2012 Summer Olympic Games in London

Quote by Dancing_Doll
I would like to start a petition that all male athletes competing in the Olympics must be shirtless at all times.

Men's swimming... yum.

Great to see Phelps break the all time Olympic record with 19 medals. That relay event was exciting/fun to watch.

PS. I find those Judo uniforms to be terrible. Looks like an ill-fitting robe that keeps coming out of the belt and hanging randomly loose and they have to keep tucking it back in. They should totally be shirtless. Bottomless too would be cool with me, but that's probably asking for too much.

Quote by Dancing_Doll
I would like to start a petition that all male athletes competing in the Olympics must be shirtless at all times.

Men's swimming... yum.

Great to see Phelps break the all time Olympic record with 19 medals. That relay event was exciting/fun to watch.

PS. I find those Judo uniforms to be terrible. Looks like an ill-fitting robe that keeps coming out of the belt and hanging randomly loose and they have to keep tucking it back in. They should totally be shirtless. Bottomless too would be cool with me, but that's probably asking for too much.

Quote by shelley2013
Go Lebron and the USA team and the womens team!!

Quote by lafayettemister
I'm loving every minute of the Games. I hate to see it end next week.

Quote by swollen
Truly a 'golden day' for Team GB, but to me the highlight was Serena - what a formidable show of supremacy.

LONDON — Christine Sinclair, the Canadian superhero, summarized what happened with an undeniable clarity: “It's a shame in a game like that that was so important, the ref decided the result before it started.”

Sinclair had just scored three goals against the United States in an Olympic semifinal, but the force of her strength was limited to opposing players, and not the referee. As it turned out, the referee was an equally worthy foe.

Norwegian referee Christiana Pedersen set Canadian players, soccer fans and even some more casual observers aflame on Monday with a series of bizarre calls that ultimately led the Americans to a 4-3 win and a trip to the gold-medal game. Canada will have to play for bronze.

By now you have probably heard what happened - from the rarely used six-second delay of game call on Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod to the resulting handball penalty. (In Sports Illustrated, writer Grant Wahl wrote of the delay call: “It's exceedingly rare for the violation to be called at the elite level.”) “Sport is like that,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said on Tuesday morning. “There are decisions that people don't always agree with, and that will always happen.”

• Photos: Canada, U.S. in epic soccer match

Here are five other sports in which an official has become the centre of controversy at the London Olympics:

• Fencing: In what might be the most egregious example of official incompetence, a South Korean fencer was left sobbing in protest on the stage after the clock seemed to freeze in the final moments of her semifinal match last week. Shin A-lam was on her way to a gold-medal match until an obvious timing error gave her German opponent more time to score the decisive point. Shin remained on the strip for an hour in protest - leaving the strip is an acceptance of the result, according to the rules - and eventually was led away, still in tears. The International Fencing Federation reportedly offered to give her a special medal as a result. (Shin won a silver medal later in the week, in team épée, but said that did not make up for the earlier injustice. She also denied any knowledge of a “special” medal.)

• Boxing: A referee from Turkmenistan (Ishanguly Meretnyyazov) was told to pack his bag and leave London after his bizarre performance during a bout between boxers from Japan and Azerbaijan. The boxer from Azerbaijan wound up on the mat six times in the third round, but somehow emerged with a win over his Japanese opponent. Meretnyyazov went so far as to help the Azerbaijan adjust his headgear, at one point. The result of the match was overturned. In a statement posted on its website, the International Amateur Boxing Association said: “Mr. Meretnyyazov is on his way back home.”

• Boxing: A German referee was given a five-day forced vacation at the Olympics after he disqualified an Iranian boxer for holding in the second round of a fight against Cuba. It did not go over well with the Iranian boxer, who was left dumbfounded. “I've never seen anything like it in my life,” Ali Mazaheri told Agence France-Presse. “I thought I was going to win the gold medal here and within a minute I have received three warnings and I was out with my dreams shattered.” Frank Scharmach, the referee, was handed the weeklong suspension.

• Field hockey: A language barrier seemed to be the cause of some confusion in a women's field hockey game between South Africa and New Zealand last week. According a report, the South African coach was upset about the video review process, telling the BBC about an apparent misunderstanding with Russian umpire Elena Eskina. The team was planning to launch a formal complaint after requesting officials review a specific piece of evidence on a New Zealand goal - a request that is reportedly within their right - but the official instead reviewed a different aspect of the replay. The goal stood. South Africa went on to lose by three goals. “It is appalling,” South African coach Giles Bonnet told the BBC. “It is a farce that they scored a goal that is not a goal.”

