London Olympics 2012 - My favorite moments

My favorite moments

The Olympic games are over and we really enjoyed it everyday !

Here are my favorite moments in these Olympic games.

Swimming

* All the Phelps vs. Lotche’s races and also races in which these two participated.

It was soooo thrilling to watch them compete.

* Men’s 100m freestyle ,

This race was incredible , the fastest swimmers ( freestyle ) competition ? Nathian Adrian was amazing and he won this aggressive race !

* The scene showing Phelps and Lotche celebrating Adrian’s win at 100m freestyle.

* Men’s 200m freestyle - Yannick Agnel of France had an inspiring race.

* All the Men’s 4 X relay-

100m freestyle - it was unbelievable Team France Amaury Leveaux / Fabien Gilot / Clement Lefert / Yannick Agnel beat this strong Team USA Nathan Adrian / Michael Phelps / Cullen Jones / Ryan Lochte.

When the camera was panning in on Michael while he was waiting for the anchor Ryan Lochte to come in at the end of this race, Team USA’s hopes were etched on Michael’s face, rooting on the anchor to push ever harder,

but then when Agnel came in like some missile at the end for the win, Michael’s face looked like he had just seen a ghost, frozen, almost as if in terror at an unforeseen happening.

Men’s 4X 200M relay Freestyle - Team USA Ryan Lochte / Conor Dwyer / Ricky Berens / Michael Phelps had a smart plan to have a big lead in the beginning so that Yannick Agnel can not catch up at the end of the race.

Team France was behind in the 4th place until Yannick Agnel jumped into the pool, and team USA was leading France by more than 7 seconds at that time, but by the end, Agnel had cut it to only 3 seconds.

When Yannick jumped into the pool, he immediately overtook swimmers and was in second place chasing Phelps. It was scary. Lol

And in interview, team USA was aware that Yannick was coming.

Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Final - It was so thrilling watching the competition between USA vs. Japan vs. Australia in the end.

Nice to see Team Japan got silver medal and could hold on despite being up against one of the fastest swimmers in the world in the 100 freestyle -Maggnesen from Australia .

Nathian Adrian (USA) and James Magnussen (AU) are almost tie breaker for 100m freestyle, but since Team USA was already leading by a lot , at that point there was no way for Team Australia to win. But really amazed to see how fast both Magnussen and Adrian were.

Japan (Kitajima ) was leading in breaststroke , and Phelps beat Japan again in butterfly.

* Men’s 1500m - Sun Yang was incredible. He kept his speed until the end.

It was funny, before NBC stopped momentarily for a commercial break, Sun Yang was already in the lead and two swimmers were trying to catch him and were racing with similar speed as Yang,

but after the commercial break, when NBC went back to the race, we could only see Sun Yang was swimming, so we were saying “ where is everyone ? “

“ Where are all the other swimmers ? “ then when the camera panned back more it showed all the others were far far behind Yang, they could not stick to his speed anymore, like they were exhausted.

NBC also showed Sun Yang’s training, he went to Australia to be taught by a famous Australian swimming coach. Really worked hard. It’s great it all paid off.

Overall, I have really enjoyed it. I didn't know swimming was so fun to watch and exciting. I have memorized many great swimmers names, and will be exciting to see them at next Olympics.

Will really miss Michael Phelps and his dynamic expressions. He is quite entertaining.

* Women’s 800m - Kathleen Ledecky who is 15 years old was unbeatable.

* Women’s 200m medley - YE Shawen, the amazing Chinese swimmer !!!

Gymnastics

Women

* Victoria Komova’s floor exercise, uneven bar, balance beam in the all around,

* Catalina Ponor’s floor exercise in individual competition,

* Aliya Mustafina’s uneven bar and floor exercise

* Mc Kayla Maroney ‘s vault in team competition

Men

* Kohei Uchimura won all around,

* Horizontal bar, It was really great to see Epke Zonderland from Netherlands won the gold medal. I remember that he was awesome last Beijing Olympics in 2008 and unfortunate to fall. Amazing come back !

* Rings - Yibing Chen from China, He was not even shaking, looked effortless. Amazing .

Rhythmic Gymnastics

* DMITRIEVA Daria ‘s ribbon routine.

* Yevgenia Kanayeva ‘s gold medal club routine

These two performances were awesome !

Track & Field

* Women’s 200m - Allyson Felix won gold !

* Women’s 100m - Shelly Ann won gold again !

* Women’s 4X100m & 4X400m relay

* Men’s 4X100m relay

For women, I’m a fan of Allyson Felix (USA) and Shelly-Ann ( Jamaica ).

Diving

Men’s 10m platform

It was inspiring David Boudia ( USA) and Thomas Daley ( GB ) ‘s amazing last spark in the finale. I thought Bo Qiu (China ) was unbeatable.

I wasn’t watching diving much until this competition. We have watched only Guo Jingjing in 3m in last Beijing Olympics because she was a really big impact and we were impressed by her mind set, very calm every time she performed.

She reminds me of Evgeny Plushenko (RUS )’s mind setting. Very calm but with confidence.
For women 3m , Guo Jingjing is still my favorite diver.

And For men,

Matthew Mitcham from Australia - He is always great to see whatever he does. Charming man. Thank you NBC for showing him a lot. I thought he performed great even though he said it was not enough preparation because of many injuries.

We also realized that diving also is one of the most difficult sports especially 10m platform.

I can’t imagine, how brave to stand upside down on the edge of the diving board.

Closing ceremony

It was spectacular ! Great Britain has many legendary rock stars, it was nice to see Freddie Mercury and John Lennon on the large screen , and Brian May and Roger Taylor ( of Queen ) accepted this opportunity to play.

Brian May looked like a scientist rock musician. He was alone when he appeared but brave to show his amazing guitar technique in front of millions on people. We are pretty sure if Freddie Mercury was there he would accept this opportunity as well.

Just the singer Jessie J wasn’t a good singer for the song “ We will rock you “. Paul Roger or even Adam Lambert could have sung much better. IMO.

It was also nice to see part of Pink Floyd was there and also the Spice Girls , and George Michael’s performances.

Wonder why Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Rod Stewart and U2 were not there ?

In the Opening ceremony, it was unnatural to see many little kids and also famous stars lip synching, including Paul McCartney ( as they were requested to by Olympics organizers ) .

So it was good in the closing ceremony they all sang natural live. All the stage setting, and casts were wonderful to see. It was creative.

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