Olympics Europe

The man at the right is Martin Cullen, Ireland's Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism. In discussing his views on how Irish Olympians can win more gold medals, Cullen expressed some interesting viewpoints about which sports Irish people can excel at and which sports they can't.

From the Irish Independent:

"Obviously, unless you're black and African you're not going to do well in sprint or middle distance," he says. "We'll get the odd one coming through, like a Sonia [O'Sullivan] or an Eamonn Coghlan, but we'll deal with them as they come. But the likes of the javelin, the discus, the pole vaulting, these are the ones being won by white Europeans. Physically and mentally we're suited to them, and it's easy to see how we could do well here."

Almost as surprising as those quotes is the way they're presented in the Irish Independent, which is Ireland's top-selling daily newspaper. In the United States, a government official who made such comments would probably lose his job, but the Irish Independent praises him for speaking a "vaguely politically incorrect truth."

Via Deadspin.

Update: My timing is ridiculously bad. Basketball 24/7, which has been on this story for weeks, just broke the news that Great Britain Basketball ponied up for insurance -- Deng will play!

Luol Deng has planned to represent his homeland by anchoring Great Britain's 2012 Olympic basketball team for quite some time. Unfortunately, those plans hit a snag, thanks largely to his brand spanking new $71 million extension. From Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times (via Blog a Bull):

MetLife, the NBA's insurer which covers the top 150 salaries in the league under a group policy, has the right to exclude 14 high-risk players every year.

Decisions are based on the player's injury history and the amount of money remaining on his contract. Deng came under MetLife scrutiny when he signed a $71 million, six-year contract at the start of this month. It is the fourth-highest contract in the NBA in terms of outstanding money.

MetLife subsequently used an MRI scan taken last November when Deng, 23, injured his back and missed three games to exclude him from the coverage.

Because MetLife has excluded Deng, he can't play in a qualifying tournament for the Olympics next summer without additional insurance, and as you'd expect, a policy to insure a $71 million contract isn't exactly cheap. How expensive? Try $500,000 a summer for each of the next three years. All told, that's about half of the national team's entire budget.

All in all, Spain should be proud for taking a team of NBA All-Stars to the limit. There's no shame in losing to perhaps the most talented team to ever step foot on a basketball court ... right? That's not how Spain's starting center Felipe Reyes (pictured, getting demolished by Kobe Bryant) team sees it. From SportsYa.com (via HoopsHype)

"I think we deserved to win the gold medal because we did an incredible job. If it hadn't been for the officials, we'd have the gold instead of the silver," center Felipe Reyes said.

"If they had blown the whistle for the steps they take, the defense with the hands they use and had blown the whistle on everything, it's clear that we would have won. We got to within three points in spite of the referees, and if they'd been good, we would have won, pretty clearly," Reyes said.

"If the referees had followed FIBA rules, we would have won, but we are very satisfied with the silver," Reyes, who scored 10 points, said.

To be fair, Reyes does have a point: the referees were bad. That said, the only thing consistent about the refs was that they made questionable calls on both sides of the ball. Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were in foul trouble for much of the game, but the difference is that when Team USA had to sit someone, they had someone like Dwyane Wade or Deron Williams to take their spot. It was the Redeem Team's depth (and the short international three-point line) that won this game, not the refs.

As the Summer Olympics were passed off from 2008 host Beijing to 2012 host London, Mayor Boris Johnson gave a bizarre, rambling speech in which he said table tennis, the national sport of China, is really a British game:

"I say this respectfully to our Chinese hosts who have excelled magnificently at ping pong," Johnson began. "Ping pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th Century. It was, and it was called whiff whaff."

Johnson wasn't done there.

Olympic wrestler George Gogshelidze of Georgia won a bronze medal in the 96-kilogram freestyle competition, suffering a gruesome eye injury in the process.

Gogshelidze suffered the injury early in the wrestling tournament but continued to wrestle with it. At one point in his match with Kazakhstan's Taimuraz Tigiyev, he even got poked in the other eye, but he still continued to fight on.

Georgia won three medals in the 2008 Olympics: Golds in Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling and judo, and one bronze in shooting and two bronzes in freestyle wrestling.

The 2008 Summer Olympics are in the books, with the closing ceremony taking place in Beijing today.

