Sports Cipher

By Renaldo Francis

What to Expect In This Year Olympic Games

The 2012 Olympic Games will begin this Friday July, 27 2012 at 9:00 am in London, England. Big Ben the clock in London will ring 42 times from 8:12am to 8:15 am. This year Olympic Games will have a total of 204 countries from the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. It is quite easy for someone to get lost within the plethora of events taking place, over three hundred in 26 different sports. One important fact to take into consideration is that different viewers will be watching the Olympic games for different events, hence the value of no bias towards any country and games that are considered their national pastimes.

Men’s Basketball

The Basketball segment of the Olympics will have the women preliminaries on the 28th (Saturday), while the men preliminaries will take place on Sunday. Team USA men basketball team will most likely be the #1 sport viewed at this year Olympics for individuals within the U.S. The U.S. team is has an all-star lineup with players Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul. Despite the U.S being a top contender for the Gold medal this year it is not warranted by the fact that they will be facing serious competition from countries such as Argentina, France, Spain, and as seen in one of the exhibition matches Brazil. Ten minutes within the match we saw how the size of the Brazil’s team with front court players such as Anderson Varejao, Tiago Splitter and Nene could easily give the U.S. a run for their money when in those ten minutes they were able to score 27 points. Even though the U.S. had 3 players Kevin Love, Tyson Chandler and Anthony Davis who stand 6 10” and over, this exhibition match definitely showed that size would play an issue more importantly the need for defense over Offense, as Lebron stated “Once we decided we needed to focus on our defense and not our offense we were able to turn the game around.”

Notable Players

Most of the teams participating have at least one NBA player on their team. Such as the #2 ranked Spain; with Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez and Serge Ibaki. Twelfth ranked France with Kevin Seraphin, Nicholas Batum, and Tony Parker
Third ranked Argentina’s Luis Scola.

Women’s Basketball

While the U.S. Men basketball team have been bested test after test, the women’s basketball team has have had relative ease. Comparatively speaking the U.S. Women basketball team has really taken control of the exhibition match, while the men have had a few close encounters such as the one with Brazil and won by 11 points, the women went up against Brazil women’s team and beat them with a 30 point difference. This is about the same point differential that they are beating all of their opponents. The U.S. Women basketball team will certainly be able to get the gold medal again at this year Olympic Games.

Notable Players from the U.SA Women Basketball team are:
Lindsay Whalen, Maya Moore and Tamkia Catchings

Tennis

Serena Williams sets her sight on the gold medal this year, although no stranger to a Olympics being a two-time Olympic gold medalist in Tennis Doubles with her sister Venus. Serena will attempt to earn a gold medal in a tennis singles match; Venus earned the gold back in 2000 at the Sydney Olympic Games. This has been speculated to be Serena’s last Olympic appearance will she leave with an gold medal?

Track: Sprints(100,200,400)

Before the 2008 Bejing Olympics, the 100, 200 and 400 meters were not drawing in large amount of viewers. The fastest man in the world Usain Bolt changed that, Bolt who holds the Olympian world record of 9.69 seconds (surpassing that a year later at 9.58) and received a gold medal for his spectacular performance and 9.58 seconds a year later at the even deemed by some “the world Most Valuable Runner” did some something amazing by his spectacular feet. He resuscitated the genre of sprinting and made it well known all around the world, millions of viewers will once again see if Bolt can break his own records and again wow the world.

Will Bolt Continue Dominance?

However there are critics who are skeptical if Bolt will be able to do what he did four years ago. When Carl Lewis, a nine time Olympian gold medalist was asked if Bolt would be able to win another gold medal in the 100 meter dash He claimed “The reason it hasn’t been done is because it’s hard to stay at that level for a long period of time. People are always trying to beat you when you are a champion”. Lewis statement is a very true statement one which is just a basic fact of life, there is always someone younger, stronger and whose passion was kindled by your own great accomplishments. This can definitely be said about the competition between Bolt and Blake who has beaten Bolt twice since the world championships in 2011.

Nevertheless, Bolt and Blake are not the only two people sprinting as there are quite a few other contenders who are trying to get a gold medal. Sprinters such as Afasa Powell Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin who is returning to the Olympic stage after a four year doping ban, and the countless other sprinters who are eager for a win.

This spectacular showdown will be over in less than 10 seconds don’t blink.