Olympics Day 8 and 9

Too much Olympic-watching is making me dizzy, so i'll be compressing entries into 2 day sections.

Day 8 was a bad day for the hosts, only the one Gold medal, and lost a few big matches. The oik who makes up half the Men's badminton doubles team was on the losing team, which was a relief - no opportunity for him to take his clothes off again. The studio analysts, mostly regular TV presenters who clearly have no interest in sport, were pretty silent after that. Also pretty silent after failing to pick up golds in swimming, shooting, tennis plus a load of others I've already forgotten.

Saturday night was a bit frustrating. The four channels featuring Olympic coverage were focusing on table tennis, more table tennis, badminton and a repeat of something earlier in the day, meaning coverage of track and field was minimal. 2 minutes before the start of the Mens 100 metres, they finally switch the News Channel, which flicks between events, to the track, just in time to see that Jamaican guy compress an entire life's effort into 9.68 ridiculously quick seconds. It's unlikely to be like that at 11.10pm tonight, when Liu Xiang, gold medallist in the hurdles from last time, goes in the heats.

The medal table in the corner of the screen is currently showing GBR in 3rd place, which is pleasantly surprising after being a bit rubbish in earlier events. Coverage of cycling is minimal, just a few shots of winners crossing the line. But they showed sailing for a bit, and rowing got a lot of coverage, helped no doubt by a few Chinese teams being in contention. The commentary on the rowing mostly consisted of explaining what rowing is, and how England is a 'qiang guo' (strong country) in rowing, apparently one of the 4 'gentlesmen events' (the other three being tennis, snooker and cricket). Which made the commentators even more excited when the Women's 4s beat GBR to the Gold.

I'm currently watching 'The Palace of Honour', a nightly TV programme looking back at the days events. with an audience complete with those plastic things used for applause. Just know they had 8 female electric violinists, with 2 sets of guys behind them river dancing while holding up an Olympic flag and China flag. Cracking stuff. Then a word of congratulations to Asians, who managed to beat some European/Americans in rowing, showing the great ability of Asians. Now there's a piece on Phelps - winner of 8 Gold medals. Plenty of respect for Phelps, but still time for some words that hopefully an Asian will compete and maybe overtake this amazing 'OuMei' (European and American). Asians beating OuMei in things like swimming and athletics seems like a big deal. Maybe, but they'll have to go some, like everyone else, to beat Bolt and Phelps.