The fencing coverage is also the best I've ever seen.

And Italia now has its first gold.

I watched the Womens Tag Team Beach Volleyball. With the two women who had that pic of Preznit Bush slappin' that ass.

Why is the British team called Great Britain? Does it not include any athletes from Northern Ireland?

Today I have mostly been watching the archery - the bronze medal tie between GB and France, to be precise, which didn't feel as exciting as it should have been given that it ended with one point separating the teams.

There's an awful lot of gubbins attached to a an Olympic-level archery bow, isn't there? All kinds of stalks and antennae protruding to the left and right, above and below. I wonder what they all do (though not enough to Google the answer).

I watched the China-South Korea women's final. It's stabilizers and optics, mostly.

I watched some of that GB-France Archery tie this morning and came to the conclusion that archery is quite possibly the dullest sport there is.

Good girl!

Thoroughly deserved. After failing four years ago and in a few years' Worlds since due to not having a team about her, she more or less built a world class British womens' team by strength of will. She tore up (at least) two lucrative trade team contracts to do it, too.


Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Though I still reckon Marianne Vos is better:p

Defensive minded wrote:

QUOTE:
Why is the British team called Great Britain? Does it not include any athletes from Northern Ireland?

This partially explains ;

QUOTE:
Athletes from Northern Ireland who also hold Irish citizenship under the pre-1999 article 2 of the Irish constitution can be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympics.

What's annoying me about the BBC's coverage is how they at first would appear to have a million and one options via the red button, but in fact just end up repeating the same stuff for 24 hours. I'm not suggesting that no-one in the world is interested in archery, equestrian, rowing or fencing - as this thread obviously demonstrates - but to the novice viewer are they honestly more exciting than handball or volleyball? The fact that they fairly regularly show beach volleyball at the expense of the "real thing" is especially galling.

I'm slightly alarmed to find myself disappointed to be missing the archery and canoeing this morning. I suspect this is more to do with the fact that my job is shit than any burgeoning lifelong fascination with minority sports, however.

The swimming was fantastic this morning. That womens 400, that poor (stupid) girl who had a look for the wall, and let the British person win, and then the 4x100 relay, with the Americans winning on the touch and shattering the world record by 4 seconds. Brilliant. Fortunately it was 4am in the morning or I would have yelled the place down.

I agree with Furtho: I fully expect to have 5 of the 6 streams to cover poxy athletics while stuff I actually want to see will be ongoing somewhere in the ether.

Too technologically stupid to post the link myself but have a look at Times Online sport and see quotes from Blake Aldridge explain why Britain finished last in the Diving final. Classy!

Valentina Vezzali has just won her third consecutive gold medal in the foil (she won silver in Atlanta).

An absolute legend.

Anyone else see the picture on p9 of the Guardian sport section?

No. What is it?