[cafeviahe]

The criticism is that NBC's prime time coverage, which is, after all, cable or not, the only time most people will get a chance to see the Olympics, omitted lots of major sports, stories, athletes in the interest of showing a very narrow range of sports and taking up time with useless fluff pieces, like Ryan Seacrest following one of the male US gymnasts around, and relegating the competitions they actually competed in past 11 o'clock! NBC has made it clear in what they said and what they do that they don't think the majority of Americans actually want to see that much sports during the Olympics coverage on a channel and time that's accessible. There are also a thousand other things wrong with NBC's coverage, but I don't want to exhaust Golden Skate's server space.

Anyway, onto the best and worst of the games for me, and I will exclude anything that didn't actually take place in London and doesn't fall within the purview of the organizers:

The wins I loved:

My favorite surprise win: Gabrielle Douglas winning the all-around gold. She was my favorite competitor going in. I knew she had an outside shot at the gold, but I honestly was not expecting it given her sometimes spotty focus and lack of international exposure. And now, she's a super star!

My other favorite surprise win: Andy Murray winning Olympic gold in tennis. Andy Murray is a phenomenally talented tennis player, but hampered by his past emotional problems (which seems gone now), and the unbelievable level of competition he lives among (he is competing in the era where three of the greatest tennis players ever are at their peaks), results in Murray never ever having won a major tennis title in singles. The poor guy has been no. 4 for so long. Not to mention, poor Great Britain, despite hosting the most prestigious tennis competition in the world, has never had a men's tennis champion in ages and ages. I rooted for Murray to win Wimbledon, but even a vastly improved Murray could not win against Roger Federer, who rediscovered his Tennis God form. Two weeks later, though, on those same lawns, on the biggest stage of his career, Murray triumphed for himself and his expectant nation. It was glorious.

My favorite coronation: The US women winning team gold in gymnastics. OK, this one really didn't have much suspense going in. Team USA was just ridiculously strong. A ridiculously consistent team of ridiculously high scorers, there was just a tiny chance they might lose their focus. But that tiny chance evaporated under their grit. Team USA would absolutely crush the competition, winning with a bigger margin than even the Chinese men's team did on their gold. Sometimes, the expected result, when it is desired, is just as satisfying as a surprise win.

My other favorite coronation: Going into the games, Kohei Uchimura is generally acknowledged by gymnastics experts I've heard/read as the greatest male gymnast who ever lived, competing at his peak, and the Olympic all-around gold was no one but his. But once the actual competition started, he seemed to have lost his mojo. He finished a miserable 9th in qualifying, after multiple mistakes. His gigantic error in the team finals almost cost Japan its silver, but for the famous inquiry. When it came time to the all-around, though, Uchimura dug deep, performed much better, and won the whole thing without leaving the slightest doubt.

My favorite squeaker win: The US women's football team winning against team Canada in that impossibly tense match where the US was behind almost the entire time. And then to win it with just 30 seconds left. My word!

My favorite I've-never-heard-of-him-before-but-holy-cow-did-he-deserve-it win: Hak Seon Yang winning in the vault finals. When the BBC announcers said the guy's nickname is "God of Vault", I was skeptical. But then he did his 7.4 vault (the highest difficulty ever done on vault, I believe), and then nailed his 7.0 difficulty vault, I was like, "praise be to God!" One of the fun of sports at the highest level is to see superhuman people perform at their very best and triumph as a result. This was definitely a case of that.

My other favorite I've-never-heard-of-him-before-but-holy-cow-did-he-deserve-it win: Epke Zonderland winning on horizontal bars where he did 3 unbelievable twisty and different release skills in a row! And in so doing, he won the very first Olympic gymnastics medal for his country in the best color of all.

The losses that made me sad:

My least favorite loss: Jordyn Wieber missing out on competing in the all-around. Yes, Douglas is my favorite, but I didn't want to see Wieber miss out on the dream of a lifetime that she worked so hard for, and paved the way for with every prior competitive result, by having an off-day. I really felt for her. I admit, after NBC's overdose of Wieber coverage, I felt a little less for her from desensitization.

My least favorite silver: McKayla Maroney winning silver in the vault finals. Yes, it's a win. But the athlete considered and proven to be the greatest female vaulter who ever lived failed to win the biggest title on vault with one freak mistake. Just as it is fun and amazing to see superhuman athletes perform at their best, it is awful and sad to see superhuman athletes fail to reach their potential.

My other least favorite silver: The US women's volleyball team was the favorite going into the games. Undefeated and ranked no. 1 in the world, they breezed through qualifications, and even demolished the team they would face in the gold medal match along the way. And it seemed like that gold medal was theirs when the final match started: the US crushed Brazil in the first set. But then Brazil found its secret sauce and came back to dominate the next 3 sets. I'd felt vested in this US team after following them throughout the Olympics. I liked their coach, who is much more encouraging, positive and less shouty than most other coaches. I liked star player Destinee Hooker, who looks like a supermodel and makes every move she does look elegant, even when they're deadly spikes. But it was not to be. The US would once again miss out on the women's gold in indoors volleyball despite fielding its best team ever.

More bests and worsts to come from me...