The biggest event of the 2008 Games. Kudos to NBC for using their influence to get swimming in the morning, so we could watch it live. They knew they had a real life drama with Michael Phelps' continuing quest for eight gold medals, and man, did it deliver!

• Venues: Water Cube (pool) and Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park (open water)
  
• ( Read more... )

I only watched the gold medal game in full, and maybe I shouldn't have bothered.

• Venue: Fengtai Softball Field
  
• The U.S. rolled through their preliminary games with a 53-1 run differential. Three of their games were no-hitters (two mercy-shortened), and one of those was a perfect game.
  
• In the semifinals, they had trouble with Japanese star ( Read more... )

They showed shooting on TV, but not much. I think I saw a little bit of the indoor events on TV and watched some of the skeet and trap online.

• Venues: Beijing Shooting Range Hall and Beijing Shooting Range Clay Target Field
  
• Kateřina Emmons matched the WR in 10m air rifle qualifying with a perfect score of 400. She went on to the gold. She also ( Read more... )

Sailing was the second sport not shown on TV. Therefore, I was forced to watch it online. The text commentary, while not always informative, definitely conveyed the excitement that I couldn't get from just watching alone.

• Venue: Qingdao International Marina
  
• The U.S. got gold from Anna Tunnicliffe (Laser Radial) and Zach Railey (Finn). I tuned ( Read more... )

I watched a lot of rowing. It's a good thing to watch when you want to relax and not pay attention, because the races take forever. The bad part is that I was bored with it before the finals came. So many repechages! In fact, it became hard just to keep up with where the Americans stood every day.

• Venue: Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park
  
• The ( Read more... )

I was worried I wouldn't catch any modern pentathlon, but they ended up showing the women's competition (edited) on TV.

• Venues: Fencing Hall of National Convention Center, Yingdong Natatorium, Olympic Sports Center Stadium
  
• American Sheila Taormina was the first female athlete to compete at the Olympics in three sports: swimming (1996), triathlon ( ( Read more... )

Judo was one of the three sports not shown on TV. I thought this was weird because last time they showed everything. I guess they figured the Internet coverage was good enough, but I'm surprised they didn't eventually show the one match I watched (see below).

• Venue: Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium
  
• American Ronda Rousey won ( Read more... )

Yes, FIELD hockey. I actually didn't see much of this--never a full game, at least, which I consider a bit of a failure. I did some fast forwarding and watched the goals and some penalty corners, but I could have done much better here.

• Venue: Olympic Green Hockey Stadium
  
• The U.S. (women, men didn't qualify!) managed to tie its first two matches ( Read more... )

NBC showed an impressive amount of handball--maybe they will inspire interest since it is one of the three sports we have never medaled in. Since it was a team sport with no rooting interest, I watched one full game early and then mostly fast-forwarded. It's cool, but I had a schedule. =)

• Venue: Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium, National Indoor ( Read more... )

Artistic gymnastics is one of the marquee events of the Olympics (in the U.S. at least), so of course I saw a bunch of it. I do feel like I might have seen more had it not been live, since they had to keep cutting away to other live events. And when they came back, they would show the U.S. team sitting around while other people were actually, you ( Read more... )