2012 London Olympics Round-Up: End of the Gold Brick Road

The Olympics are over and everyone can go back to not caring about NBC. Is everyone sad…der than usual? The Olympics evoke a sense of pride for a lot of people but I wonder if there are some that spend the whole time wishing they were from another country because that country has cool colors. I mean, what if I look damn good in blue and black? Then Estonia and I are both missing out.

Some more stuff happened, including the closing ceremonies, where shit got weird. Did you know Great Britain has more weirdos per capita than any other country? Also that the Dutch Women’s Field Hockey Team has more queermos than all of London? Learning and growing together. And now for the part where you take in a lot of information in a short period of time in hopes that something will stick and you can casually drop it into conversation with that girl you like while another queer who likes that same girl is close by and becomes eternally saddened that she didn’t know that one thing about that one event because turns out, your mutual crush is super into that event because she played that sport as kid and her number was 8 because it looks like two circles and circles are her favorite shape. Megan Rapinoe .gifs. That’s not an accident. That’s just how I end hypothetical stories now.

Women’s Soccer

The USWNT beat Japan in a rematch of the 2011 World Cup Finals. They were beautiful. I mean it. It was beautiful. You all had a lot of feelings about it already. So did Bob Costas who said, “Matthew Mitcham and Megan Rapinoe competing proudly, openly, comfortably as gay athletes.” Are you crying?

Women’s Volleyball

Brazil upset the previously undefeated U.S. to take gold for the second time in a row. The U.S. team has yet to win a gold medal in the sport.

ed. note — this is so incredibly gay

Women’s Beach Volleyball

Misty May-Treanor and (life?) partner Kerri Walsh Jennings took out fellow Americans Jennifer Kessy and April Ross to take their third Olympic gold. I didn’t see the match but I saw the studio interview and that shit was intense. I’m not saying they’re in lesbians. I’m just saying if this were a different time, they’d Boston marry the shit out of each other.

Women’s Basketball

No one’s surprised that the American women won their fifth gold in a row beating France 86-50. Candace Parker scored eight straight points during a 13-2 run to give the Americans a decisive lead that they maintained for the duration. While many are aware of the team’s dominance, Americans won’t really care until they lose and then they can talk about all of the problems with the WNBA rather than celebrating its continued existence. Oops. I meant YAYYYY.

Women’s Track and Field

Allyson Felix won gold in the 200-meter dash and was part of the world record setting 4×100 team that took gold in 40.82 seconds. The 4×100 team hadn’t won since 1996 which is weird, because I just assume America wins every event until told otherwise. Another 4×100 team member, Sanya Richards-Ross, won gold in the 400-meter dash then added to her collection with gold as part of the 4×400-meter relay team.

Women’s Boxing

In its Olympic debut, women’s boxing found only one American in the gold medal match.  Seventeen-year-old middleweight Claressa Shields defeated Nadezda Torlopova of Russia while becoming the second youngest boxer to win gold.

What happened in Taekwondo? Fencing? Water Polo? Have I told you that badminton is one of my favorite sports to watch? This might be your last chance to spew Olympics feelings for a while so get it all out in the comments. Maybe even include some feelings about how well women fared in the Olympics this time around.

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Brittani

Brittani Nichols is a Los Angeles based comedy person. When she's not tweeting about white people or watching television, she's probably eating pizza. Actually, she's probably doing all three of those things concurrently and when she's not doing THAT, she's sleeping. Brittani also went to Yale and feels weird about mentioning it but wants you to know.

Brittani has written 328 articles for us.

70 Comments

  1. Girls water polo won gold! IT was an amazing game! And the Olympics took over the rest of my summer till i go to school in 4 days. So now i’m sad they are over. Back to reality…which kinda suck. lol

      • Walshy actually isn’t returning to the W-league this season. The prevailing theory is that someone is ~Coming to America~.

  2. Actually, the US lost to Brazil in the finals in women’s volleyball and got silver, not bronze.

    • It is said that Sheilla Castro and Mari Steinbrecher from the Brazilian volleyball team are a couple but not out.
      Too bad Mari got cut and didn’t go to London.

  3. I have developed a serious taste for handball thanks to the olympics (i did for beijing as well, but i’m less apathetic and might actually do something about it now). Di anyone watch the handball? it was awesome. BBC coverage of the games was awesome.

