, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Weight Lifting, Wrestling. DID YOU KNOW THAT? Because I was pretty impressed with the amount of athletes we had, and how little I knew about them. Regardless of whether they do well in their respective disciplines or not, the fact that they made it to London to represent Egypt is pretty freaking awesome. Alaa El Din Abou El Kassem did us proud by winning a silver medal in the Men’s Foil, (that’s “Fencing” for those of you associating the word “foil” with aluminium). The Egyptian football team lost their opening match to Brazil 3-2, then tied with New Zealand, which pretty much meant that they would not go through, however they pulled off an impressive win against Belarus, to send them through to the next round. Phewf!
Other amazing things that have happened at the London games so far include the half machine/half fish known as Michael Phelps winning more medals. The American swimmer has officially become the most decorated Olympian ever, with 21 medals to his name. Also in the pool, Chinese swimmer Shiwen Ye caused a major upset when she destroyed the competition and took the gold in the 100m freestyle race, fun fact: she is only 16 years old. The oldest Olympian competing in the summer games is 71 year old Hiroshi Hoketsu of Japan, who is competing in the Equestrian Dressage events. Today (August 3rd), Swiss tennis phenom Roger Federer played a whopping 18 games against Argentinian Juan Martin Del Potro, and finally came out on top. He will face Great Britain’s Andy Murray in the final. Athletics (aka track and field) began today, which means that I’ve got a ton of events to watch tomorrow! Excellent.
WE SAID THIS: The Games Are On!