Yet More Miscellaneous Olympic Musings

Random Olympic thoughts:

I saw Paul McCartney and some people around him in the stands at the London Olympic stadium singing a chorus of "All You Need Is Love," the original recording of which begins with a sampling of "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem.  I got to thinking . . . did a Frenchman win a gold medal in something at the time, and did someone get confused when the medal ceremony was held and the music started playing?

Allyson Felix had such an amazing race when she won the women's 200-meter dash, I couldn't imagine her doing anything for an encore.  Silly me - I obviously couldn't imagine her being part of a U.S. women's 4x100-meter relay team that set a new world's record of 40.82 seconds, breaking a record of 41.37 set by East Germany in 1985.  Carmelita Jeter, Bianca Knight, and Tianna Madison helped make it happen.

Before you start bitching about the U.S. men's 4x400-meter relay team losing the gold medal to the Bahamas, consider this:  Team runner Manteo Mitchell courageously ran on a broken leg, recalling Joe Frazier's boxing gold medal boxing victory in 1964 (he fought with a broken hand), and Bryshon Nellum, another member of that team, was lucky to be running at all after having been shot months earlier.  This team did great, and while they're disappointed with losing the gold - the first U.S. team to do so in this event since 1952 - they're quite happy with the silver.

Latvian beach volleyball players Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins may not have won the gold medal in that sport, but their fellow countryman Maris Stormbergs won the gold medal in BMX cycling, so Olympic spectators got to hear "God Bless Latvia" (not written by Irving Berlin) after all.  This leaves Estonia as the only Baltic country without a gold medal in these Games.

It's getting very near the end . . .