Highlights/lowlights/memorable moments of London 2012: How was it for you?

[GarrAarghHrumph]

Highs:

- Epke Zonderland and Fabian Hambuchen's highbar routines. I expected Epke to be great. What I did not expect, based on how he'd done in the rest of the competition, was for Fabian to also be amazing. So much fun to watch.

- The Ugandan Stephen Kiprotich winning men's marathon ahead of two Kenyans. And Meb Keflezighi moving up from around 17th to 4th! Then the Brazilian, Marilson dos Santos, in 5th!

- The women's 4x100 relay being won by a mile. Unbelievable.

- The old folks, Jordan Jovtchev and Oksana Chusovitina making finals in Gymnastics. Jordan doing really well but for the dismount. And Oksana hopes to come back for the next Olys!

- The amazing Marcel Nguyen in the men's all around

- Beth Tweddle's uneven bar routine and resulting bronze medal


Lows:

- Poor John Orozco. I felt so bad for him.

- USA gymanastics pommel horse. We need to bring in someone to redo our entire pommel program. We've been too weak on this event for too long.

[misskarne]

Highlights - in a nutshell whatever I got to see after the disgraceful coverage of the event by the free to air broadcaster here in Australia. If it was live to air it was a bonus.

Lowlight - our disgraceful free to air coverage in Australia. Remembering the jingles from the ads more than the actual events.

Perfectly summed up. Like, in the middle of the ads, we had a break for some Olympics.


Highlights:

- The Mini Cooper for collecting discuses. BEST IDEA EVER.

- The Olympic Cauldron.

- Our little Aussie girl winning silver in the kayak slalom thingy and producing the most beautiful wonderful smile when she did! And for the life of me I cannot remember her name right now...something Fox.

- Rutherglen almost pitching Andrew Hoy off during the cross country and acting like, "Well, what on earth are you doing on my neck!"

- Joshua Jefferis making the men's All-Around final!

- Beki Lee in the 20km walk set a new PB (she came in 28th). After the finish, her boyfriend came over to her, went down on one knee, and in front of the whole crowd, asked her to marry him. She said yes, of course!

I'll carry on when I'm a little more coherent.

[joeperryfan]

First of all it was wonderful to have the Olympics taking place in my timezone, it made a huge difference!

Highlights:
- artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, I hadn't enjoyed either in a long time, the standard was kept quite high overall and it's good to see the russians back in the game. Also kudos to Brazil and Chile for their achievements, Chusovitina and Jovtchev for their longevity, Marcel Nguyen for delivering when it counted and finally Danell Leyva for the tremendous set of balls he showed in his AA HB exercise. Oh, and Zonderland and Hambuchen too;

- the opening ceremonies, especially Rowan Atkinson;

- Fernando Pimenta e Emanuel Silva for winning Portugal's only medal in kayak;

- Thomas Daley! Minxia Wu for her third gold in synchronised 3m springboard;

- Spelbound at the Closing ceremonies;

- Vinokourov's win and Rui Costa placing 13th(not shabby at all);

- Bolt doing the royal salute and wanting to keep the baton;

- Robert Harting's celebration, also Felix Sanchez sobbing;

- Andy Murray kicking Federer's ass!

- portuguese commentator saying Ian Thorpe instead of Michael Phelps twice during the Opening Ceremonies. Medals ain't everything love;

- all the newcomers in swimming, Sun Yan, the lithuanian girl, Missy Franklin, etc... Also discovering Nick Thoman, just because.

Lowlights:
- trampolines are really boring, couldn't they have added acrogym to the Games instead?
- Spice up your life ranks highly in the list of worst songs ever written;
- Telma Monteiro's meltdown, she didn't even put on a fight...
- the fact that I didn't watch more of it all because I couldn't stand sitting down for so many hours. My back is killing me;
- the fact that Phelps' winnings felt more like a big meh than anything else, and I'm under the impression I wasn't the only one feeling that way;

[Lorac]

I am still in mourning for the Games - it was weird not to turn on the Olympics at 9am this morning on the BBC

Any way my highlights and low lights are as follows@

Hightlights:

- The torch relay - it really got the British public into the games and gave so many people the opportunity to carry it - fantastic.

