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