    Also what did y’all think of the opening/ closing ceremonies, because i was sat there laughing my ass off but also thinking it seemed like a huge in joke for britain.

    • Handball, yes! I didn’t even know it existed until seeing it on TV a couple of weeks ago but it’s a really interesting game.

    • I also watched the handball avidly in 2008 and then forgot about it for a while. But I had tickets to the Spain v Montenegro semi-final this year and it was awesome!

      As Britain are so bad at it (comparatively, ‘cos no one plays here – hopefully it’ll catch on now) and didn’t make it past the group stage I was Team Norway for the rest – they’re a joy to watch. I was hoping to watch my fantasy handball girlfriend Katja Nyberg defend the title but she’s retired.

      http://gfx.nrk.no/wghodgmNSiZHmxzX6kNKiQSxfzkv3EZOer_ilfIrdRuA.jpg

  4. I will never stop having feelings about this Olympics. Not as long as Pinoe gifs exist, and I hope that’s a very long time.

  5. Enjoyed watching fencing and sailing. Still feeling sorry for the Korean woman who lost the semi final and sat there crying for something like an hour waiting for a decision from the referees.
    Since I was in a depressed state, the sound of the sea had a good influence on me, means I should probably go more often to the beach…

  6. There’s still a lot of amazingness to come in the Paralympics – it’s just that people don’t pay it as much attention.

    • I know! That’s the Olympics I really care about but I have yet to find a way to watch it online. (No cable)

      • That sucks ): it’s funny/sad to me because my country has been complaining about how we didn’t do as well as usual – well we’re actually set to whoop ass in the paralympics, but of course, nobody cares about that…

        • but on the upside, the tickets sales for the London Paralympics have beaten the record set in Beijing and are thought likely to sell out when the last batch is released. thats 2.1 million tickets already sold.
          On the downside, none of them are mine.

  7. Has anyone (outside of Ireland) been following the story of the woman who took gold in women’s boxing in the lightweight category?

    Katie Taylor. Kind of an amazing thing: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics–ireland-swells-with-pride-after-katie-taylor-wins-women-s-boxing-gold-medal.html

    Highlights from her gold medal match: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/boxing/highlights-katie-taylor-wins-lightweight-gold.html

    Seriously worth reading/watching. Great stuff. Also she’s totally cute but first and foremost an awesome boxer. ;)

    • Enjoyed the article. Haven’t gotten to watch any of the women’s fights yet but planning to track them down on the internet.

    • I know nothing about boxing, but the women’s lightweight gold medal match was on in a coffee shop and I watched it and developed a huge crush on Katie Taylor within minutes. It’s nice to actually know something about her, though–thanks for posting that.

  8. “Did you know England has more weirdos per capita than any other country? ”

    They’re called “eccentrics” and it’s a point of national pride.

  9. I still have a lot of Kelley O’Hara feelings. Unbelievable how she’s turned around her NT career in the span of a year.

  10. I loved this year’s Olympics for so many reasons. Mainly for soccer, which I have followed for years. Pinoe coming out BEFORE the games, the redemption match building, how we kicked ass against those dirty sucker-punching Columbians and the intentional head-stomping Canadians… And for what you ask? GOLD! Tears on cheeks, sobbing on the pitch, last minute miracle goals. I got to share it with my nieces and nephew who are now huge fans. My 11yr old niece texted me during all of the games, when I had to be at work. She wore her Alex Morgan shirt proudly and cried when they won. I really hope that soccer, and all women’s sports, have gained new life-long fans.

  11. I missed it if it’s been mentioned already on here, but the lesbian filled Dutch Field Hockey team won the gold as well. So awesome!

    As to women’s Basketball, I’ve seen pictures going around on Tumblr (including mine, now) of this hot French player named Celine Dumerc, who was awesome during the Olympics and has a great haircut that personally, I like better than Miley’s.

    http://reallyonlyerin.tumblr.com/post/29229344271/celine-dumerc-wow-so-i-just-came-across-her#notes

    • Dumerc has awesome hair, I was totally googling her during the game trying to find out more about her.