- The Opening and Closing ceremonies - so British in their eccentricness, tounge in cheek, we'll laugh at ourselves so you may as well laugh with us approach to life. The Queen especially gets extra kudos for going along with the Bond theme

- The cauldron - how beautiful was that -both the coming together and the extinguishing of it - just wish it could have been seen from outside the Olympic Stadium

- Team GB - they all did us proud - each and everyone of them - from those who won multiple medals to those who finished last in their events - they all came and did their best

- Seeing sports I would never usually see - like handball, water polo (who knew it was violent ) and especially dressage - who knew dancing horses could be so entertaining

- The BBC - for giving us hours and hours of live viewing on all events - either on TV or online - amazing to see especially after living in the US for the past 5 Olympics and getting the piecemeal, pseudo live events that you only got to see if a US athlete was either expected to win or unexpectedly won.

- The BBC commentators who showed how much they love their respective sports and acted just like us when a GB athlete was going for a medal (I also wish I were 25 years younger so I would take up rowing so I could get a hug from Sir Steve Redgrave when I won )

- Usain Bolt who became a living legend in this Olympics - great man and what a personality

- FSU - loved being able to share with everyone and get perspective from all over the world re these Games.

- The British public for cheering for both home grown talent as well as all others who either gave a great performance or whose only claim to fame was taking part.


Lowlights - not many of these:

- People apologising for not getting gold - there is no need - if you did your best then where ever you finish is fine in my eyes. The British rowers and sailers come to mind who were pipped at the post by other teams.

- The stupid US swimming coach whose names eludes me who implied the Chinese swimmer had doped with nothing to back it up yet when a US teen did the same thing in the womens 800m was strangely silent

- The stupid badminton players who tried to lose - they got what they deserved IMHO.

- The fact several known and suspected drug cheats won medals - I suspect several (and one has already been) medals will be stripped from people in upcoming years thus depriving the true winners the chance to experience their moment of glory

All in all the Games of 2012 were a humungous success from the start to finish - we Brits can rightly be proud of ourselves. I just hope we donl' lose the momentum these games - and the previous one in Bejing - have given us.

[floskate]

I am still in mourning for the Games - it was weird not to turn on the Olympics at 9am this morning on the BBC ......

It hasn't finished. It hasn't I tell you!! I spent a lovely afternoon watching a re-run of Super Saturday on my DVR and crying *again* as Jess Ennis gets her gold medal.

I will continue to live in denial for another 2 weesk and then it will be the Paralympics so it will be as though the whole thing never ended!!

[skipaway]

- The stupid badminton players who tried to lose - they got what they deserved IMHO.

Yes, and I was shocked when people I worked with defended this behavior b/c it's all about winning the Gold and that was good strategy.

[hydro]

Highlights: TENNIS!

I love how the importance of the Olys has increased so much in Tennis, and you could see it in all the reactions of the tennis players. These are multimillionaire professional athletes that were genuinely excited to be part of the Olympics. And the tennis was pretty great, too!

- Serena/Venus defending their gold medal in doubles, 3-time Olympic champions!
- Andy Murray winning in GB!

And can I be a bit shallow and mention Tom Daley's bum? Oh, and the rest of Tom Daley, too?

[skatemommy]

High - the 17 year old girl Claressa from Detroit Michigan who beat the snot out of 33 year old Russian in women's boxing to take the gold!

USA volleyball Destiny Hooker - so beautiful with a deadly swing!

LOW - NBC showing little to no Tae Kwon Do (among many other worthy sports with zero mention). Please tell me they won't be covering Rio

[Zemgirl]

It's kind of trite, but I just love seeing athletes from so many countries get a chance to compete on the biggest stage. There were so many great stories of people who didn't medal and never had a chance to medal, but who really deserved to take part in the Olympics.

I'm happy that so many British athletes did well in front of their home crowd.

- The Ugandan Stephen Kiprotich winning men's marathon ahead of two Kenyans. And Meb Keflezighi moving up from around 17th to 4th! Then the Brazilian, Marilson dos Santos, in 5th!

The marathon was fantastic! Stephen Kiprotich did a great job, as did the Kenyan medalists. Some of the guys looked really beat at the end. I didn't really get into the Olympics this year, but I caught most of the second half of the marathon and watched it until the last finisher crossed he line. I'd like to add that it was great to see the next-to-last finisher, Augusto Soares, running to the finish with the Timor-Leste flag, and to watch Tsepo Ramonene, who finished last, not give up and even find the strength to run the last few hundred meters after clearly having a tough time toward the end. I read that it was only his second time competing in the marathon. And Guor Marial from South Sudan, I hope next time he can represent his country and not be an IOA.

