As you may have heard, the Olympics are into their second week now. They’re even televising some of it.

Let me start with this: Michael Phelps clearly is exceptional. I’ve enjoyed watching the swimming competition he’s been involved in a great deal. Eight gold medals is extremely impressive. However, the sports media (and the media in general) has, once again, gone completely nuts. They’re not only hailing him as the greatest swimmer ever (perhaps true) or the greatest Olympian ever (doubtful), but some are even saying the greatest athlete ever. Why is it these days that when someone accomplishes something in sports that it must immediately be compared to the greatest ever? It never ends.

Already this year we’ve seen “the greatest super bowl ever” and “the greatest tennis match ever” in the Wimbledon final, and I think Tiger Woods won a golf tournament that they were saying was the greatest performance ever as well (clearly, I don’t follow golf.) Now, we have Phelps. All of these things may very well be true. But it seems that every year, people lose all perspective and forget history altogether, and whatever is happening now, whatever was just accomplished 5 minutes ago, is now the greatest ever. I guess ESPN needs something to talk about if it’s going to be on the air for 24 hours, but this is just out of control. Everyone, please just take a deep breath. Let’s just say it’s a great perfomance, or a great win, or a great comeback, or whatever, and let’s wait a while before we start calling it the greatest ever. Time will tell.

No surprise that Raphael Nadal won the gold for men’s tennis. It was, however, somewhat surprising that Roger Federer was not his opponent in the final. Even more surprising was not that Federer lost in the quarters, but that he lost to American James Blake. Federer was 8-0 against Blake before the Olympics, Blake having only won a single set against Federer in those eight matches. Now he’s won two more sets and beaten him for the first time. Unfortunately for Blake, he lost in the semifinals and again in the bronze match, so the win over Federer is all he comes home with. And, these days, I’m not sure that’s much to get excited about. Federer appears to have fallen completely off the map at this point. If he fails to reach the finals at the U.S. Open in a couple of weeks, or worse, he may never reach 13 grand slam titles, much less tie or pass Sampras’ record 14 titles. He may surprise me, but the way things are going this year, I say, stick a fork in Roger. He’s done.

I loathe Bob Costas. Just wanted to throw that in.

Is it me, or did the Chinese gymnasts appear to get an extra 0.5 added to their scores just for being Chinese? I thought Bela Karolyi was going to have a stroke a couple of times, complaining about the scoring. And, despite my lack of a keen gymnastic eye, I’m inclined to agree with him. Just comparing various gymnasts performances against one another, it’s hard to see how some of the scores ended up the way they did. Granted, I’m listening to American sportscasters comment on these things, so perhaps their bias is unintentionally influencing me. Regardless, there are some problems that seemed obvious to me. I’m sorry, but if you land on your knees after your vault, you don’t even deserve a bronze medal (and, yes, I’m talking to you, Cheng Fei.) Also, I’m glad that I’m not the only one noticing that the majority of the Chinese “women” gymnasts appear to be about 11 years old. That seems to have been almost as hot a topic as Michael Phelps thus far.

Speaking of critical analysis of Olympic events, does anyone else find themselves at home critiquing the performances of these people? I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought or said aloud something like “He kind of sucks” or “What the hell was that?” I tell you what it was - something I could never do. These people are the best in the world at these sports. The gymnasts, in particular, do things that, to me, appear impossible. Especially the men. They simply can’t be done by normal humans. Yet I’m at home criticizing their performances like I have a clue what I’m talking about.

Favorite non-U.S. Olympian? Present, obviously, Raphael Nadal (Spain). Past, Li Xiaoshuang (China), who won the men’s gymnastics all-around gold in 1996 at Atlanta. Mainly because I liked saying his name.

Track and field seems to be prominent in prime time now, and so I’ll mostly be tuning out if that continues. I could really care less. I’ll still be checking out more volleyball, and a few others if I happen across them - especially soccer or water polo - but men’s basketball is my primary interest henceforth, as pool play is now complete and we come to the single-elimination medal rounds.

The U.S. “redeem team” has absolutely dominated. Who would have thought that winless Angola would be the team that played them the closest (only a 21 point loss)? Spain, supposedly their toughest competition in their pool, was destroyed by 37 points. Granted, Spain may have relaxed after it got out of hand and looked forward to the medal round and hopefully another shot at the U.S., but still, losing by 37 is pretty embarrassing. Lithuania, Argentina and Australia are supposedly the teams from the other pool that could possibly play with us, but I don’t see anyone playing us to the end within single digits. I say we win every game by at least 10 points, and then bring home the gold. The world caught up with us earlier this decade, and now we’ve adjusted. We’ve built a team instead of a collection of talent. This time, we take it back. This is our sport. This is our gold medal.

Since I find baseball only slightly more exciting the golf (which I find slightly more entertaining than a test pattern), summer does not have much to offer me in the sports world other than the French Open and Wimbledon. But, it’s been great having the Olympics this year so that the fall sports season can kind of get an early start. Once the Olympics conclude, the U.S. Open begins (next Monday) and we’ll see if Roger has anything left. Then, college football, where we’ll find out if anyone can challenge the SEC’s greatness (which, of course, we all know the answer to already - NO!) Then, the one that matters most - college basketball season in November, where we’ll see Duke back in the final four where they belong.

Go USA. Go Raphael. Go Hogs. Go Duke!