The Olympics in Athens, Greece

[rolour]

The Olympics are on 4 channels here in the U.S. (NBC, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC). Most sports are shown and it's actually the first time I have watched handball and synchronized diving. Can't wait for synchronized swimming :D . Which is mind-boggling why billiards is not an Olympic sport.

Of course, I won't miss Men's Basketball. And maybe, women's softball. You just have to see the U.S. Team's pitcher, Jennie Finch =P~ .

I am not sure if I can catch a sport where the Philippines is a participant (RP has 27 athletes). I am sure they will have more exposure back home. Please update us here how the athletes, especially the boxers are doing. :D

[rolour]

RP archer on target, beats third best in world

Updated 03:51am (Mla time) Aug 17, 2004
By Artemio T. Engracia Jr.
Inquirer News Service

ATHENS, Greece -- The wild card with an innocent smile became a giant killer with nerves of steel late Sunday as a diminutive Filipina scored the biggest upset of the archery competition in the 28th Olympic Games at the Panathinaiko Stadium here.

Jasmin Figueroa needed the last of her 18 arrows to knock former world champion and two-time Olympic medalist Natalia Valeeva of Italy out of the women's individual competition.

As dramatic and emotional as it was stunning, the victory moved the dusky youth into Tuesday's Round of 32 of the match play event.

Full article: RP archer on target, beats third best in world (http://news.inq7.net/sports/index.php?index=1&story_id=5009)

[darbs01]

thats gud news to the pinoys, i also watched 1 of our boxers that triumph....arrgh, i forgot his name, from puerto princesa i think.. and i also saw how the USA men's basketball being humbled by Arroyo and company. They were totally outclassed by the puerto ricans...to be eaten by 20 points by an unheralded players is as bad as being wacked publicly by your father. :tomato

[trillianes]

Update
-That Filipina Archer failed to make it to top16
-We have a boxing qualifier Brin who outscored his Swedish opponent.

[trillianes]

I'd also would like to share about that South Africa win on Men's swimming relay event. They won over the favorites USA and Australia.

[radenip]

First of all, the reception of the NBN channel carrying the olympic coverage is so poor that I could hardly see who is playing against whom. Like the other night, I was channel surfing when I chanced upon the men's basketball when through the hazy coverage I saw that it was Puerto Rico vs. USA and I saw the score of 49 - 22 nearing the end of the first half. So I said, well, what's new, however the longer I looked at the games, I realized that it was Puerto Rico with the lead and the USA playing catch up. :shock: :shock: :shock: Bilog gid tuod ang bola. I'm sure that it was plain for all to see, and the subsequent teams will exploit on this, the USA basketball team is helpless against the zone defense. Unless they do something about it, they would probably be the worse performing NBA selection team to have played in the olympics.

darbs wrote:
thats gud news to the pinoys, i also watched 1 of our boxers that triumph....arrgh, i forgot his name, from puerto princesa i think..

Its Romeo Brin, mentioned by Trillanes in his subsequent post. Camat lost in his first fight.

The swimmers were a bust and hopefully the taekwando team will do good. :pray :pray :pray

[rolour]

I'm sure that it was plain for all to see, and the subsequent teams will exploit on this, the USA basketball team is helpless against the zone defense. Unless they do something about it, they would probably be the worse performing NBA selection team to have played in the olympics.

There's no question that they are the worst performing NBA selection or the weakest sent by the NBA to the Olympics. But let's bear in mind that 10 out of 12 players are only replacements since the original selection (Shaq, Kobe, TMac, Bibby, Rey Allen, Jason Kidd, etc..) backed out. Well, Kobe is on trial right now so we can forgive him for that. The others though are just plain cowards (terrorist threat, blah, blah, blah) who just refused to represent their country.

That said, this team is only good individually, but as a team, it is seriously flawed (it took the Puerto Rico game for us to really see that). Any basketball coach with half a brain will tell you that having long-distance shooters is the only way to attack a zone defense. Bibby, Rey Allen, known shooters backed out and then got replaced by Emeka Okafor and Shawn Marion? Why not Sam Cassell or Lakers-killer Chauncey Billups? Heck, even Fred Hoiberg is a better shooter that any member of present team.

As evidenced by the thrashing they got from Puerto Rico, the only way for USA to have a chance at the gold is run. No, not run from the Olympics altogether :lol: , but run as in fastbreak. This way, you don't allow the opponent's stifling zone defense to set up. Easier said than done. To control the break you have to control defensive rebounds first. If your center (Duncan) plays power forward most of his basketball career, that's another serious flaw. Where's the frickin' fat Shaq when you need him. :???:

[rolour]

The Dream Team is now a nightmare :tomato :sad: .

Don't cry for them, Argentina ...

