women's AA gymnastics final
 

seeing nastia cry was a beautiful moment and i agree with the above poster. the event finals was amazing.

i'm so excited for the girls futures and see how they are welcomed by the USA, when they get home.

Wow! Phelps takes the 100 fly for his 7th Gold Medal by one hundredth of a second! It all came down the the final stroke- Phelps taking a fast half stroke into the wall versus Cavick who tried to get a couple of extra feet of juice out a full stroke. Unreal.

Ha! That's the word that I just used. I'm still not reconciled to the idea that it actually happened like that.

I hope there will be tape of the whole race in future to review- including from underwater- but stroke length and timing has a huge impact in short races. At the various paces where I swim, I have a solid sense of the stroke count per pool length and how to finish a length- so these guys are masters of that.

The trick with fly is that you cannot easily change the length going into the end of the pool to adjust for any differences. It is tough with any stroke- but the mechanics of the butterfly make big last minute changes impossible.

In other words- Cavick could not have added an extra stroke to win, and Phelps is VERY fortunate he had time to sneak in a half stroke and slam the wall. As great as Phelps is, I really do think luck played a role in this race because he was clearly not the fastest guy in the pool for this event.

Not from underwater, but a replay
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/pla...elcode=sportsw

Well, another close one and for the same reason-

Steffen of Germany takes the Gold in the Women's 50M free by 1/100th of a second with Torres of the US (at age 41!) taking the Silver.

Replay showed the same scenario as last night, but much less dramatic. Torres had really just finished her stroke and had to reach a bit for the wall while Steffen's stroke completed into the wall almost perfectly.

Benzgirl, thanks for the video. I went swimming this morning and this afternoon- and both times, the men's 100 fly race is all anyone was talking about at the pool.

Even though the American ladies did not win, Dara Torres had the fastest split in the Medley and hand her best personal time when she won the Silver in the 50.

She is still my idol!

You mean the medley they just finished? I agree she was incredible in that. She was not given an easy anchor run and she closed the gap quite a bit. It was clear she was going 110% and that was a beautiful thing.

And in a few minutes here comes Phelp's chance to make more history...

That race ROCKED! For a brief second in the final length of the free I was a bit worried about halfway down, but the US owned that race!

I was completely out of breath after the race. I felt like I was competing again. Piersol's split was slow compared to what he could do, but I never felt like Lezak would let them down.

I cried tears of joy! I have stayed up every night to watch every race! I am addicted!!!!

I am soo proud of Phelps and the whole US team!

9.69....again......heh...the fun part was if you were really watching Bolt was JUST starting to go into 3rd gear as he finished the 100m sprint .....he could have shattered that record if he wanted.

I talked to my mom and SHE stayed up everynight too. It would be nice to be retired so that I could have done that

Watching Bolt was amazing. http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/sha...d_atm_hl_l0686