the dazzling show

i love michael phelps and kept tracked of his remarkable accomplishments from the sydney olympics, the world's in '03, the olympics in athens, the world's in 05, the world's in 07. unlike ian thorpe's predictions, i knew the phelp's is an immense achiever. usain bolt and the jamaicans are a revelation, although the trash talk is quite off-putting. nevertheless until now, i still can't shake off the image of marion jones falling from grace. didn't she have the all clear back in the sydney olympics?

ma lin finally won a major title while the lanky frame of wang liqin snatched up the bronze medal. i don't get a lot of table tennis fix these days as i did with espn-star sports asia days except for an odd broadcast here and there in eurosport. if there's one discipline i favor a chinese win, it's definitely pingpong, in contrast to the manufactured divers, weightlifters or boxers. zhang yining against wang nan for the gold medal, nice.

for every michael phelps or kosuke kitajima, there was laura manadou or katie hoff or even brendan hansen, swimmers whom i thought were going to win but didn't. it's been fun to acquaint myself with the likes of chris paul, carlos boozer, tayshaun prince, dwight howard, chris bosh and even dwyane wade -- one amazing player. lebron james, simply lives up to the hype. i have to mute the commentators against the matches with spain and argentina as they were hoarsely screaming for the underdogs. the gap is now non-existent between the NBA players and the europeans as the likes of wade, james and kobe bryant were still on the floor in the closing minutes just to fight off the pesky spaniards in the highly-competitive gold medal match (photo:getty images).

the legendary british team was simply superb in the velodrome. as the documentary from the beeb states, a medal haul is a definite possibility when a sport is "well-funded. " it's quite odd because you only read about chris hoy and bradley wiggins during the olympics, not even during the world championships. Team GB has done well with their best olympics in the past century. we'll probably witness veritable knighthoods awarded in the days ahead. i still have time to play back the equestrian events, rhythmic gymnastics, probably women's basketball and all others, if i get free time in the hour, taekwondo. and after five years, i got the hang of michael johnson annotating for the bbc. matt biondi , janet evans writing for yahoo! sports were captivating reads, for me at least.

london gets its chance in 2012, a tantalizing prospect. would the same athletes shine? would there be a new breakthrough of stars? would the same nations flourish? it all boils down to resources and grassroots programs. china have 1.3 billion people. jamaica's population is only 2.7 million, several notches lower than manila alone, but collected 11 medals. while the philippines is aligned with pakistan and bangladesh as populous countries with no medals.

as the utmost armchair fan, i ask for nothing more than bronze for RP, any other hues is merely an extra special bonus.