Olympic montage!

Here it is y'all! The NBC Olympic montage. I apologize if any of you were waiting for it and missed it. It came on after your local news cast in a final 30 minute show that including a performance by The Who, some athlete interviews at the closing, a preview of Sochi and then Bob's final thoughts followed by these closing credits.

NBC did the same thing they did two years ago in Vancouver and left the closing ceremony before its conclusion for the news to get you to stick around longer. In Vancouver, it was because the ceremony was actually still going on, but this time it was to show some stupid new show and then the late local news. I understand the news but the previews for this show over the 17 days were plenty. It's not lasting, NBC. Go ahead and cancel it.

Anyways, here it is. These things tend to get yanked off of YouTube pretty quickly, so we'll see how long it sticks around.

Sochi 2014.

Anyone else wondering what this city that is hosting the 2014 Olympics is like? Well, here is a package from the news the other night describing the place. I think it's going to feel a little like Beijing did because Russia is going to be working very hard to change the rest of the image and stigma that the rest of the world has about the country.

After watching this package on the news I'm going to be really interested to see what this city looks like in two years.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Why do I love the Olympics?

I’m often asked why I love the Olympics so much. And I really don’t have a direct answer. It’s a lot of things that clearly have a strong impact on me.

I love that it gives us all something to cheer for together. We sports fans can find something to cheer for year round. Maybe its football season, March madness or the Masters. But how often are we all cheering for the same team or person in those? With the Olympics we’re all cheering for the same team, Team USA, and we tend to gather together to do so. For about three quarters of the games, I was watching with my friends, and not just watching, but also cheering, jumping and screaming together.

Before this stage in my life, I always sat to watch the Olympics with my family. Probably one of the few things we could all agree to watch at night. Which makes me wonder how many things do entire families still gather to watch together?

It doesn’t matter how well we know the sport or how popular it is, we all think we know something about it to a certain extent during the Olympics. We think we know when someone gets a good start off the blocks, or how to determine if someone entered the water vertical on a dive or whether something was a tenth deduction or not. The Olympics are mostly sports we don’t watch all the time (with the exception of basketball) and because of that we all learn together as we watch.

Then there are the things that are exclusive the each Olympic games that we’ll always remember. Did you ever think you’d hear the words badminton and scandal in the same sentence? Or did you ever think you’d actually know what dressage is? And you probably never thought you’d see swimsuits sported by Jamaican women…on the track. Seriously, what were those women wearing in the 4x100m?

In London, we’ve seen what was supposedly the last of the greatest swimmer and arguably the greatest Olympian of all time. We’ve seen three more absolutely unbelievable runs by the greatest sprinter of all time. We saw Grenada, Guatemala and Montenegro win their first Olympic medals And we watched a double amputee run in two Olympic races against able-bodied athletes, even beating some of them.

The journalist in me loves getting to know the athletes in any way I can. I watch feature pieces, interviews and whatever I can find. Most of us enjoy this because I think we like to find a bit of ourselves in the athletes competing. It makes us believe that maybe with a little more talent, or time or resources that could be us. No one ever said there was anything wrong with dreaming.

Every 18 and 36 months we’re allowed to dream, celebrate and cry with the people who represent us by wearing our country’s name on his/her uniform. It’s a unifying feeling that I wish we could experience every day as a country and a human race.

So now I put my USA necklaces and hand-held flag away for the next 544 days until Sochi on February 7, 2014. Or for just the next 46 days until the Ryder Cup.

So now it's the Fierce Five.

While the 2012 U.S. women's gymnastics team did not name themselves the Fab Five, they still felt the need to change it after people started complaining about that name being taken. First of all, the name is not trademarked and second, these girls weren't even born in 1991. But leave it to Jalen Rose to complain that the media shouldn't be calling the gold-medal winning team that.

The girls, who could just shove their gold medals in Rose and his four teammates' faces, just decided to come up with a new name themselves. Way to take the high ground, ladies. The solution? The Fierce Five.

Ok, so some closing thoughts on the gymnastics event finals.

Give Gabby Douglas a break on the uneven bars. While she had a slip up on the event, she fought hard to keep from falling and still posted a pretty decent score. Those that thought she had a chance at winning this event don't know much about gymnastics. She would have had to put up the routine of her life to even medal. This is the USA's weakest event and that's clear in the fact that the Olympic champion team only qualified one for the event. Uneven bars is my favorite event in gymnastics and I hope that the U.S. starts to improve on it soon.

The balance beam final is typically a survival of the fittest. By this point in the competition, of course someone like Douglas is exhausted and this is an event that she has struggled with in the past. She nailed three beam routines in a row and those were when it really counted. It's hard to put up four perfect beam routines in a meet. Aly Raisman was definitely capable of putting up a better routine but she still competed well enough to medal on the toughest event in the sport. Except she wasn't going to originally because her starting score (based on difficulty) wasn't correct. Cheers to Bela Karolyi for saving the day by convincing Raisman's coach to inquire the score. Once her difficulty score was changed she landed in a tie for third, again. This time the tie break, which I'm still against, went in her favor and she got a well-deserved bronze.

I definitely expected more of Jordyn Weiber on floor. Was it this recently announced stress fracture in her right leg? I don't know. But if she wanted more pity and attention, she certainly could have said something before or during the competition (like when she didn't make the all-around), rather than at the end. You could tell she kind of gave up after that first tumbling pass. You have to stick all the landings, especially with that field, to win and with a step on the first pass it's like she said, "I'm done." But she was gracious in defeat once again and cheered on Raisman and her absolutely outstanding floor routine. Shawn Johnson was bounced off the top of the podium by the last competitor in the floor final four years ago and this time Raisman withstood some pretty great routines to stay at the top. The difference? She performs the hardest routine in the world.

