USA! USA! USA! USA!

Who here saw the Men's 4x100 Freestyle Relay last night? Show of hands.

Watching the swimmin' last night, I have to admit, I was getting pretty sick of Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines ("Rowdy?" Seriously?) babbling on and on about Michael Phelps when he wasn't even in the pool. They were babbling about him during women's races where there wasn't even an American in the pool, much less the subject of their adulation.

I understand that they want to promote him, that he's one of the big stars of the '08 Games, and I understand that he's got the potential to do something pretty amazing and historic. But you know, all those other swimmers worked their asses off, too, and hearing the commentators discuss the action actually occurring in the pool might be nice, y'know?

Despite that, I would love to see Phelps succeed in his quest. He seems in his interviews like a pretty nice, humble guy. A lot of people equate "competitive" with arrogant these days - but they're not the same thing. Yeah, Phelps has a competitive streak a mile wide. But he's never said anything to indicate that he thinks he deserves to win, or that a failure to win would be some sort of cosmic injustice. And to watch someone that good in his prime doing his thing...well, it's pretty awesome.

And goddamn but that was an exciting race. Maybe the most exciting single bit of Olympics I've ever seen (given that I wasn't even 3 years old for the Miracle on Ice in 1980). And best of all, it was broadcast (nearly) live, so I hadn't had the results spoiled by other news sources when I watched it.

I know that the thing to say is that you're not much of a partisan when it comes to the Olympics, that it's great to see so many great athletes from all nations doing well, that you don't really care about the Medal Count and all that...but I call bullshit. I want to see the USA win. And it's even better on those rare occasions when we're actually underdogs.