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Monday, August 11, 2008

Olympics Day 3

I took one day off to watch some actual Olympic events and now I'm already hopelessly behind. It's not too bad, because this issue is admittedly more boring than the others. It's the first one that had pics of an actual event on the cover, so they chose... Tony Kukoc?

Croatia didn't even win the game, they got upset by Lithuania. I guess SI was hell bent on selling magazines with a name basketball player on the cover of this issue. The inside isn't that great either. The Scorecard section opens up with several redneck jokes and ticket horrors, cementing the theme of the "Good Ol' Boy" Olympics that plagued us until the bombing occurred. Then it was the "Incompetent Good Ol' Boy"Olympics. They threw in a story abut this Iranian woman who was in the air rifle competition, the first Iranian woman to compete in the Olympics since the revolution in 1979. The tone of the story is a bit odd as they try to simultaneously praise her as a victory for Women's Rights by the fact that she is there at all, while also gawking at the fact that she wears her headscarf and full dress even under her shooting jacket. Of course FOX news would run this today with the caption "ZOMG! MUSLIMS! WITH GUNS! AT THE OLYMPICS!!! TERROR THREAT!" so whateva.

The articles are a mix of semi current events and more prefab fluff pieces.The cover story is about how every other basketball team is playing for the silver.There's is in an inordinate amount of weepy stories. One told of a sixteen year old swimmer from New Zealand who cried after she was eliminated on the first day. Another told of Canadian rower Silken Laumman, who fought back and won a medal in Barcelona after her right leg had been torn to shreds months earlier in a recing accident. The best was about Angel Martino, a swimmer from Georgia who won America's first medal at the games, and how she gave the medal to Trisha Henry. Trisha was a volunteer at the games, a fellow swimmer who knew Angel from a swim camp, and had been diagnosed with cancer earlier that year. They mix in the ridiculous with the sublime though, with a photo essay on the 119 lbs and under weightlifting class. It would have been nice if there was an actual article to go along with the pictures, but instead they went for the "Hey, look at the little guys lifting weights!" angle instead.

This is the first issue with published results and medal counts. For the record, Germany led with five medals (2 silver, 3 bronze) and China was in second with 2 golds. On the results page we also find out that Halil Mutlu of Turkey was the champ of the 119 and under weightlifting final with 633.81 lbs. As far as USA goes, there's a recap of Argentina blowing out USA men's soccer, and the USA-Nicaragua baseball game at Atlanta-Fulton County stadium. Kris Benson pitched and won the game 4-1. Matt LeCroy and Chad Allen (above) are also mentioned in the article. See, there's a little baseball in these Olympic posts!

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