As part of the closing ceremony, Beijing passed the torch on to the 2012 Olympics host, London, which was represented by England's most famous international athlete, David Beckham.

Beckham arrived aboard a trademark London double-decker bus in front of 91,000 spectators at the Bird's Nest stadium, kicking a soccer ball off the top of the bus and toward the crowd. An eight-minute presentation told the world what to expect from the London 2012 Games.

Although Beckham said he thought Beijing did a good job as Olympics host, he added, "I'm sure we will be better than them, without a doubt."

One of the biggest upsets of the Olympics came in the women's high jump, when Croatia's Blanka Vlasic, one of the most dominant track and field athletes in the world in any event, finished second to Belgium's Tia Hellebaut.

Hellebaut and Vlasic both cleared 2.05 meters, but Hellebaut won because she didn't miss any jumps at that height, while Vlasic failed to clear the bar once before she made it on her second attempt. Russia's Anna Chicherova was third at 2.03 meters.

The 24-year-old Vlasic had won 34 consecutive high jump competitions heading into these Olympics and was considered a huge favorite to bring home the gold. For the 30-year-old Hellebaut, who finished 12th in the 2004 Olympics, to beat her head-to-head represents one of the great achievements of these Games.

Team USA had to work for it -- for three years, and for 40 minutes this morning -- but they earned what they sought: the gold medal. In a ridiculously entertaining match against Spain (a team the United States beat by 37 last week), Team USA pulled out the 11-point victory to grab the tournament victory.

The margin snuck within two points in the final quarter, as Spain relied on a heavy diet of absurd Juan Carlos Navarro floaters and Rudy Fernandez threes to stay within spitting range of the Americans. But Kobe Bryant was just as good, nailing some massive threes and doling out sweet assists. One of the Kobe threes -- shot from the fourth row -- also happened to goad Rudy into his fifth and final foul, adding a bonus to a vital four-point play. Kobe most definitely played up to his billing as the biggest American star in China.

Dwyane Wade was nuts in the first half, dropping 21 points in 14 minutes. (!) He cooled off, which was easily predictable given that he made his bed with threes in the first half and he's not a good deep shooter. LeBron James was ineffective in the second half, picking up his fourth foul early on in the final frame. Carmelo Anthony's shooting was off and on; Chris Paul was good but couldn't stick his threes. Deron Williams didn't get much of a chance on offense. The bigs were active but not overpowering ... in fact, the Brothers Gasol had plenty of space to operate in the paint.

Navarro's stream of floaters won't soon be forgotten, nor will Rudy's insane dunk over Dwight Howard. But Team USA's the story here -- four years after being humbled on the world's stage, American basketball is back on top.

Three years in the making, with plenty of highs and lows in between: Team USA is ready to take its chance at an Olympic gold medal. In the final game, the Americans -- led by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant -- will take on reigning world champion Spain, featuring Pau Gasol and Rudy Fernandez. Check out our preview and read up on all the analysis from throughout the tournament.

If you're basketball nuts like us, join us at 2:30 a.m. EST/11:30 p.m. PST for a liveblog of the game. BYOB.

The Olympic men's basketball tournament ends tonight, with the gold medal game between the United States and Spain. FanHouse will live blog the show, beginning at 2:30 a.m. EST. Until then, five things to watch for tonight.

Can the Spanish smalls handle it? The Americans have dominated at every position. As Spain enters without its best guard and second-best player overall -- Jose Calderon is out with an injury -- how much more emboldened will Team USA's backcourt be? Chris Paul can cut up the NBA's best, and should have no problem destroying Raul Lopez and Ricky Rubio. Even Jason Kidd, not as a good a player today as Calderon, should be able to roam with freedom. On the other end, relaxing off of Rubio should be the defense of choice -- Ricky is shooting less than 30% for the tournament and has yet to prove he can nail open jumpers.

Will Pau bounce back? Pau Gasol's had a great tournament overall, but didn't do a whole lot of anything against the United States last week. Spain's chances are nil if Pau doesn't go off in a huge way. He -- along with brother Marc and homies Jorge Garbajosa and Jose Reyes -- need to control the boards (plausible) and keep Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh in check (somewhat less plausible) while scoring efficiently and keeping turnovers at a minimum. Tall, tall task.