• Water Polo: Swimming's international governing body has sent two officials home after a late goal was disallowed in a match between Spain and Croatia. Spain appeared to tie the game at 8-8 until the Slovenian referee waved it off. Replays showed the ball had crossed the line entirely. It was a good goal. The crowd erupted in jeers. “The crowd saw that it was a goal,” Spanish player Felipe Perrone Rocha told reporters afterward. “So I feel really bad about it.” Spain appealed. And while swimming's governing body upheld the result - Croatia held on to win, 8-7 - it announced the Slovenian official would not be working again at these Olympics. Boris Margeta, the banished official, was quoted by TMZ on Tuesday: “It was very bad. After I saw the replay I knew I made a mistake.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Canada+only+nation+questioning+calls+Olympics/7051135/story.html#ixzz22vLeZc6F

Quote by LadyX
I was really surprised how "into it" I got; I watched it each day, time permitting. So proud of the USA, a record haul for gold medals and total medals!

Also, big congrats to the Jamaican sprinters. In the fantasy where I get a "5 celebrity free pass" list, four of the five will be comprised of the Jamaican 4x100 relay team.

The ceremony had something for everyone, from tween girls to 1960s hippies. The face of John Lennon appeared on the stadium floor, assembled by 101 fragments of sculpture, and just as quickly gave way to George Michael.

Muse, Fatboy Slim, and Annie Lennox were all expected to perform. Queen Elizabeth II, who made a memorable mock parachute entrance at the July 27 opening ceremony, was expected to be on hand.

Eight minutes were turned over to Brazil, host of the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, which promises an explosion of samba, sequins and Latin cool. Following tradition, the mayor of London was to hand the Olympic flag off to his Rio counterpart.

There were also to be speeches by Rogge and London organizing committee chief Sebastian Coe, and the extinguishing of the Olympic flame.

What a way to end a games far more successful than many Londoners expected. Security woes were overcome, and traffic nightmares never materialized. The weather held up, more or less, and British athletes overachieved.

It all came at a price tag of U.S.$14 billion, three times the original estimate. But nobody wanted to spoil the fun with such mundane concerns, at least not on this night.

Britons, who had fretted for weeks that the games would become a fiasco, were buoyed by their biggest medal haul since 1908 -- 29 golds and 65 medals in all.

The United States edged China in both the gold medal and total medal standings, eclipsing its best performance at an Olympics on foreign soil after the Dream Team narrowly held off Spain in basketball for the country's 46th gold.

"It's been an incredible fortnight," said Coe, an Olympic champion in his own right.

While the games may have lacked some of the drama and grandeur of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, there were many unforgettable moments.

Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt became an Olympic legend by repeating as champion in both the 100-metre and 200-metre sprints. Michael Phelps ended his long career as the most decorated Olympian in history.

British distance runner Mo Farah became a national treasure by sweeping the 5,000- and 10,000-metre races, and favourite daughter Jessica Ennis became a global phenomenon with her victory in the heptathlon.

Female athletes took centre stage in a way they never had before. American gymnast Gabby Douglas soared to gold, the U.S. women's football team made a dramatic march to the championship. Packed houses turned out to watch the new event of women's boxing. And women competed for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei for the first time.

And then there was Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee from South Africa running on carbon-fibre blades, who didn't win a medal but nonetheless left a champion. And sprinter Manteo Mitchell, who completed his leg of the 4x400 relay semifinal on a broken leg, allowing his team to qualify and win silver.

"It was a dream for a sports-lover like me," Rogge said of the two weeks of competition.

Coe said the closing ceremony didn't aim to be profound, not even the irreverent romp through British history offered by Danny Boyle's $42 million spectacle on opening night.

The theme for the close, Coe said, could be summed up in three words. "Party. Party. Party."

London organizers tried to keep the ceremony under wraps, but photographs of their rehearsals, in an old car plant in east London, made the British papers almost daily.

The show was to include performances of 30 British hit singles from the past five decades -- whittled by Gavin from a list of 1,000 songs.

Gavin said Saturday the show have a soundtrack ranging from late Edward Elgar, composer of the "Pomp and Circumstance" march, to The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset." Frontman Ray Davies performed the 1960s song, a love letter to London.

While creators of the opening ceremony could rehearse for weeks inside the stadium, Gavin and his team had less than a day between the end of track and field competition and Sunday's ceremony before 80,000 people.

Even as spectators filed in early Sunday evening, performers did final run-throughs, including actor-comedian Russell Brand in a top hat aboard a psychedelic magical mystery tour bus. Jets of steam shot up from the stage as dancers in warmup clothes shimmied and shook.

Britons seemed exhausted and exhilarated after two glorious weeks in the world's spotlight, and just months after the country celebrated the queen's 60th year on the throne with a magnificent pageant and street parties.

Some at Olympic Park acknowledged happy surprise that not much had gone wrong, and so much had gone right.

"I was a bit worried we wouldn't be able to live up to it," said Phil Akrill of Chichester. "But walking around here it's just unbelievable."

Even non-Brits were proud of their adopted homeland.

"It's just been a really nice thing to see," said Anja Ekelof, a Swede who now lives in Scotland. "The whole country has come together."