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They were all fabulous! The Greek women's water polo national national team that took silver.
The Good...
The Greek women's water polo team played famously against heavily favorite Italy, forced the Italians to a time out, but finally relented, 10-9, in the women's water polo final. The Greek silver was the first medal that Greece earns in a team sport in 28 modern Olympic Games.
The US swept the men's 200 meters, like they did the 400 meters on Tuesday. They also won gold and silver in the men's high jump.
The Americans decided to play defense and the much touted duel with undefeated Spain, in the men's basketball quarterfinal, ended up being no duel at all. It was showtime for the NBA stars, and a showstop for the excellent but outmatched Spaniards.
The Bad...
A partisan Greek crowd booed and jeered for about 5 minutes and delayed the start of the men's 200 meters final, because the athletes could not hear the judges from the noise. Last night's track and field competition was the first event to be sold out, a year and a half ago when tickets for the Games were first sold, in anticipation of the presence of Kostas Kenteris at the 200 meters final. For some reason, which probably has to do with the country's political obsessions of the last 50 years, in the minds of many Greeks, the US was behind what happened to Kenteris and Katerina Thanou. There have been no reports so far that any US nationals were involved in forcing the two athletes to disappear when they were called to appear for doping tests.
And the Weird...
It has been reported that 26-year old South African women's high jump champion Hestrie Cloete is a chain-smoker. The heavy favorite to win gold in Athens smokes about a pack a day, and quarrels constantly with her coash, who insists on her quitting, of course. She claims that, would the rules allow it, she would definitely take a few puffs between jumps as a way of relaxing.
NBC is said to have received about 100 compaints from American viewers who accuse the network of airing lewd content from the Olympics. What the NBC viewers object to is the attire of beach volleyball players, gymnasts, and swimmers. Thankfully, there were only about a hundred complaints.
nyloo's daily Olympic Diary
A new poll, conducted on behalf of Athens 2004, among visitors to Olympic venues was released yesterday and confirmed what everybody who is in Athens these days feels.
The results were resoundingly positive for Athens 2004: 97.3% said they felt safe and were satisfied with security, 95% were satisifed with the level of service in general and the volunteers in particular, 93.8% were satisfied with the venues and facilities, 93.8% with the level of competition and 81.8% were satisfied with transportation. About 85% of those polled had used public transportation while in Athens for the Games.
The sample of 1,025 respondents consisted of 46% Greeks, 13% Americans and the remaining 41% people of other nationalities.
Ticket sales for Olympics events passed the 3.5 million mark on Thursday, thus exceeding the organizers' goal of 3.4 million and putting Athens squarely in second place of Olympic ticket sales, in front of Barcelona and behind Sydney.
That's as far as ticket sales. Because on the TV front, Athens is way ahead.
Prime time Olympic coverage on NBC has thus far attracted 7% more viewers than the Sydney Games, and 185 million Americans, about two thirds of the nation, have watched at least some Olympics on TV in the last two weeks.
For the week starting on Sunday 15 August, 7 out of the 10 top rated shows on American television were Olympics broadcasts. Way to go, Athens!
