Tag: Olympic Stud of the Day (1-10 of 56)

Aug 13 2012 09:00 AM ET

POLL: Who is the All-Around Stud of the 2012 Olympics?

by
Tags: , , ,
US-WOMENS-RELAY-TEAM.jpg

Image Credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Throughout the 2012 Olympics, we here at PopWatch have been awarding the most esteemed honorific of the XXX Olympiad: The Olympic Stud of the Day. Some days, it’s been superstars like Michael Phelps, Gabby Douglas, or Usain Bolt. Other days, it’s been unexpected heroes like U.S. sprinter/comeback story Bryshon Nellum, Dutch high bar wizard Epke Zonderland, or British women’s pairs rowers Heather Stanning and Helen Glover, the first athletes from the host nation to score a gold medal.

But now that the London Games are coming to a close, it is time to turn the final honor over to you, PopWatchers: Who is the All-Around Stud of the 2012 Olympics? READ FULL STORY »

Aug 13 2012 08:46 AM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: The Olympic Flame

by
Tags: , , , , , TV
OLYMPICS-PHOENIX

Image Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Yes, the Flame technically was extinguished last night in London, but its elegance — its power — rests in its symbolism. Pomp and circumstance aside, the Olympic Flame lives on whether a cauldron is alight or not. It never really goes out. This sentiment has a tendency to lapse into a sort of greeting-card hokiness that viewers easily gloss over, but the creative minds behind these Games would not allow that kind of dismissal. They not only embraced the metaphor, they took it a step farther and made it tangible.

By constructing one giant Flame from scores of individual torches engraved with the names of each athletic delegation, they offered a poetic visualization of the spirit of unity that underpins the Games. More over, this particular Flame ensured that each country had its own torch to take home — a poignant parting gift that quite literally distributed a piece of the Games to everyone, not just medal winners and/or countries with an outside shot of hosting a future Games.

Add to that another arresting visual during last night’s Closing Ceremony: A phoenix rising over the Flame. This Games’ end is also a beginning — not only the beginning of preparations for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, but also the beginning of countless dreams of future Olympians. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 12 2012 02:13 PM ET

Olympic gold medalist David Boudia's Must List: AC/DC, Michael Buble, and 'Modern Family'

by
Tags: , , , , , Books, Movies, Music, TV
david-boudia-2.jpg

Image Credit: Fabrice Coffrini/Getty Images

During Saturday night’s electrifying Olympic final in men’s 10 meter platform diving, viewers likely caught a glimpse or two of eventual gold medal winner David Boudia with a large pair of headphones latched to his head. According to Boudia, it’s more than likely that’s how he would look if you saw him anywhere else, too. “I have over 2,000 songs on my phone that travel with me everywhere, and my headphones are constantly in my ears,” the Indiana native told EW last month, the day before he was to leave for London, his second Olympics after Beijing. “I listen to music all the time. The genre of music is so sporadic that it’s so hard to apply — I listen to anywhere from rap to hip-hop to country to Michael Bublé, a lot of Christian music — all over the place.”

So what was the 23-year-old Boudia — the first American man to win gold in the event since the legendary Greg Louganis did it at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea — listening to as he prepared for his dives? READ FULL STORY »

Aug 12 2012 04:40 AM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: David Boudia

by
Tags: , , , TV
david-boudia-tom-daley.jpg

Image Credit: Thomas Coex/Getty Images

Congratulations to David Boudia, 23, for becoming the first U.S. diver to win the men’s 10m platform since Greg Louganis in 1988! Pretty damn good for a guy who was afraid of heights as a kid and didn’t climb the platform until he was 13.

Boudia and Great Britain’s Tom Daley (pictured, right), held off the Chinese favorite to win, Qiu Bo, with consistent, confident dives in the first five rounds. The final round was possibly the most exciting in a men’s platform final ever, with Daley’s fans going nuts and only 15 one-hundreths of a point separating the top three heading in. Boudia won the final by just one tenth of a point. And get this — the Indiana native had been the very last diver out of 18 to qualify for yesterday’s semifinals! So this almost didn’t happen. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 11 2012 08:58 AM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: Bryshon Nellum

by
Tags: , , , , TV
stud-of-the-day-bryshon-nellum

Image Credit: Alex Livesey/Getty Images

The Olympic Stud of the Day was going to be Carmelita Jeter, for anchoring the U.S. women’s 4 x 100m relay team to redemption, a world record, a first win since 1996, and an awesome post-race interview, but after hearing the story of U.S. runner Bryshon Nellum, we had to reevaluate. Yes, the men’s 4 x 400m relay team finished second for the first time in 40 years (without Manteo Mitchell, who’d broken his fibula halfway through his leg of a preliminary race Thursday and finished and had himself been a replacement for LaShawn Merritt, who’d suffered a hamstring injury). But some things are more important than the color of a medal. Nellum was a freshman at USC when, on Halloween night 2009, he was shot in both legs. “I never really fell to the ground,” Nellum has said. “I hopped up and down on one leg to get away and to get to safety.” It would be six months before he could walk again, and a year before he’d compete. When he returned to running, he’d collapse on the track in pain. He underwent three additional surgeries, the most recent in August 2011. As his mother said, just being at the Olympics was like winning. That’s why his fellow athletes have chosen him to be the U.S. flagbearer at Sunday’s closing ceremony.

