something else about the olympics

[fox]

You know who really impresses me?  Dara Torres.  She's 41, right, and this is her fifth Olympics, not in a row.  She missed Atlanta (I believe) and Athens.  Girl has otherwise been swimming in the Olympics since Los Angeles.  Nine-tenths of the US Olympic team can't remember the LA Olympics (because in many, if not most, cases they had not yet been born).

That right there is impressive.  Next to Torres, this Phelps kid seems like not an awful lot more than a flash in the pan.  :-P


In other news, I continue not to understand why Australian teams wear green and yellow, colors that have nothing to do with their flag.  Or why New Zealand teams wear all black, likewise, although at least that looks cool.  :-)  (Orange doesn't have a thing to do with the Dutch flag, either, but I get it.)

Comments

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Every time the government does something stupid it tries to distract the Australian populace by changing the flag or talking about turning us into a republic. People argue both sides "keep the red white and blue" or "go with more 'Australian' colours" and everyone forgets what the government did.

A few years ago the government tried to turn the flag green and gold (not yellow, but how do you represent gold in fabric without going lame' or organza?) and tried to turn the flag also green and gold but no one would have the flag changed so it all got stuck half way. Although I see the point that green and gold are more appropriate for australia, all that green and yellow is just butt ugly. So basically the green and gold is just a half arsed rembrant of a governmental fuck up.

New Zealand should totally change its flag to black and silver to match its national colours, though (I know the silver is for the silver ferns) because that's pretty and cool.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

wikipedia has all sorts of information on national colors. it's rather fun reading!

I mean, it's wikipedia, so: grain of salt. Still!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_and_gold <-- about Australia's colors

[abka.livejournal.com]

Well New Zealand's national rugby team is called the All Blacks. Maybe that has something to do with it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Blacks

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

But they're called the All Blacks because they wear all black. Other NZ teams wear all black because the All Black thing is iconic, sure, but I don't know why the rugby guys were wearing all black in the first place. :-)

[abka.livejournal.com]

Here's a story about where the name came from that's not true (so helpful I know). http://www.rugbymuseum.co.nz/asp/container_pages/normal_menu/rmArticle.asp?IDID=138

Looks like the best guess is that they chose all black to set off the silver fern.
http://www.rugbymuseum.co.nz/asp/container_pages/normal_menu/rmArticle.asp?IDID=143

oh and Dara Torres is awesome!

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

You know what's even more impressive about Dara? After losing gold by 0.01 seconds, she takes part in the women's relay and swims faster than anyone else during her portion of the race.