Comments

• PGAero said:
  

  Swade,
  Here’s my take on Michael Phelps:
  He’s a fantastic athlete and his accomplishments are not to be dismissed. And, I generally like the guy. He’s not too puffed up, and seems to truly be enjoying what he does. He has excelled in more than one stroke in the pool, which, in this day of specialization, is remarkable.

  Now, what other discipline has such a range of events that an athlete could even take on eight events? That would be like Jesse Owens winning the 100, the 200, two relays, and the 100 Backwards, the 100 Skip, the 200 Backwards, the 200 Skip, etc. I think you get the idea.

  I’m absolutely loving the Olympics this year. Great stuff going on there.

  And Andy, congrats on the e24. Nice cars, those 6-ers.

  ~Peter

  -August 19th, 2008 at 1:52 am
• Troll96 said:
  

  Having several events available in one’s sport is clearly a necessity for multi-medaling. However, at least in swimming the events are materially different. On the other hand, gymnastics features the same people doing the exact same things more than once and getting extra medals for it. (i.e. medals are awarded for all-around and individual versions of each exercise.) What’s up with that?

  BTW: The Olympic are dropping baseball and softball altogether while keeping such “world sports” as badminton, shooting and archery. Go figure!

  -August 19th, 2008 at 3:37 am
• Smoke_Jaguar4 said:
  

  That yellow SportsCombi is awesome! In a sea of boring grays, browns, and the occasional red, it just stands out. I really wish we could get more bright, primal colors from the factory. Same with the interiors. Yellow, green, orange, and purples. Mini has a really good set of options, perhaps Saab can pick it up again.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 3:42 am
• joemama said:
  

  I have to agree with the first post. Sure, he’s a great athlete, but there are too many swimming events that one can win gold in. And then look at basketball - these guys play like 8 games or something for a few hours each game, and they only get one crack at a gold.

  So no, he’s not the greatest athlete of all time. I’d put MANY basketball players (and others) ahead of him. And no, I’m not talking about Tiger Woods either.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 4:13 am
• j said:
  

  Decatholetes are (without question) the best athletes in the world (sorry Tiger/Phelps).

  SAAB vs Volvo (as told by a Swede):

  Daniel (aka ‘eleganten’) says:
  “In Sweden we call Volvo “tractors” and Saab “aeroplanes”".

  -August 19th, 2008 at 4:16 am
• Andy Rupert said:
  

  SAAB vs. Volvo

  I’ll admit the Saab wagon does look better. Hopefully, that will help with sales. But we are talking about two different types of cars. The Volvo is an AWD XC70 which can go off road when necessary. And I think you have to take into account that SAAB is more geared toward a sporty look whereas Volvo tries to be more sedate. For better or worse, that’s how I see it.

  Jaguar vs. BMW

  Thanks for the mention. I enjoyed the XJS but hated to see it sitting in the driveway — especially with 50 buzillion neighbor kids riding their bikes by it every day. Plus, it’s nice to have some liquid assets available when the bills arrive. We’ll see how the Bimmer turns out tomorrow when I finalize the transaction.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 4:37 am
• PGAero said:
  

  Troll96,
  So, Phelps got a gold in both medley and individual events. How’s that different than the all-around and a single event? Likewise, he got two golds for relays, which are kinda like the team event with the gymnasts.

  I think the strongest argument for Phelps is not the 8 golds, but that he got golds in different disciplines… Like the Butterfly and Freestyle.

  Not to take anything away from his accomplishment, I’m just playing the devil’s advocate to a certain extent.

  How’s the vacation Swade? Hope it’s treating you well.

  Cheers,
  ~Peter

  -August 19th, 2008 at 4:54 am
• Teddy said:
  

  And what a win in Butterfly. Only 0.01 of a second “faster” than the best swimmer we (Serbia) ever had. That was a very sad moment for me. I salute Phelps, he is a great athlete, but Milorad Cavic had the best time in qualifications and in semifinals and to lose a gold medal like that. Truly sad. Well at least from my point of view.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 7:14 am
• Swade said:
  

  And Teddy, I think your swim team had every reason to protest. Apparently Phelps really did get the first touch, but it was obviously incredibly close. If you freeze the frame 8/10ths from the end and see their relative arm positions, there’s no way you would think that Phelps could have possibly got there.

  Andy, you’re starting to sound like a Volvo salesman

  PGAero, the vacation hasn’t started yet. Still at home. The break over the weekend was primarily due to the Olympics. I’m a junkie. We’re preparing to go today, though the dog got sick yesterday, so that’s been hard.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 7:33 am
• Bluemotion said:
  

  The comparison of the Saab with the Volvo is a bit cheap. A better comparison would have been the new XC70. I’m afraid the cool-factor would be the other way around in that case.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
• lance said:
  

  Olympics - Phelps top chap, but others worked their butts off too. Esepcially those girls in the cycling, running, swimming, thingy. The whole pub was watching their cycling as filmed from the rear yesterday.

