U.S swimmers, fencers headline at the Olympics

First full day of competition at the Olympics, came in just in time to catch Michael Phelps' medal ceremony in the 400 IM. Now it's the women's turn, Katie Hoff of the U.S. the favorite, with another American, Beisel in the field too. And a 14-year-old Chinese competitor.

Interesting, Hoff has marks above her eyes from the goggles pressing in; announcer says she's got to do way better in the backstroke than she did in the prelims. Not looking good for the Americans after the butterfly and backstroke parts, they're both trailing a bit.

Now on the breaststroke, which she's apparently fast in, Hoff is 3 seconds behind. Hoff is really making up ground on second place in the second 50 in the breaststroke. Last leg, looks like U.S. may have to settle for bronze behind the Aussie and the Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry; and it's a new world record for the Aussie, Stephanie Rice, smashing Hoff's old one, with Coventry beating the WR too.

Wow, Hoff loses for the first time in four years in this event. Well, that's why they hold the races....

Costas has a bad echo in the studio, think they'd have worked out the mike problem by this point of the night--they're actually showing the swimming events live.

By my count, 1 gold, 0 silvers, 2 bronzes for the U.S. in the 3 swimming events I've caught all or part of. We'll definitely win more medals than the Chinese, I think, it's going to be a tight race for gold. But I think if Phelps wins 8, we'll beat them--a superhuman effort like that from one athlete, especially early, is really inspiring for the rest of the team.

Hey, the Barack Obama ad--it's very fast-paced, and upbeat; not a great ad, it was half through before I realized what it was about. I think the narrator talks too fast, actually; but it does have a crispness, professionalism to it. And it wasn't jarring, like McCain's last night.

Back, and there's no LIVE logo so it's taped men's gymnastics competition. China first here, on the rings; guy is good, sticks the apparently-difficult dismount, Yang Wei.

Hey, it's Al Trautwig, who I really like actually. Stupid new scoring system, 17 is perfect now I believe. Wow, another Chinese gymnast on the rings, Chen Yibing; the announcer is saying he's doing moves that are impossible--wow, and he stops his swing on a dime too. And he totally nails his landing, no wobble at all; announcer says when China does routines like that, they're unbeatable. Japan's the other team competing at the moment.

Back to the swimming events, in the 'water cube'. 100M breaststroke semifinals, they're building up to the women's 4x100 relays, Dara Torres. Here Japanese guy, Kitajima, the favorite; the U.S. guy in this semis barely qualified. Announcers speculating whether the American in the other semis, who has the world record and who had a slow prelims, was playing possum, he was so slow. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

Kitajima wins easily, American Mark Gangloff finishes third so makes the finals. Wow, they have great camera technology, can see everything underwater, and super-slo mo too.

This is like NBC's dream, it's a bit after 11, petrified to see what's on the other networks because I don't wanna have results spoiled--although I'm pretty sure the woman's relays are live.

Brendan Hansen's heat now, he failed to make the team in the 200M and apparently hasn't looked good lately, he seems to be a bit on edge or something. Hope the U.S. team isn't off, except for Phelps. Announcer says he just didn't have the 'snap' he usually does in the prelims. Hmm, got the lead at the turn, seems like he'll be fine. Falling back, announcer says he looks off; falls to 3rd, some Norwegian guy sets a new Olympic record. Kitajima watching Hansen, I guess we'll see tomorrow.

Back to gymnastics, U.S. competed earlier, Trautwig says it's looking good for them to get a number of gymnasts into the finals. Chen Yibing on the vault, huge height, a little hop on the landing. Yang Wei, doesn't stick his landing either but a good score on height/rotations. Huge vault for the third gymnast, which he invented, Li Xiaopeng; commentator again says they're going to crush everyone if they're on like this.

