London certainly gets put straight onto the Salty Dog list with a rating of a 3. London is gloomy and overcast 95%, and the other 5% of the time it's raining. In London people speak English, which is one of the reasons it is so popular for Americans to travel to. However, England has a Queen and constitutional monarchy, and the currency is the Great Britain Pound.
Regardless, back to the Summer Olympics. This year is the 30th year the Olympics have occurred, so they are marked as the XXX Summer Olympics. There are 204 countries participating, ranging from small Caribbean islands such as St. Lucia and Grenada, to powerhouses such as China and the United States. An estimated top 10,500 athletes from these countries will be competing for gold, silver, and bronze medals in 26 different Olympic sports (and games) with a total of 39 disciplines.
Now I'm sure most of you don't know all of the disciplines of the 26 sports and games so I'll list them.
1. Aquatics. This category consists of:
A. Diving (individual and synchronized)
B. Swimming
C. Synchronized Swimming
D. Water Polo
Now, diving is super impressive and an often overlooked sport. I mean, have you watched synchronized diving and how the two athletes look like identical twins and flip at the exact same speed as their partners? This sport is one of my favorites to watch.
Swimming, on the other hand, we might as well not even video each event and just give the gold to Phelps. He is the best Olympic athlete in history, with 21 medals, but come on, we know he's the best. He's no fun to watch anymore. Thank god he's retiring. He is goofy looking and awkward and taking over the Olympics.
Ryan Lochte knew the only way anyway would know his name is if he did something stupid or memorable, like wear grills during medal ceremonies.
Lochte, get a life and start dating wannabe models like Phelps. Megan Rossee is a 25 year old model who I can't find anything about regarding her jobs. So basically, she'll probably get famous from all of the publicity she gets as Michael Phelps' girlfriend. Certainly not ugly though...
2. Archery. Nothing more to be said. I did notice they all usually wear a variety of bucket hats and sunglasses though, which is pretty entertaining.
3. Athletics. This includes track and field events: decatholons, heptathlons, long jump, and the hilarious yet impressive race walk. Oh, and Ivet Lalova.
Ivet Lalova is a 28 year old Bulgarian sprinter and my Olympic girl crush. Perfect. Now, if I did not bring up Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter and fastest man in the world, I would be foolish. Legend.
4. Badminton. Confused about how this sport/game is in the Olympics. It's actually just a lighter version of tennis that the Chinese are incredible at. Much like ping-pong.
5. Basketball. A cool sport that tall people are particularly good at. I don't have much to say about this except for the fact the Tunisian player Mohamed Hadidane asked Kobe Bryant to sign his shoe after the USA crushed Tunisia 110-63. So presh.
6. Boxing. A 17 year old girl from the US just won gold. Cool.
7. Canoeing. Strange because it's in a manmade course with machine made rapids. Weird.
8. Cycling. Conehead hunchbacks on $20,000 bikes. Yawn.
9. Equestrian. Consisting of:
A. Dressage
B. Eventing
C. Jumping
This sport I'm sure is not as impressive to everyone, but anyone that has ever been on a horse and properly rode it knows how difficult it is to control a horse and how it's also a full-body workout. These events are usually on early in the morning or at awkward afternoon hours because they are no so popular to watch. However, if you do catch some Dressage (often called "gymnastics for horses"), look at how the rider appears to be barely moving while making the horse do basically a dance routine, usually to music. This event is really wild and impressive. Plus horses are the only animal that takes part in the Summer Olympic games.
10. Fencing. Simply put, a weird person sport. Opponents each have spacesuit-like outfits on with a helmet that lights up and a sword with no blade. Pretty lame.
11. Field Hockey. Nothing wrong with this sport.
12. Football. The hottest sport in the entire world.
Example #1: Kosta Barbarouses, a 22 year old footballer from New Zealand. Adorable.
Example #2: Oliver Buff. A 20 year old playing for Switzerland. Man-tastic.
Example #3: Lauren Sesselmann, a Canadian soccer player from Wisconsin. Who cares that she's not really Canadian...
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Example #4: Scott Sinclair, Team GB.
Also the sport with the most overrated girl in the world, Hope Solo. Looking more manly than most of the men that play football. Like how do people think she's hot, seriously?
13. Gymnastics:
A. Artistic
B. Rhythmic
C. Trampoline
I'm just going to talk about artistic. This is definitely the most interesting sport to watch. Petite girls with the average age being 16 doing flips, twirls, and twists on the vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor. The "Fab Five" aka Team USA has really gotten quite the publicity to the extent where viewers feel like they know each of the girls on a personal level.
Gabby Douglas. Her last name unscrambled spells "USA GOLD". Pretty cool, and true. Gabby is 16 years old and won gold in Women's Individual All-Around. However, her individual eventing for Uneven Bars and Balance Beam did not reflect that title. She choked. She finished last and second to last in those events, respectively. All-Around seems like she actually enjoys the sport, which won viewers over as she became "the sweetheart" of the group.
Jordyn Wieber. 16 year old who is also the reigning world all-around champion. However, she choked in qualifying and did not go on to compete for Individual All-Around. We got to know her by watching her cry in the background of Aly Raisman's interview. Poor girl.
Aly Raisman. She's actually 18 years old which is kind of surprising compared to the rest of the team. I think she is one of the favorites to watch. She always has ridiculous routines and never seems to full out choke. Plus, she's the prettiest and seems pretty genuine and relatable. She earned a gold in Individual Floor Finals with a super impressive routine. She's also an avid tweeter and accidently sent a tweet about going clubbing with the men's team that meant to be a direct message. Who cares though, she's 18, it's not illegal in London. Leave the girl alone.
McKayla Maroney. At 16 years old, her ONLY event is the vault. In Individual Vault Finals, she earned a silver medal which unleashed her infamous bitch face. See this funny blog for a laugh.
Kyla Ross. Who?
14. Handball. Too aggressive.
15. Judo. All you need to know about this sport is Romy Tarangul. She posed for German Playboy and is beautiful. Wonder what she's been doing in the Olympic Village...
16. Modern Pentathlon: I just looked this up because I had no idea what it was. The Modern Pentathlon is made up of five events: pistol shooting, epee fencing, 200m freestyle swimming, show jumping (an equestrian event), and a 1.5km cross-country run. I have no idea how this is considered a sport considering its 5 sports in one. I guess it kind of proves you're an all-around athlete. Interesting.
17. Rowing. The US Men's Team won gold and that certainly excited Henrik Rummel.
18. Sailing. Soo it's racing sailboats?
19. Shooting. I can't believe this is actually a sport but this girl is from Alaska and a trapshooter, Corey Cogdell.
20. Table Tennis. Where the Chinese rack up their golds.
21. Taekwondo. Enough.
22. Tennis. Kind of interesting but not really because whenever there's not the Olympics there's the Australian Open, U.S. Open, French Open, Wimbledon. Kind of takes away it's coolness when there's always a huge event going on.
23. Triathlon.
24. Volleyball.
A. Beach
B. Court
Okay beach volleyball is not as impressive as court volleyball, plus London is cold most of the time so the beach volleyball players are usually wearing underarmour under their suits anyways. However, Marketa Slukova (Czech Republic) and Marta Menegatti (Italy) are ones to watch.
26. Wrestling. Way different than high school or college wrestling so I don't even want to talk about it.
Since the Olympics are so blogworthy and are 17 days long, they are placed on the Hot Diggity Dog list with a ranking of 7. If you watch them every night, they do get pretty repetitive. Plus the only two sports worth watching are Football and Gymnastics.