Argentina ends Americans' hopes for gold medal (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5841318/)

[Theophilus]

Maybe it's only the guys who been dreaming like me expected this team to win. After all, this is the dream team. Can it be said that they didn't have the heart to win? It seemed to me that unlike the others, the olympic spot in this one is not something coveted. Look at the number of original players that dropped out. :???:

Good thing this is just basketball. Olympics is till fun even if dreams sometimes fizzle out or turn out to be nightmares. :bam:

[Theophilus]

What do you think of this?

Blame Brown
by Mike Vaccaro, NYPOST

August 28, 2004 -- ATHENS — Larry Brown's chief lieutenant, Gregg Popovich, was running interference for his boss, trying to deflect a barrage of bullets, spinning like a basketball Stephanopoulos.

"Whenever we lose in America, we look for someone to hang," Popovich said. "And I think that's pretty childish, frankly."

"Instead of knocking our guys or our league," Brown himself had droned a few minutes earlier, "we should place the praise where it belongs — on our opponents."

Sorry, Larry. The time for such egalitarian talk was last week, when you were bashing your players, your bosses at USA Basketball and the very notion of America's basketball culture to anyone within earshot.

Brown knew from the start he would be in trouble with this team, that he was overmatched finding ways to get them turned around. He tried to set himself up with a nifty escape hatch when the inevitable arrived, as it did last night, this 89-81 humbling by Argentina.

He tried to get the world to see that he was merely a victim of circumstance. Only the world stopped buying into that long ago.

David Stern was one most interested observer yesterday, and it was obvious to anyone within the sound of his voice that he wasn't happy with what he'd seen.

"This is a roster that 30 NBA teams would love to have," Stern said, and it didn't take a decoder ring to figure out the target of that message. Nor did he leave much doubt about his feelings for Brown's free-form critiques of his players from a week ago.

"You know, I think it's fair to say sometimes the traditional ways to motivate a team don't necessarily play out quite as well when you're in an international setting, and I'll leave it at that," Stern said.

But Stern didn't leave it at that. He wanted to make sure everyone understood that Larry Brown hadn't been forced a spoonful of unsavory medicine when he was given this roster.

"This was a team that was put together, by everyone, including the coaching staff," Stern said. "This is a great team. I don't buy the, 'Well, I'd like to have this, I'd like to have that.' "

If Stern was an NBA general manager, we'd already be starting a Brown Watch. Which is not only true, it is fair, because it happens every time the U.S. experiences one of these seminal implosions at the Olympics.

Henry Iba went to his grave absorbing criticism for keeping the parking brake on his '72 Olympians. The specter of 1988 still haunts John Thompson, as it should, for his collection of road runners who couldn't shoot straight.

So must this all fall on Brown, despite his henchmen's pleas. Let Allen Iverson, captain of the team that behaved much better than the coach across all two weeks, explain it for you.

When someone asked how difficult it is to impose team chemistry on a team that barely knows each other before the Games begin, Iverson said: "I don't want to make that excuse for us. I think the time we had, it was already known that's how much time we were going to have. . . . Was it enough time? I don't know. But we knew we had to get it done in that time. And that's not any excuse we could use."

Unless you're the coach, that is. Iverson went on to speak eloquently about how much of an honor it is to play for his country, said there would be no worries about the U.S. showing up to play for the bronze tonight.

"If you don't get it done the way that you expected to," the captain said, "I think it's important for you to get it done the best way you can."

Words to live by for the captain. Too bad the coach never heard them.

[rolour]

Players win games. Coaches lose them. That always is the case in basketball games. I feel for Larry Brown. After an emotional high winning the NBA title for Detroit, this may be an all-time emotional low for him. The coach is always the goat, expect more articles like that one.

I won't blame Larry Brown. He was given good individual players but a flawed team. I won't blame the players either. Most of them are just replacements for the original choices who refused to play. If anything, I'll put the blame on USA Basketball, the organization in-charge for lack of preparation. The team's coaching staff doesn't even have an assistant who's got experience in international play. Phoenix Suns' coach Mike D'Antoni who played and coached in Italy and played or coached against most of these international players should have been on the staff.

The sad part is all this talk about Men's Basketball is taking most of the spotlight away from the real dream teams of the U.S. - Women's Soccer, Women's Softball, Women's Beach Volleyball and of course, Women's Basketball.

:???:

[rolour]

You may not like Allan Iverson as an individual but you just have to like what he said re: playing in the Olympics...

"Anybody that grew up in the U.S. and is able to be a basketball player in the NBA, you understand what that country has done for you and your family. It gave you an opportunity to support your family and be recognized as a household name. I mean, it's just an honor to be able to do something like that, and I would advise anybody that's selected to a team like this to take that honor and cherish it."