I really like how the marathon medals are awarded during the closing ceremony, and I'd love to see both the men's and the women's marathon medalists be included in that.

High - the 17 year old girl Claressa from Detroit Michigan who beat the snot out of 33 year old Russian in women's boxing to take the gold!

The Russian has a name: she's Nadezda Torlopova, and I believe she was the oldest medalist in women's boxing. I realize that NBC plays up the cold war angle, but I think both the young winner and the older medalist are worthy of respect.

[Jimena]

My highs:

- The soft spoken but very fierce Masai warrior David Rudisha
- Usain Bolt in all his glory, for his performance and for his personality. He fist-bumped the lane volunteer before the 200M final. He's just so much fun.
- Mo Farrah- I cried both times he won
- Oscar Pistorius-
- Aliya Mustafina- unbelieveble that she did so well after her knee injury.
- The men's vault and high bar finals- probably some of the best gymnastics I've ever seen
- Komova's UB, beam and floor routines in the AA
- Enrique Tomas Gonzalez Sepulveda, with his mustache and his eyebrow ring
- Men's diving. So, so much better than the women's.
- Men's volleyball final
- The beautiful horses!
- Two medals for Puerto Rico!
- A silver medal for Roger Federer. I would've liked it to be gold but he seems quite pleased with his silver so who am I to be bummed out when he's so content?

Lows:
- Splatfest in men's gymnastics!
- Uchimura not being at his best
- Afanasyeva and Izbasa not performing their best in floor finals
- John Orozco's meltdown
- NBC coverage. It was atrocious.
- No more fsu Olympics board!!


There weren't that many lows, really. I thought these were were pretty much games.

[Braulio]

Highlights

- For my country, Mexico, the best Olympics overall in terms of medals, 7, among with plenty of top 8 finalist (olympic diploma) and the gold medal in soccer, 2 in archery and 3 in diving with the traditional medal from taekwondo. But to have finalist in so many other events is a great sign and hope it carries on to next games and we can surpass our medal haul

- Serena wining the gold in that way
- Michael Phelps delivering at the end of the games
- Melissa Franklin, a star in the making
- Allison Felix and Sanya Richards wining gold.
- The well timed-organized schedule of events, we were able of seeing almost everything and not overlaped events like in Beijing.
- Usain Bolt three gold medals.
- Team USA taking old in Gymnastics Team
- The crowd at the olympic stadium full packed, even the high attendance for the decathlon pole vault session!!!
- Silver medal for Guatemala, and all the nations getting their first ever olympic medal
- The closing ceremony musical fest
- Ruta Melyutite wining gold for Lithuania in swimming 100m breaststroke
- Ksenia Afaseneva FX routine (at qualifying)


Lowlights
- Our diver Paola Espinosa, underperforming and failing to win a medal individually, she just could have won a medal on a 75 per cent form but she looked like she didnt want to be there to compete.
- Komova defeat attitude, Iordache being injured. Maroney silver medal.
- NBC Coverage (though I only watched sometimes but was enough, poor americans)
- The dopers getting medals
- The taekwondo new scoring system, it kills the nature of the sport.
- US Men´s team Gymnastics bombing in the final

[poths]

Everything

Ditto to everything Fred said. I'll add a few more

Highlights
The BBC's coverage and their epic presenters:
-Claire Balding, all day everyday.
-Sue Barker crying when the flame was extinguished
-Jake Humphries, polite and knowledgeable in many sports
- The RED BUTTON (it's new to me...I loved it, more than I loved my parents for two weeks. Seriously.
-Expert commentary of Christine Still and Mitch Fenner, Steve Cram and Stuart Storey, every other "commentator" can just leave it to the experts please.
Performance wise
- David Rudisha and the entire field of the 800m
- Raisman in qualifications
- The US women's vault
- Komova's FX in the AA
- USAIN BOOOOOOLT
- The Brown Lees
- Women's Boxing
- Diving, all of it....epic athletes.
- Grenada winning a Gold
- Bahamas winning the 4x4
- Chris Brown getting 4th....but then a Gold! Wheeeeeeeee
- Allyson Felix What a gazelle.
- Chrissy O and her late charge, it was so nearly Beijing all over again
- Ukhov in the High jump, he's so enthralling.
- Open water swimming
- Jessica Ennis dominating the heptathlon



