First 7 days and Michael's world

Today is Saturday and the 2012 Olympic experience is half over. Of course my Olympic experience is limited to a 32 inch old style television that weighs about 100 lbs....and the Los Angeles Times. 

Attempting to avoid  news flashes throughout the day, so that I can watch the events on NBC's prime time telecast, is also a sport in its own right. Bobbing and weaving and turning the ears off has left me exhausted on certain days.  It's a contest every time I start a day trying to avoid the multiple people, both professional and personal, who want to tell me exactly what happened before the 8 PM broadcast.

Why NBC can't broadcast the glamour events live in the morning and then re-broadcast in Prime Time is the big question. It only last for two weeks and probably most viewers that would watch in the daytime would turn around and watch it again at night....but of course that's another entire story.

Back to the avoidance game I play everyday.....I lost the battle big time on the day that the Fab Five won gold in Gymnastics.  I avoided everything all day and at 7:45 pm I was watching the Dodger game....and suddenly my favorite voice in the world, Vin Scully, says the following....."it's a low outside fast ball for strike two and the crowd roars as the gold medal winning gymnastics team picture is flashed on the big screen in left field."

Seriously!

The girls were great but my only question is related to the night where they were all trying to qualify for the overall and Jordan Weiber lost by a slight margin and one of the things they pointed out was she stepped out of bounds by 6 inches on the floor exercise.  Gabby, on her floor exercise, almost went into the parking lot of Windsor Castle and nobody seemed that concerned.  Scoring was a bit harsh against Jordan and a bit soft for Gabby....but obviously this was Gabby's moment as we would discover two nights later when she became the third USA winner in a row to capture the all-around Gold.

GABBY

We've only had one previous famous Gabby and Hayes was his last name and unless one watches old western movies this Gabby is the first Gabby to shine in the arena of public adulation....and she will shine.

Gabby will be a one word explanation for kids all over the world.  A  two year old in Atlanta, Georgia will do a flip in the sand box and mom will yell..."that's a great Gabby honey, do it again."

If she gets caught smoking a bong in the next few months then she will learn how Michael Phelps felt after being the darling of the sports world following his Beijing EXPLOSION.

THE ATHLETE CREATES AN IMAGE BY PERFORMANCE AND THEN THE MEDIA JUST SITS AND WAITS FOR A MOMENT TO POUNCE.

There's actually a group of media employee's who help create the bad vibes from the very first minute of success.  When someone asks a person, who just won a Silver medal, what went wrong they are labeling them a loser.  I call it the Jim Gray syndrome. A few Olympics ago Jim Gray asked an American runner who finished second..."why didn't you run faster?"  The runner looked at him and walked away.

The woman doing the interviews at the swimming competition has the Jim Gray disease.

Dan Patrick should be the Interview Commissioner of SPORTS.  Anybody wanting to question an athlete should have to first be vetted by Dan. 

But in the meantime the London 2012 Olympics has allowed us another chance to see the greatest Olympian of all time.

I don't know what Michael Phelps did tonight in London, during his final swim on the relay team, but he could actually fall backwards off the starting blocks and probably recover fast enough to get another medal.

In our lifetime and in our children's children's lifetime we will never see another
Michael Phelps.

It's so amazing that at the beginning of this Olympics there were groups of people who claimed they didn't like him.......for whatever reason, including the fact that he won too much.  The personal attacks make no sense because he's a very private person so unless you hang out with him in Baltimore and have real time experiences then not liking him is completely nonsensical.

Anybody who follows any sport has to pause and acknowledge the simple fact that
Michael Phelps
might be
the greatest athelte who has ever lived.

That makes the London 2012 Olympics a true milestome event.

And we still have Track and Field....and I've heard rumors that Michael might anchor
the 1600 meter relay.



Michael Timothy McAlevey