Yeah, and tonight an indication of the Chinese team's ability to perform up to expectations vs. the Americans, it may be a long Olympics for the U.S. Now they show a Japanese gymnast, who screws up on the pommel horse, gets off, remounts. Hmm, does a nice routine after that, but gets an automatic deduction. Ooh, the Russians up next here.

Now, Dara Torres. Wow, quite the coool roof on the swimming facility, which is this futuristic cube with translucent hexagon tiles. They're all in red, white and blue swimsuits; her coach is hospitalized back home, in bad shape. Aussies our main threat here I think. Canada, France, U.S.: Natlie Coughlin, Lacey Nymeyer, Carolyn Joyce, Dara Torres; China, which qualified first after not doing much historically; Germany; Dutch, which hold the current WR; and the Aussies, who qualified 6th, defending gold; with Great Britain at the end.

Rowdy Gaines is one of the announcers, I like him. Says China, U.S., Aussies. They're off, 100M each leg. Coughlin out fast, in the lead; now fading a bit, Germans way out; Germans still leading, then Dutch, U.S. in the middle, third as the third swimmer in. Rowdy says best Germans done already, Dutch the new favorite. And the Dutch are in front, looks like a big gap for the U.S. for Torres to try and make up; whoah, U.S. is behind, the Dutch are going to win I think.

Whoah, Torres made up ground, but too much I think; she's fighting for second now, here come the Aussies, but it'll be close for second--but U.S. gets silver for second Olympics, new OR for the Dutch. Torres may have swam the fastest split in relay history Rowdy says; U.S. pretty subdued, trying to figure out what happened; but Torres has a big smile, I really like her. Torres actually 2nd split to the Dutch in the race.

So 1 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronzes. An okay haul for a heavy swimming night, not great. We'll finish the night with gymnastics, and a look back at the U.S. women fencers, who swept an event today I saw.

Back to gymnastics, Russians who are back strong with oil profits soaring. Big vault for the first Russian, doubles the landing. Second guy good too, slight stepback on the landing. Yang Wei, over on the parallel bars, they talk about the strong emotions and pressure on the Chinese team.

Announcer says they can really distance themselves on this event, like vaulting; perfect so far, then a bobble, huge mistake says the announcer, he won't qualify for the individual event finals here they say; easiest element says the announcer, just went blank. Announcer says he probably hasn't made that mistake his entire training cycle for the Olympics--a mistake you see from a little kid to be honest. Ouch. The Chinese team's leader, no less.

Huang Xu, who's apparently rock solid, tremendous in this event. Wow, he looks great; small hop on the dismount, otherwise perfect. Li Xiaopeng, whose muscles look puny by comparison with his teammates, but won gold 8 years ago, has had some major injury issues since then. Wow, nice jump near the start. Almost violent, small hop on the landing. They're all slapping hands afterwards, a very confident team. Announcer still thinks China and Japan will take gold and silver.

They show the women's sabre team, with George H.W. Bush in the audience. The 'punk rock' of fencing. Wow, two faced off for gold; defending champ won again, this is a sport we've never done great in, recently have become quite good at. Three U.S. flags on the podium, what a great sight. Mariel Zagunis the gold winner, whose parents were Olympic rowers. Sada Jacobson, the silver medalist, won bronze four years ago. Becca Ward, who's an incoming freshman at Duke.

So eight medals on opening day and early day two; pretty cool. In gymnastics, U.S. qualifies 6th into the finals. Bela Karolyi, more mike problems for Bob, has to hold it in his hands--Karolyi's not even miked, they should fire the audio people. Bob asks him what are the woman's team chances, he dances around and doesn't make much sense, but eventually says their chances are good. No mike for Bela says Bob, wants to know if they're done now, he doesn't seem to know that we could hear him, just not great.

Oddly enough, they end the night with the Aussie's anthemn in the 400IM--it's thankfully a short one. A quick peek at the medals tables, and the U.S. is on top with 2 golds, 2 silvers, 4 bronzes; China in second with 2 golds and a silver.