Read more:
Olympics recap, Day 14: The joy of Carmelita Jeter’s victory, agony of Morgan Uceny’s defeat
More Olympics coverage
Gallery: Olympic Studs of the Day
Gallery: The Olympics’ Best/Worst Athletic Wear

Aug 10 2012 06:31 AM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: Ashton Eaton

by
Tags: , , , , TV
ASHTON-EATON

Image Credit: Stu Forster/Getty Images

There’s a reason the winner of the decathlon is called the world’s greatest athlete. Over two grueling days, decathletes compete in 10 track and field events: 100 meter race, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400 meter race on day 1; 110 meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1500 meter race on day 2. The point system to score the event may be more convoluted than the plot of Inception, but the result is crystal clear: Whoever takes home the gold is one damn fit human being, and deserving of the superlative honorific of PopWatch Stud of the Day.

So congratulations, Ashton Eaton! READ FULL STORY »

Aug 9 2012 12:50 AM ET

Olympic Studs of the Day: Golden Girls Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor

by
Tags: , , , , , TV
USA-VOLLEYBALL-02

Image Credit: Daniel Garcia/Getty Images

It’s a THREE-PEAT! Congratulations to Misty and Kerri — now three-time Olympic gold medalists and the best beach volleyball team in history. The pair, dubbed the Golden Girls due to their likenesses to Sophia and Blanche (nope), have been finding sand in weird places together for TWELVE YEARS. That’s nearly 2.1 million congratulatory mid-set ass pats!

Kerri and Misty have been the pinup girls of beach volleyball ever since their 2004 Athens win — and despite their wedgie-inducing uniforms and hot bods, I don’t mean “pinup” like that. I mean that every girl who decided to give beach volleyball a shot still has the Golden Girls tacked up somewhere on their bedroom walls. (Gabrielle Reece was on mine.) These two have set the tone of their sport and it’s gotten HUGE since then. Fun fact: Every player May and Walsh faced during the London games had started competitively after they’d won gold in Athens. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 8 2012 02:48 AM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: High bar gold medalist Epke Zonderland -- VIDEO

by
Tags: , , , , , TV
olympics-epke-zonderland.jpg

Image Credit: Julie Jacobson/AP

Okay, okay. Perhaps I should have picked Aly Raisman as today’s Stud after she nailed that first tumbling pass to win gold in the floor final and took bronze on beam following a scoring controversy. But two things worked against her: That painful studio sitdown with Bob Costas in which she kept insisting she was so excited but never actually looked it (maybe she was understandably exhausted, maybe she’s been media-trained to be that boring), and the fact that there’s just too much stress in women’s gymnastics for anyone to look like she’s actually enjoying herself while competing in the event finals. They’ve all worked years for those few moments and one tiny misstep can cost them their dreams. I get it. But after experiencing the weight of that insane pressure for days as a viewer, I just wanted someone to remind me gymnastics is fun. Enter the Netherlands’ Epke Zonderland.

He’s the first Dutch athlete to ever medal in gymnastics, and it was gold on the high bar. Watch his routine, which had the highest difficulty of any gymnastics routine performed in London (male or female), below. The spectator-shot video not only gives you a great view of his epic three release moves in a row but also of his competitors watching him. Look for Danell Leyva in his gray U.S.A. track jacket on the left… READ FULL STORY »

Aug 7 2012 02:22 AM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: Alex Morgan

by
Tags: , , , , TV
stud-of-the-day-alex-morgan

Image Credit: Stanley Chou/Getty Images

My Facebook page erupted yesterday afternoon after the US Women’s Soccer team had defeated Canada and won their ticket to the Olympics finals against Japan.

After seeing the celebration, I immediately felt like a spoiled chump. But I still wanted to see the game. (This reaction is perfectly in line with how much of this year’s Olympics has been for me. Spoilers > Anger > I’ll watch anyway.) Of course, I never got a chance to see the game — or even a few extended plays. Instead, there was a pitifully short highlight reel at the beginning of Primetime coverage last night that showed the headline-grabbing final moment. Then it was over.

Sure, maybe there really wasn’t time in NBC’s 40,000 hours of primetime Olympics coverage to show a more than 4 minutes of women’s soccer. Yet, I will point out that they somehow made time for a segment about latitude and longitude last night that was probably twice as long as the soccer highlights. Thanks for nothing, dudes. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 6 2012 09:15 AM ET

Olympic Stud of the Day: Usain Bolt

by
Tags: , , , , , , TV
stud-of-day-usian-bolt

Image Credit: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

It’s gotta be the yams, right? Once again, Usain Bolt established himself as the Fastest Man in the World. Oh wait, that wasn’t all? He broke an Olympic Record (his own, of course) and rocked a gold-medal repeat for the first time since Carl Lewis in 1988? Yeah he did.  READ FULL STORY »

Advertisement

TV Recaps

Powered by WordPress.com VIP
Which will you see this weekend?