Could Someone Please Feed Svetlana Khorkina?

Holy freakin' cow, that woman looks anorexic.  (A gymnast?  With an eating disorder?  Couldn't be.)  I kept expecting her little legs to snap like twigs whenever she made a rough landing.  They say she's a model in Russia -- I guess that "starving waif" look is still in over there.

OK, here's the problem with the new "3 gymnasts, all of their scores count" system:  it blows from an "up close and personal" point of view.  Which is to say, we didn't get to know and cheer for the team members in the way we used to.  Remember the "Magnificent Seven" from Atlanta?  You can probably still name half of 'em.  But we felt like we knew them -- from sweet-yet-solid Shannon Miller, to young Karolyi-favorite Dominique Moceanu, to uneven bar specialist Amy Chow ... and, of course, Kerri Strug, who held it together playing hurt when everyone around her was falling apart healthy.  The six women who made up our team this year included Annia Hatch -- the "vault specialist," who we only saw on one event -- and Courtney McCool, who actually never performed at all during the finals tonight.  Of the others, the only one who really made any sort of impression was Mohini Bhardwaj.

Actually, I was going to write about Bhardwaj after the preliminaries, to point out one of them little known facts I so enjoy pointing out.  Y'know how the commentators kept calling her a "vault specialist" (along with Annia Hatch) and saying that's why she was brought to the Games?  She actually competed in every event in the qualifying round.  Do you know how well she did?  Eighth overall.  Over-freakin'-all.  She would have qualified for the all-around were it not for the fact two other Americans qualified ahead of her, and only the top two from each team can go on.  She outscored (the presumably non-specialist) Courtney McCool in beam and floor, which probably explained why the so-called vault specialist found herself competing in three of four events in the Olympic finals.

And I, for one, couldn't be happier.  I like seeing the face of American ladies gymnastics being a little older.  (There was once a joke where a representative of figure skating said, "At least our girls have breasts.")  I am thrilled to pieces that a female gymnast who achieved success at the college level was then able to rejoin the competitve arena, show us what she could do, and end up with an Olympic silver medal.  (Heck, when they first reported Courtney Kupets was injured, my first thought was, "Hey!  Mohini's alternate for the all-around.")  So, y'know, yay for Mohini.  Score one for the grown-ups.

And before I get off the topic of breasts

Do you think they have so much coverage of the women's Beach Volleyball team because they're scantily-clad, pat each other on the butt when they win, and engage in full-body hugs which are the closest thing to "girl on girl action" that NBC can get away with in prime time?

I saw none of this on prime time coverage, but

USA basketball did manage to beat Greece.  Although not by much.  Not only is it looking like we do not have the gold medal in the bag, it also looks like we might be in for some good basketball games this Olympics -- which would be pretty exciting.

Is it or is it not a hat?

So Michael Phelps took off his little wreath of olive leaves during the national anthem -- he was the first athlete I saw do that (others may have -- I generally don't watch the medal ceremonies).  He seemed to do it by reflex, as though he just knows you take off whatever happens to be on your head at the time.  Funny.

I dig the wreaths.  I dig all the little touches Athens is doing to celebrate the special history Greece has with the Games -- and the idea of doing the shotput from the original stadium in Olympia is really too cool for words.  (That they didn't have shotput during the original Games is something we'll overlook.)

And finally... a word about me!

Check out AOL Keyword:  AOL Movies: Movie Talk -- the nice folks there linked an entry of mine.  :)