Do you have to let it linger?

Tropical Storm Fay has been has been hanging around South Florida the past two days, drifting Eastward from her projected path from Saturday (at left).

She also hasn't become a hurricane, yet, although new projections have her become one when in the Atlantic, before turning west and back into northern Florida.

At the moment, she's here:
Which means that Lauderdale is out of the main circulation area, if we were ever in it. (That white line across the bottom of the State is Alligator Alley/595, the Eastern edge of which is at the southern end of FtL.)

Anyways, Fay has just brought some rain and wind to my next of the woods: nothing too terrible. Although there have been some tornadoes nearby, apparently. Oh, and the pool's been closed down because were under a storm warning...

But I'm in so deep... you know I'm such a fool for you
You've got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger

So close, and still so far...

The Olympics have completed their first week. Cool things that happened from week 1:

• Togo won it's first Olympic medal ever: a bronze in the men's whitewater kayak slalom by Benjamin Boukpeti.
• USA swimmer Rebecca Soni won a silver medal in the women's 100 breaststroke, an event some folks think that someone else should've swam (but I don't think that someone else would've finished as well). Soni also (somewhat surprisingly) won and set the World Record in the 200 breaststroke.
• FINA awarded the third Swimming Youth Worlds in 2010 to Lima, Perú (strangely, the first 2 editions were also held in the Americas...)
• USA swimmmer Michael Phelps, in addition to being on a World Record spree, has become the owner of the most Olympic gold medals ever (13; he has to get a few more medals to have the most medals: Russian gymnast Larysa Latynina has 18). And as of this morning, is tied with Mark Spitz with the most gold medals ever at a Games, at 7. Phelps has 1 more possible event/medal: the men's 400 Medley Relay, which is Sunday morning in Beijing, and will air on U.S. television (really late) on Saturday night.
• USA (and Texas Longhorn) swimmer Ian Crocker still has the World Record in the 100 fly.

And falling into the not cool and somewhat strange categories: that "really late" part above. NBC pressured petitioned (and got) the International Olympic Committee to flip the time of prelims and finals of swimming at the Olympics, so that the finals were in the morning (instead of at night) and could be broadcast live in the U.S. Which would be great, except NBC isn't broadcasting it live in most of the U.S. It is only live in the Eastern and Central time zones; Mountain, Pacific and Hawaii broadcasts are all delayed.

And what's even worse: Beijing is 12 hours off the US East Coast. With morning finals starting at 10 a.m. in China, swimming can't air on t.v. until 10 p.m. at night Eastern time and 9 p.m. Central time. That's when it starts during the broadcast. It goes until midnight Eastern time; one night of which would be ok, but 8 in a row? Mountain and Pacific time score with this time, however (8-10 p.m. Mountain; 7-9 p.m. Pacific); but NBC isn't airing swimming live there.... Instead, it's back at 10 p.m. start time. Why??

So instead of NBC airing a tape delay and having people watch, NBC is airing a live broadcast which viewers have to tape and delay watching.... And they screwed up the swimming competition for everyone in the world for this: wasn't that nice of them?

A life goes by
Romantic dreams must die
So I bid mine goodbye, and never knew
So close was waiting

Confusion never stops, closing walls and ticking clocks...

The 2008 Olympics kicked off yesterday (08/08/08 at 8:08 p.m., actually) in Beijing, China. (I hear 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture.)

And today begins a stretch of 8 days of swimming at the Games, with late nights in the USA thanks to t.v. network NBC. Based on the belief that slightly lower viewership for the 2000 Olympics was based on the tape-delay of things from Sydney (Australia) time (and not on the annoying way the network covers the Games), NBC got the swimming schedule flipped so that prelims are in the evening and finals are in the morning. And while this is possibly loved by South American swimmers who seem to have this format in their larger competitions, this time flip isn't going over so well with me (nor a lot of the swimming community, for that matter). Particularly given that the U.S. East coast is exactly 12-hours off of Beijing.

This means that when finals begin at 10 a.m. in the morning in China, it's 10 p.m. the night before here in Florida. 10 p.m.--that's when it starts! The finals sessions are scheduled (roughly) from 10:00 a.m. to noon local time, through next Sunday (August 17), which means that the (precious-to-NBC) live coverage goes from 10 p.m. to midnight. Sounds like a week of late nights if you're a swim fan...

I guess it's a good thing that morning practices aren't really happening for most U.S. swimmers at the moment: it being between seasons et al. But the timing does make me long for a tape-delay, which could allow the finals of events to be annoyingly sporadically placed during the evening's broadcast... at least then I might see some swimming in the 7 o'clock hour... (though I guess I could solve that by relocating to California for the week).

Though the flip does make the time of prelims: 6 p.m. Beijing time, a manageable 6 a.m. here in Florida. Though 3 a.m. on the West Coast sucks....

Now if only I could find consolidated results from prelims.


Lights go out and I can't be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
You've put me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead, singing

I said you wanna be startin' somethin', You got to be startin' somethin'

On Friday, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) made official what the media has reported on for a few weeks: that USA swimmer Jessica Hardy had a positive drug test at the 2008 Olympic Trials. USADA also confirmed that she had withdrawn from the team. This confirmation came about following Hardy's appearance before the North American branch of the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) on Thursday (you can read the report from that hearing here).

The reporting on this story, and the related matter of the vacationing third-place finisher in one of Ms. Hardy's event wanting to be put on the Olympic team in her place, have irked me. I've been mostly irked by the holes presented in the story:

• a supposed entry deadline gap between Ms. Hardy's notification on July 21 and the final Olympic entry deadline on July 23. Failing to mention: the date the USA swimming team roster was set (July 7), and the date the roster/entries were finalized (July 21--USA Swimming submitted the entries to the USOC to send to FINA to send to Beijing by July 23);
• that the selection procedure was published in February 2008, and (most likely) all Trials participants had a copy of it, which they may or may not have read (and I say "most likely" because I don't know and have not seen it addressed in the media);
• that official notification of the test and disqualification of Ms. Hardy as an Olympian had yet to happen (she actually left the Olympic team before she was kicked off it); and
• how can an alternate be named to a team, when there's not an officially open space for her?

(By the way, this doesn't even address the third-place finisher being on vacation, which most likely means she wasn't training/preparing to be at the Games....)

But Friday's announcement should help with my angst. Tomorrow's continuation of Ms. Hardy's hearing, to determine the fairness of her automatically garnered 2-year ban, should also be interesting and hopefully helpful. Who knows, maybe the way the story has been framed by the media will help her: it has seemed unfair coverage, in my mind, to her detriment. And I should point out: I do believe that if she really, purposely, took a banned substance, that she should not go to Olympics and should be banned. However, I also think she should be treated fairly until that is officially determined, which I don't believe happened. I also don't think USA Swimming has been treated very fairly, either.


Update 8/7/08:
USA Swimming's Executive Director released this statement regarding the situation (in some respects, they couldn't comment until now because of their situation; which made them appear bad in some eyes... as if they were trying to protect themselves or cover things up). The part that sticks in my brain from this: "...even when Jessica did test positive and was formally charged by USADA with a doping offense, she had the right to defend herself against this charge; remember, ours is a system in which you are innocent until proven guilty."


It's too high to get over (yeah, yeah)
Too low to get under (yeah, yeah)
You're stuck in the middle (yeah, yeah)
And the pain is thunder (yeah, yeah)