LIST: Good Olympics, Bad Olympics

Sigh. We’re already suffering Olympics withdrawal. 

As always, it was a good Olympics for some and a bad Olympics for others. Here’s how we saw it . . .

It was a good Olympics for:

Underage Chinese gymnasts, who can, did, and will get away with it. (As if anyone is *really* going to challenge China).

Debbie Phelps, who already snagged a commercial and who got more camera time than, say, Stephanie Brown Trafton (U.S. gold medalist in Women’s Discus and the first American women to take gold in that event since 1932) or Bryan Clay (the first American to grab the gold in the Men’s Decathlon).

Our Wii, which got a break for the past two weeks. We happened to get a Wii Fit today (yay!), so the break’s over, Nintendo.

President George W. Bush, who had a mile-wide grin when he hung out with Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor.

Pollution, which got plenty of press prior to the games but was tidily swept under the rug (much like the underage gymnast issue) because again, no one wanted to tick off China. Should be interesting to see if there’s any follow-up on it.

It was a bad Olympics for:

Janos Baranyai of Hungary, the weightlifter who had a very painful injury, complete with shudder-worthy photos.

Nastia Liukin, at least for the uneven bars, in which she not only got a silver thanks to an asinine tiebreaking rule, but she lost the gold to one of the aforementioned underaged Chinese gymnasts.

Sleep, of which we (along with the rest of the East Coast) were deprived every day of the summer games. 

Swimmers not named Michael Phelps, whose accomplishments in Beijing will be (unfortunately) relegated to footnotes and who by and large spent less time on camera than Debbie Phelps.

American relay batons, which spent more time on the ground than in the hands of the sprinters.