the mad sports man

end of august musings end of august. im watching the series finale of frasier. afterwards i will join the car race in california already in progress. cant believe august is over. we had the beijing summer olympics, lots of cfl football, baseball, my birthday, one heck of a heat wave and a sickness thats almost gone. for now thats it. until tomorrow. update: jimmie johnson dominated leadind 227 of 250 laps in winning in fontana

long weekend already? sadly yes. and the end of august is on sunday. can't believe august is almost done. seems like it just started. and the labour day classic in calgary is monday. even toronto and hamilton meet up out east. two heated rivalries on one day. cant get better than that

closing ceremonies and afterthought watching the closing ceremonies that i taped this morning. and it was quite the show. canada finished with 18 medals, which is a pretty good showing. hopefully more than that come the next summer games in 2012 in london. the vancouver 2010 winter games come next. after watching the olympics the last 17 days, it will be a shock to turn on the tv and watching something else. anyways thats the beijing games, from fantastic performances, close finishes, and close-to-medalling finishes. a good show to say the least.

canada's flag bearer at the closing ceremonies is....... ...... karen cockburn. she was selected by the canadian olympic comittee. the closing ceremonies is tomorrow morning here.

adam's redemption adam van kouverden got a silver in the k-1 500m kayaking event. redemption bigtime. after the 8th place yesterday, he knew he had to make it up and did so. now its 3g 9s and 6b. not much events left. and the closing ceremonies is tomorrow morning here. damn almost done already.

two more medals a silver from karine sergerie in taekwondo -welter (57-67kg) final and a bronze from thomas hall in c-1 1000m event. surprising that adam van kouverden didnt win a medal today. hes bummed about it, yet hes got another chance tomorrow in the k-1 500m. so now we have 3g, 8s and 6b for 17 total. now its one less than barcelona 1992. 17 is already their third best total in a non-boycott year (canada got 44 in 1984 when the eastern bloc countries boycotted the l.a. games for the 1980 moscow boycott). hopefully more tomorrow.

a gold and a silver eric lamaze won gold in the individual portion of the equestrian event. great to see coming fronm the past he had. emilie heymans won silver in the 10m platform diving event. so now we have 3g 7s and 5b for 15 total passing sydney 2000 and tying l.a. 1932 and amsterdam 1928. hopefullly more coming.

more medals in. and maybe more to come last night, simon whitfield won silver in the triathlon after getting passed by a german. today 2 silvers anda bronze. alexander despatie won a silver in the 3m springboard diving event. jason burnett won silver in the mens individual trampoline event. and the bronze went to priscilla lopes-schliep in the womens 100m hurdles event. with 2g, 6s and 5b = 13total, we now won more medals in beijing than in athens when canada had 12 there.

two more medals for canada two more silvers for canada. first in the equestrian mixed team event (includes 61 year old ian miller whos in his 9th olympics). the second silver comes from karen cockburn in trampoline. so now we have 2g 3s and 4g = 9 medals

a hatrick of medals 3 more rowing medals for canada overnight and this morning here. a gold from the mens 8 with cox (kevin light, benjamin rutledge, andrew byrnes, jacob wetzel, malcolm howard, dominic seiterle, adam kreek, kyle hamilton and brian price on the team), also a bronze from the mens lightweight sculls (iain brambell, jonathan beare, mike lewis and liam parsons on the team), and a bronze from womens pairs lightweight sculls (melanie kok and tracy cameron on the team). so canada now has 7 medals ( 2g 1s and 4b).

he did it. 8 michael phelps has 8 gold medals. after the first two swimmers, he got his team in front in his leg of the 4x100m medley and jason lezak finished it. phelps broke mark spitz record of most golds in one olympics and the team got (no surprise) a world record. a hearty congrats to phelps and to his team.

a bronze in the pool no. not phelps. ryan cochrane of victoria b.c. won bronze in the 1500m freestyle just a few minutes ago. that makes 4 medals now - 1g 1s and 2b. michael phelps comes up in a few minutes.

canada FINALLY picks up some medals canada got three while i was at work. a gold bycarol huynh in wrestling freestyle 48 kg, a silver by david calder and scottfrandsen in mens rowing the coxless pairs, and a bronze by tonya verbeek in wrestling freestyle 55kg. hopefully more to come. on the cbc now its the womens marathon.

7 michael phelps JUST BARELY won his 7th gold. he won the 100m butterfly by .01 over milorad cavic who was leading 3/4s of the way through. he's got one more - a 4 x 100m medley.

phelps now with 6 golds yep he just won the 200m individual medley (freestyle, breast stroke, butterfly and back stroke - although not in that order) and he won it in, what else, a world record time. this guy is really impressed me alot - and he's 23.

he's got another one phelps just won the 200m butterfly. thats four in beijing to go with the 6 in athens in 2004. he now owns the most career golds with 10 passing mark spitz's 9. update: now its FIVE. phelps and the u.s. relay team won the 4 x 200m freestyle in world record time. all five of phelps golds have been world records. canada was in this race and finished 5th.

hat trick for phelps he won the 200m freestyle tonight. won it running away - or swimming away. he tied mark spitz record of career gold with 9. he is to swim in the 200m butterfly semi final in a little while. he'll need a good time to get to the final. the final is tomorrow with that. and no medals as of yet for canada.

michael phelps with two - albeit barely phelps and the u.s. 4 x 100m frestyle relay beat the french team by .08 seconds when the u.s anchor got close the the lane barrier to "drag" off the frenchman (the french were leading at the time) at the last 50m and beat him to the wall. quite a finish. canada was in the relay and finished 6th.

michael phelps - first of eight golds? michael phelps on the 400m individual medley. i heard theres a chance he can win eight golds to beat mark spitz's record of seven in one olympics. we shall see.

the olympics have arrived the cauldron is lit. the athletes are in beijing. and the opening ceremonies was a wonderful blend of art and history. and the way the cauldron was lot was cool. now we focus on the sports and in an hour or two, the mens road race is set to go and kyle shewfelt is up in mens gymnastics late tonight. and the dressage in equestrian is happening in hong kong. so thats some of the events already happening or about to happen. there is a 14 hour difference between here and beijing (its 10:32 am in beijing as i write this). so let the games begin. update: first gold medal goes to katerina emmons of the czech republic in the 10m air rifle.

brett favre a jet. it finally happened. my fave quarterback is a new york jet. i still like the packers, but the way they handled favre wanting back was poorly done. i only blame favre for retiring, thats it. then again from what he said, the packers front office were reluctant to keep him. then when favre wanted to play again, he was told 'we wont let you go, and we dont want you here' for fear of him going to a division rival. the nfl accepted favre's wanting back. the packers eventually let favre go to the jets for a conditional pick. im still going to cheer for brett and the jets. im not so sure about green bay.

an almost "perfect" day jeff karstens of the pittsburgh pirates threw 7 2/3 innings of perfect baseball before chris young of the arizona diamondbacks singled in the 8th inning. karsens threw a complete 2 hit shutout win and the pittsburgh pirates won 2-0.

weather insanity in the windy city nasty weather in chicago last night had fans fleeing wrigley field in a torrential downpour as a nasty storm passed through. the game between the houston astros and the chicago cubs was ended after the 8th inning with houston winning 2-0. i think everyone was safe. quite an insane thing.

a day amongst others sitting here on a saturday night watching an episode from season 10 of the simpsons - the treehouse of horrors IX and enjoying my birthday. its been a good day - minus a few afternoon hours at work (the morning part was good). getting hungry for food.