Lowlights
The inane Colin Jackson, Brendan Foster and John Inverdale - get rid of them
The massive increase in fluff. I must have seen that sports psychology piece about ten times

Performance wise:
The entire swimming program was to me. It's just not a very impressive sport TBH.
The "fast track" providing unwarranted times, particularly in the relays.
The litany of apparent drug cheats stealing medals and therefore the inadequacy of WADA.
Iordache
Hannah Whelan
Izbasa and Afan's EF FX :
Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie being injured and failing miserably
Canada


Lots more, I'm sure they'll come back to me

[poths]

Highlights

- For my country, Mexico, the best Olympics overall in terms of medals, 7, among with plenty of top 8 finalist (olympic diploma) and the gold medal in soccer, 2 in archery and 3 in diving with the traditional medal from taekwondo. But to have finalist in so many other events is a great sign and hope it carries on to next games and we can surpass our medal haul
l

for Mexico!!! Wheeeee and Manzano in the 1500m too

[poths]

The Russian has a name: she's Nadezda Torlopova, and I believe she was the oldest medalist in women's boxing. I realize that NBC plays up the cold war angle, but I think both the young winner and the older medalist are worthy of respect.

Thank you. I wanted to respond also but felt such ignorance wasn't worth my time.

[poths]

OMG where do I begin?

I cant... EVERYTHING was fab! Even the North Korean/South Korean flag cock up made me laugh!

Opening Ceremony! That 'gritty' Industrial Revolution bit was

"Good Evening Mr Bond"

Mo Farrah! Jess Ennis!

Clare Balding! And thanks to the wonders of the internet, getting to share her with the world


Shoot me but Spice Girls


Papa Le Clos!

Dancing Horsies!!!


FSU!!! Big love to Lorac, allezfred and everyone else who voided with me on the daily threads.


A few lowlights:

Realising Gymnastics bores the shit out of me

FSU occasionally having NO PRYDE moments and arguing with the server peeps lots




....I'll probably be back

But MOST OF ALL


London and Britain has put on ONE HELL OF A SHOW - I AM SO PROUD TO BE BRITISH !!!!!!!! WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! AND WHEEEEEEEEEEEE TEAM GB!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wheeeeeee all of this too. To the letter.

[allezfred]

Most importantly - No Slam Poet!

[Sit_spin]

Highlights:

- Missy Franklin. Everything about that girl made me smile.
- Gabby Douglas. Again, everything about her made me smile.
- The Fab ("Fierce") Five winning the team gold medal.
- Michael Phelps breaking the record for most medals ever won.
- David Boudia, Nick McCrory, Abby Johnston, Kelci Bryant, Kristian Ipsen, and Troy Dumais winning medals in synchronized diving, breaking the US diving medal drought.
- David Boudia winning the gold medal in the 10 meter platform.
- Sam Mikulak's great sportsmanship.
- Aly Raisman getting more medals than any of the other US gymnasts.
- Allison Schmitt doing so well.
- Allison Schmitt's friendship with Michael Phelps.
- Cullen Jones winning the silver medal in the 50 meter freestyle.
- Natalie Coughlin winning her 12th Olympic medal.
- The US Women's soccer team winning the gold medal.
- Kieran Behan simply competing.
- Danell Leyva winning the bronze in the all-around.

Lowlights:

- Taylor Phinney finishing fourth - twice.
- Michael Phelps retiring. I've been a fan of his almost as long as I've been watching swimming.
- The terrible coverage NBC gave us.
- NBC spoiling Missy Franklin's first gold medal. (Seriously, they could have played that at the next commercial, and it wouldn't have spoiled a thing.)
- Natalie Coughlin only qualifying for one race at Olympic Trials, so we didn't see much of her here.
- Kobe Bryant being featured in the audience/crowd all the freaking time.
- No softball. Hopefully, that will change in the future.

[poths]

...

Was there anything outside of US athletes that impressed you?

[Lara]

Was there anything outside of US athletes that impressed you?

If you watched NBC primetime only, there wouldn't be much else. Well, except Bolt and Pistorius.

Sorry, that should have been my lowlight.

[algonquin]

If you watched NBC primetime only, there wouldn't be much else. Well, except Bolt and Pistorius.

Does NBC have the rights for Rio and Sochi? It seems that they have had the rights for decades.