  And how on earth did the Brits do so well - after all we don’t really have the right psychological attitude do we. Or maybe we do now.

  I’ll tell you what, the way all those atheletes work for years for very little financial reward and relying on family - until success brings sponsors- makes you realsie what a bunch of puffed up egos the young millionaire partying footballers of Europe are -does it not?

  Andy- thsoe seats int at 635 look rare- have you checked out their production history? Are they BMW options or after-market - they look like factory options.

  635 in mettalic grey, tan leather, nice alloys, Blaupunkt -blue spot - stereo, sunroof open, girly with bouncy hair in summer dress in passenger seat, music- the Verve, = probably the only BMW moment I could handle. Just love that shark’s beak prow on the front end styling.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
• Danni said:
  

  And I think he equalled and surpassed the record set in 1972. But I will still rank Usain Bolt of Jamaica as the true find of this Olympic games. Now, he did not run, he bolted to leave the rest of the field gasping for air and had he not slowed down around the 80 meters mark, who knows what the record could have been - 9.60, 9.55 with no wind assist? When the other runners saw him, it was “Good Night.” It reminds me so much of my first test drive wayback in 2001 in a MY01 95-Aero manual sedan. The salesperson said to me, you have now idea what is about to happen - wait until the road has cleared. The turbo rush and the way it was delivered (169kW/350Nm) was so phenomenal and intoxicating that I am here, 7 years later still singing the same tune.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
• Andy Rupert said:
  

  Lance, the previous owner told me the seats and pedals were a special racing option. And compared to the Jaguar, the seats are very comfortable.

  -August 19th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
• lance said:
  

  Andy,

  I think the seats might be worth more than the car!

  -August 19th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
• Steven said:
  

  There is an inherent problem with the labeling athletes or any other item as “the best” in such a time frame so near to the actual event. Basically time will tell as current events seem to cloud or otherwise influence peoples’ opinions.

  Take the case of the popular US FM radio phenomenon of the 1970’s; album rock (I know, “what’s an album?”). Each year, most stations did a 100 best of the decade or century or whatever (the number of albums on the list was usually based on the radio stations FM frequency) and almost ALL the time there were 3-5 albums that came out in the current year that made the top 10, never to be heard of again.

  Now go look at the 1999 list if the top N. America athletes of the 20th century and then go look at the same list in 1950. Jim Thorpe, winner of the 1912 Olympic decathlon and pentathlon who also played pro football and pro baseball at the same time, was number 1 in 1950, but dropped to #7 49 years later as Babe Ruth and Jesse Owens both moved up and Michael Jordan was named number 1. (BTW, Mark Spitz was picked 33rd best of the 20th century.)

  So lets give mystique and time the opportunity to do their jobs, for better or worse.

  And let’s not get into comparing how Phelps’s gold medals compare to the Men’s 10M air pistol gold medal.

  -August 20th, 2008 at 12:24 am
• Troll96 said:
  

  PGAero: I purposely left out any reference to the relays because (as we both agree) they really are similar to gymnastics team events. As for all-arounds, swimmers don’t get a separate medal for their personal contribution to team events. Gymnasts do. Also, a swimmer swimming a solo IM race is performing a vastly different task than swimming four separate races using different styles. They’re all great to watch, but it just seems that gymnastics is treated a bit differently. Perhaps the best analogy would be if baseball/softball awarded separate golds for best home run hitter, RBI leader or best pitcher.

  The most amazing thing about Phelps (and anyone else who had to deal with this) is that he often had to compete in races that were less than an hour apart. And the intervening time had to be spent going to awards ceremonies and getting drug tested. Not much time to collect one’s thoughts.

  Detracting from all of the good stuff in Beijing, boxing has been a total disgrace. The judges and officials are often laughably incompetent. Time and again solid punches have been ignored, points awarded to boxers when no punches were thrown, or (worse still) awarded to the wrong boxer. Compared to the tight ship run by other sports, Olympic boxing is descending to the level of professional wrestling.

  -August 20th, 2008 at 4:03 am
• PGAero said:
  

  Troll96,
  I hear ya on the events issues. I think that there is a fair bit of dissatisfaction with the gymnastics judging as well. I haven’t seen any boxing as I don’t get anything other than the one big network (NBC here) channel and only get to watch in the evenings. It sounds like there is a lack of highly competent judges on the panel.

  Let me put it this way. The rule that awarded Liukin the silver medal after a dead-even tie goes like this (I’m reading between the lines on this, but it’s factually correct):

  If a pair of athletes end up with the same exact composite score, the athlete with the single lowest score in the event is awarded the gold. (Does it make sense to award the highest place to the one with the single lowest score?)

  It sounds like boxing is/was down for the count. That’s too bad.

  ~Peter

  -August 21st, 2008 at 1:42 am
• john said:
  

  that sportcombi looks pretty dang solid in yellow. It’d be cooler if it were a turbo X though!

  -August 22nd, 2008 at 5:27 am

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