London Olympics!

Olympic Games!! Multi-sport events like this never fail to make me excited.

It's a pity I actually decided to miss the opening ceremony because I had class the next day and exam's just a week later. Fortunately, though, I have the weekdays all to myself as uni hasn't started yet and I'm free to follow the games whenever I want to.

I've been watching badminton(of course!), swimming, diving and artistic gymnastics.

Wembley Arena. Freakin' PINK! I'm totally not a fan of the colour, I must say.
Even the North Greenwich Arena- venue for artistic gymnastics- is pink!
It looked good at the gymnastics' place, though. Sweet and elegant like the gymnasts.

Badminton at the Olympics this year has a different format, as players are all divided into groups, and there's the group stages where players compete for a spot in the quarter-finals. That means, a player(or pair) isn't immediately eliminated by losing a single match in the early stages. As long as they come out first(men's and women's singles) and top two in the group(for the doubles), they'll make it into the quarters. 

This format... I guess it has it's pros and cons, but for now I think it's pretty good as players will have to play against a variety of opponents in the round robins, before actually making it into the elimination stages.

So, since there's the round robins, and although Lee Yong Dae/Jung Jae Sung and Lee Yong Dae/Ha Jung Eun are placed in the same groups as several really good pairs, I kinda felt it still isn't too thrilling. It's like only once they've made it into the quarters, the real game will begin. ha ha Nah, not really.. but at least they're not immediately eliminated.

My dear Boonsak Ponsana, in PINK at the very PINKish Wembley Arena.
He lost to Chen Long, though, and was eliminated as there's only the two of them in
the group.

Besides that, I've watched swimming. I originally wanted to watch Korean swimmer, Beijing Olympic men's 400m freestyle gold medallist Park Tae Hwan swim, because I've heard a lot about him but I've never really saw him in action. So on Saturday, I watched the preliminary rounds of the 400m freestyle, and saw him topping the heats... and getting disqualified, apparently, for a false start. 

I was startled, because I definitely wanted to see him in the finals that evening(early morning at 3am in Malaysia). I was dreaming for an overturn and he'll return to compete in the finals, but it seemed like a dream that it'll have a twist. My Korean friends have mostly gone crazy about the disqualification of their 'swimming prince'(a potential gold medallist). Even myself, originally not a fan or supporter of Park, began to support the appeal for him to be reinstated, because I didn't think it was a false start. He probably had the fastest reaction time, but it wasn't a false start.

A few hours later, it was announced that he's reinstated and will be competing in the finals. Voila! A dream came true! So I stayed up till 3am to catch him at the finals.

Park Tae Hwan swimming freestyle.

However, he didn't manage to get a gold again, this time, as he lost to Sun Yang (as I heard, is one of his greatest Asian opponent), and won a silver. Park was leading in the first 300m, though, and Sun Yang overtook him at the last 100m. I wasn't disappointed, I'm just glad I got to see Park in the finals. And at last night's 200m semi-finals match, I saw Sun Yang overtaking Park, again, in the last 100m swim. He's pretty good, I have to say. Sun Yang's the first Chinese man to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming, I heard. Not bad. 

As for diving, I don't know much about diving to give professional comments on the dives, but it seems I like to watch aquatic sports. The water.. I mean, the pool- don't you think it's so beautiful? Clear like crystal.

Last year, I think, I suddenly came across this Korean diver, Park Ji Ho's profile. Korean again, but trust me- it was a coincidence. 

Same birthday, same height. Nice!
But I'm 165.5cm! Nah forget that half centimetre.

He shares the same birthday as me! Lee Yong Dae was born on September 11, like me, but he's three years older. Park Ji Ho was born on the same year as myself, which makes it the exact same day.

I don't know how good he is, but I'm looking forward to see him dive!

Could it be that September 11 babies are born to be successful people? hahaha. But Park Jiho's a national diver, Lee Yong Dae's an Olympic gold medallist badminton player, and what am I? Simple and ordinary... with extraordinary dreams. Ha!

So before ending this lengthy entry after a long time, here's another photo.

Ryan Lochte of the United States: men's 400m individual medley gold medallist.
I LOVE medleys!
P.S.: Uhhh, yeah, Michael Phelps didn't get a medal. He was fourth.

I hope you guys enjoyed this long, sport-ish and somewhat slightly fangirlish entry. I'll be back real soon.

Photo credits: London 2012 official webiste