Nearing the Olympics

It's a few days until the opening ceremony for the Beijing Games; I'm looking forward to it because I'm a bit tired watching all these X-Games reruns on the ESPN they show over here.  There is also a lot of EPL preseason and even wheelchair basketball on TV the last few days - who knew that wheelchair basketball was a big thing in South Africa?  It's a bit amazing that Murderball was such a hit a few years back in the US, yet, for all the ESPN channels, you will never, ever catch wheelchair basketball on TV in the States.  I think there was about four hours of coverage of some wheelchair league over the past couple of days on SuperSport, the Pan-African sports channel.

The good thing about being on this side of the world is that I'll be saved from the syrupy NBC coverage of the Games, and the 12 hour tape delay.  I'm sure I'll catch a lot of coverage on CCTV.  I wonder if CCTV, China's State Owned television, will be blacked out in the US due to NBC's broadcasting rights.  

Finally, for Vietnam's side, the local press seems to intimate that the team may be competitive in sports such as judo and weighlifting, particularly the women's side.  Dunno how accurate that is.  

Perhaps the Vietnamese diaspora will bring home a medal or two.  From this joke post on Deadspin, I discovered that Team USA has two members of Vietnamese descent, Amy Tran (field hockey) and Howard Bach (badminton).  Go Team!