MURPHY’S LAW: Olympic Scattshots

Posted on: 11:37 pm, July 30, 2012, by Keith Murphy, updated on: 11:45pm, July 30, 2012

• Love the story of Colorado’s Missy Franklin. The 17-year old swimmer will leave hundreds of thousands of dollars–maybe millions–on the table because she wants to remain an amateur, and a regular student. When the Olympic gold medalist returns to high school, I like her chances of winning a state title.
• Franklin’s parents seem like they just want their daughter happy. Imagine that.
• Stories of Michael Phelps demise were greatly exaggerated.
• Ryan Lochte can take your woman. And he knows it.
• No swimmer has won an individual gold in three straight Olympics for a reason. It’s freaking hard! Even swimmers age.
• Swum never sounds right.
• NBC paid $1.2 billion to show these Olympics. The network is not going to broadcast the marquee events in the middle of the morning or afternoon no matter how much people complain.
• Tape delay is frustrating in 2012 because it’s virtually impossible to not know who won, no matter how hard you try.
• The 2016 games are in Rio. Rio is just an hour ahead of eastern time. Thank goodness.
• Watching Jordyn Wieber’s heartbreak, even on tape-delay, was hard to take. I didn’t want NBC to interview her, because it was clear she wanted no part of it, but Wieber talked. She wasn’t able to explain how it feels to work 8 hours a day for 10 years only to come up short.
• The Des Moines Register had a story on how Gabby Douglas’ coach in Virginia can’t understand why Gabby moved to Iowa. I think the results speak for themselves. Since Liang Chow started coaching Gabby, she’s gone from unknown to all-around gold medal favorite.
• Do you think the people who pair up for synchronized diving get really sick of each other?
• Looking all the way back to the opening ceremonies, I’ll give London a B-. The narrative was, at times, confusing. It played too much like musical theater, and the final leg of the torch relay was a letdown, though a positive message. I loved Bond and the Queen, the parade of athletes, and those flying gold rings of fire. I always enjoy Paul McCartney, though I’m not sure “Hey Jude” fits as an Olympic anthem.
• Lolo Jones, and all athletes, should think before they tweet. Heck, that goes for all of us.
• That goes double for Hope Solo too. She looked ridiculous.
• Dowling Catholic loves its sports. Do you think most Maroons walking the halls last year knew Amanda Leek was about to become the most famous athlete from the class of 2011? Olympian.