Everybody Was Legal Fu Fighting

Taekwondo becomes a strange hybrid of physical and menatl agility as the Olympic Games continue.

Today I barely saw any of the Olympics on my vacation, so this will be the shortest entry yet. What did I see?

* Olympic Legal Taekwondo. Regular taekwondo just features two athletes kicking each other. It's okay, but it lacks a certain edge. Legal taekwondo still has the kicking part, but adds the excitement of procedural challenges. The thrills never stop!

In both the bronze and gold medal matches, fighting action ground to a halt while the fighters' coaches issued challenge cards to the referees, who then stopped the fights so that the scoring judges could review the disputed infraction. You should have heard the audience's reactions. "Section IV: Paragraph 6! Section IV: Paragraph 6!" they chanted. And the cheer that went up for subclause 4.0.1a was... Well, I've ever seen anything like it at the Olympics. It was truly a magical moment.

* I only saw a little bit of the decathlon tonight, mainly the last event, the 1500m run. It's always strange to watch that because the decathletes run that race so much slower than the dedicated 1500m runners. Ultimately, American Ashton Eaton wins the decathlon in world-record fashion, but in the post-event interview, US silver medalist Trey Hardee's speech on what the event means to him was better.

* The new Olympics are exxxxxTREEEEEEME. BMX bicycle racing is now in the Games. It actually reminds me a lot of the snowboard cross event in the winter games. Do I like watching it because it's exciting or because I'm waiting for a crash? Or are those two things related?

* The US women's soccer team gets their time with Bob at the end of Thursday night's broadcast. The interview was pretty standard stuff, but they do show the gold medal ceremony at the end. Everyone they show is singing at the top of their lungs. U-S-A! U-S-A!

So, that wasn't too much, was it? Well, maybe I'll watch more tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just sleep all day. Isn't that what vacation is for?