Douglas and Raisman certainly turned out to be the stars of the games when it just as easily could have been Weiber. The question is who will still be around in four years? It's hard to make two Olympics and no one has done it since 2000. Dominque Dawes made an impressive three teams, while Shannon Miller, Kerri Strug and Amy Chow were some of the last to make two.

I enjoyed this piece on the Today Show of the girls going out in London to enjoy the sites. It really shows that these are very young girls who love having fun and just happen to have some extraordinary talent.



I wrote a few days ago how I was disappointed in McKayla Maroney's reaction after she won silver on vault. She came out and said exactly what I figured happened, she was not upset with winning silver but upset with her performance and really didn't mean to be rude to those congratulating her. While she is an international athlete and needs to learn to be more gracious, let's not forget she is 16. However, she clearly wasn't over the whole thing by the time the medal ceremony came around and the look on her face went viral. The McKayla is not impressed tumblr is pretty entertaining.

It's clear though that she has a sense of humor. And I give her a lot of credit for knowing how to make fun of herself at her age. She and Raisman have been tweeting about competing against one another in a swim race (yes, I follow all five of them on Twitter). Yesterday, I guess they attempted to race but came across an obstacle. Maroney tweeted the below photo saying the caption below.

"The pool is closed...#notimpressed."

What to watch for - Day 17.

Well, here we are. Day 17. I appreciate you allowing me to fill your inbox everyday with these emails and I promise this is the last one.

Most the medals being handed out today are in the finals of some of the team sports and then the men’s marathon. The marathon is over by now and the only team sport left that involves the U.S. is men’s basketball.

Team USA has been expected to win the gold medal all along and today is their chance to actually do it. After falling way short of expectations in Athens, the U.S. men have been very strong and are looking for its second straight Olympic championship. No doubt you’ve heard the back-and-forth squabble of whether or not this team is better than the Dream Team. I’m not going to join this argument, but I will say that I wish it were possible to actually see a game between the two teams. But today the U.S. faces Spain, the same team they beat in the 2008 final. They can and should win. If they lose, there is no longer an argument as to which team is better.

Then tonight we have the closing ceremony. While the opening ceremony is heavy with anticipation, emotion and spectacle, the closing is more like a giant celebration. The music director for the closing ceremony, David Arnold, is calling it “the greatest after-party in the world.” Saying, “If the opening ceremony was the wedding, then we’re the wedding reception.”

Well, I love wedding receptions, so I’m excited for this one. The show will include performances of 30 British hit singles from the past five decades. The Who, George Michael, Muse and Ed Sheeran have all said they will take part in the show and some photos have also leaked of the Spice Girls. I sure hope the Spice Girls rumor is true. It’s what I want, what I really, really want.

Organizers say they want the ceremony to be a “cheeky” reflection of modern Britain, so maybe we can expect a little Monty Python type humor. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sir Paul McCartney appears again as well. I mean, what is British music without The Beatles? Also, The Daily Mail published photos of what it said was the set, which included reconstructions of London landmarks like St. Paul’s Cathedral and Tower Bridge.

Carrying the U.S. flag in the closing ceremony will be track athlete Bryshon Nellum. Nellum, who won a silver medal in the 4x400m, was chosen because of the amazing comeback he had to get to the Olympics. Nellum was shot in both thighs and one hamstring while walking home near the USC campus his freshman year of college. He overcame three surgeries to race again, the last of which was performed only a year ago.

If you’re like me and love a good video montage, tonight is the night! At the end of the NBC broadcast tonight they will show all the best parts of the last two weeks and since 2002 it’s been set to the score from Remember the Titans. It will happen during the closing credits of the broadcast, right after Bob Costas give us his final thoughts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I always do.

I will sure miss the Olympics, but I’m not sure I’ll miss the emotional rollercoaster it constantly puts me on. If you haven’t seen something over the last 17 days that hasn’t touched your heart in some way or caused you to cry, I don’t know what will.

While this is my last email, I’ll keeping blogging at paigeonlondon.blospot.com if you wish to continue reading my thoughts on the games.

Cheers!

Thank you notes.

I've loved Jimmy Fallon since he was on Saturday Night Live. He and Tina Fey were fantastic at the Weekend Update desk. Some people don't like him because he struggles to keep a straight face sometimes, but I think that's what makes him so endearing.

Fallon really came on strong during the whole Conan O'Brien/Jay Leno debacle in the winter of 2010. People wanted to know why NBC wasn't considering sliding O'Brien back to his old time slot and checked out Fallon to see why. They found that Fallon was actually very refreshing and entertaining. He really shines in the different sketches on his show. Anyone seen Downton Sixby?

My favorite is when he writes his thank you notes. In Vancouver, he joined Bob Costas one evening to write his thank you notes for the week. I was dying it was so funny.



NBC clearly remembered how well this went over and sent Fallon to London for round two. And you just thought you'd heard all the Dong Dong jokes.

To watch the London thank you notes, click here.

Royal watching.

If you haven’t caught any glimpses of the Royal Ambassadors during these games, you are not watching enough Olympics. Prince Harry, Prince William and Duchess Kate have been at a lot of events and truly enjoying them.

I loved how nervous William and Harry seemed to be watching the men’s gymnastics team final and then Kate at the first night of individual event finals. Anyone else see her talking to the Fab Five? How cool must that have been?

But my favorite was watching Wills and Kate at the cycling team pursuit competition. You could tell how genuinely excited they were watching it and were just any couple cheering their home country on. I mean, seriously, they are too cute!