Olympic Coverage on PTR

The Olympics are upon us! Pounding The Rock is an NBA site, but we will have our own brand of coverage for this ongoing sportsgasm.

The self-professed Olympics geek, Drums, will be periodically providing threads expressing his thoughts and love of random sporting events, while allowing the rest of us to comment along.

And yes, there will be basketball coverage - lots of basketball coverage. Details after the jump.

To provide a slightly different point-of-view of the Olympic basketball tournament, I've coerced some of our writers to act as recappers for teams with Spurs (and Team USA). The inimitable Fred will be following Team USA; hopefully, with a lot of FARS. Edg and LD will provide us with the Argentine perspective (maybe we can finally determine which one loves Manu more). silverandblack_davis will be giving updates on the state of Tiago's hair. And I'm sure most of you have already read the great coverage that Bob Nelson (one of our resident French members) has been cranking out concerning Tony and Les Bleus. In fact, please read his in-depth preview of the French team; Bob has such a unique perspective on basketball. Author note: I haven't found anyone yet to cover Patty Mills and the Australian men's team. If you are interested, either e-mail me or let me know in the comments.

We will try to keep up by providing daily basketball threads, but feel free to throw one up if we fail to do so. FanPosts and FanShots related to the Olympics are more than welcome during this time too. In fact, use this post as an Olympic DTOUR thread and join me in channel surfing. (I'm currently switching between women's soccer, men's doubles tennis, and women's basketball. Thank goodness my couch is comfortable.)

Opening Ceremony

In an interesting decision by NBC, the Opening Ceremony was shown via tape delay. Not only was it taped delayed, but it started one hour later in the Mountain Time Zone (which didn't match up with the West Coast either - don't ask me why). So when my good friend texted me prior to the start, I knew I was in for an entertaining night. (If you didn't get a chance to watch it "live", read the SB Nation live blog - it'll tell you everything you need to know.) I didn't know what to expect, but I sure didn't expect that. Since there are not enough words to describe Danny Boyle's "vision", I'll just leave you with a few key texts from our conversation last night. Enjoy.

Friend: Are you watching the opening ceremonies? This is the weirdest shit I've ever seen - even with explanation.

Me: I think the director was drinking a lot when he came up with this. What's up with the hill?

Friend: Oh, it gets better.

Me: I take it back. He wasn't drinking - more like taking a hallucinogen. The announcers had to explain less in Beijing and that was in Mandarin!

Friend: You have no idea what's coming up. Wish I could say it gets better, but I can't. No relationship to the Olympics or anything. Even the announcers from time to time say they have no idea what's going on.

Me: At least Kenneth Branagh is enjoying himself.

Friend: Crazy, isn't it? Let me know when you get to Chariots of Fire. It's the one bright spot.

Me: You can hear the disbelief in Meredith Viera's voice. This is bloody fantastic!

Friend: This is what I'm referring to.

Me: Okay, I get it. No one outside of Britain is supposed to understand a minute of this.

Friend: I'm with you. Not for the world...

Me: So if Denver ever hosts an Olympics, they should have Trey Parker and Matt Stone produce the Opening Ceremony.

Friend: That would be awesome!

This ceremony was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever watched, and I enjoyed myself immensely. Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean!) stole the show, but I'd love to know everyone else's thoughts.

Thank goodness NBC had Bob Costas announcing the Parade of Nations.