    • She definitely stood out and was a good player. I think I said “Who is THAT?” and I wasn’t excited about her lay up…Major cutie.

    • I actually got to see France women’s basketball play Russia last week (I live next to the Olympic Park – so awesome!) and Celine Dumerc was the highlight of the whole event. Super hot. Even the crazy french dudes behind me were in love with her!

  12. I’m so sad the Olympics are over. I love them so much, as much as the usual sports are great I also love watching things like fencing and modern pentathlon and all the track and field sports.

    The highlight for me absolutely was the USWNT, I love this team. Thank god for tumblr, with their capacity for gif-making, you could basically re-live all the awesome moments over and over.

  13. Loved the soccer. Going to actually watch the USA Canada game and the Canada France bronze medal match in their entirety before Comcast makes them disappear. Not really much for the track and field, but it was really amazing to see both USA women’s relay teams FLY. Misty May Treanor and Kerry Walsh Jennings play so smartly and so in synch it’s always amazing to watch. Caught some but not enough of the little seen sports: fencing, equestrian, archery, field hockey, handball…ah, thank you Olympics.

  14. I had a lot of explaining to do to my family when I wasn’t disappointed the US women’s football team beat New Zealand. It seems lesbianess > patriotism.

  15. I freaking loved the olympics!!! I mean seriously it was a little bit like rediscovering my sexuality i mean all those women! And Spandex!!!! oh my goodness, women IN spandex!!!
    also do you know if you can adopt gymnasts? Because they are probably the most adorable people ever and i think i’m in love…

    • lol I know!! I didn’t consider myself interested in sports, but the Olympics have really changed my perspective :D Now I know why sports are boring because men dominate sports TV. Sooo many women in the Olympics. Goddesses. All of them!

  16. Uh, I might start ending all of my rambling stories by simply stating MeganRapinoe .gifs
    It might not translate into everyday life (as opposed to the Internet) but, I will try.

  17. I am an olympian addict,watched every sport,even dressage(the dancing horses),and to be honest a week ago i thaught dressage was somethhing you put on a salad :). But i loved it.

    I loved the down to earthness,the athletes being nice and humble in win and defeats.

    And to name a few of my highlights.

    1/the Dutch field hockey team : they beat Argentina 2-0 in the final,with goals scored by Carlien Dirksen van den Heuvel and Maartje Paumen,who are an out couple. Must have been one hell of a happy household that night :)

    2/The most amazing gymnastics,with excellent performances from teh us girls,but the most amazing moment in gymnastics came from Epke Zonderland,with the most difficult and daring routine ever done in history. You could see even his competitors applauding and being completely in awe when he managed to do that routine.Only little negative point i thought,was to see how much more the girls are tense and distant from each other. All male gymnasts look more respectful towards each other (maybe it is because they are older) don’t know why,but i found it a bit unfortunate.

    3/I loved the passion of the British public and their respect to athletes from all nations.

    4/Loved the enthousiasm the soccergame s brought with the us girls on here.

    5/ Most dissapointing were the performance were of my country,Belgium,only 3 medals and all around bad results.Still my respect because most of them have to work and train on a limited budget

    6/loved the opening ceremony (the kiss sneaked in )and the history part.

    7/funniest thing was Mitt Romney managing to make a complete ass of himself and alienating the entire UK, not the smartest dude around,and loved how he became known as the American Borat :)

  18. My current Olympic feeling is a kind of disconsolate numbness.

    Having mainlined BBC coverage through 24 simultaneous digital IVs for the past fortnight, I really don’t know what to do with myself other than rock back and forth in a corner, weeping gently while I rewatch some synchro higlights.

  19. serious withdrawal pains here as well, don’t know how i’ll survive until 2016

    highlights:

    former olympic high jumping medalist, world indoor record holder (2.08) and official big fan of the ladies KAJSA BERGQVIST was an athletics commentator for the Swedish broadcasts and she was amazingly insightful/knowledgeable/passionate AND LOOKED SO GOOD CAN I JUST http://bitterblondin.se/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Kajsa-Bergqvist-lesbisk.png

    equestrian broke my heart and made me so proud simultaneously!

    i didn’t care much about sailing before (read not at all) and i don’t care much now either, but it’s the sport that brought us our only gold this time so that’s cool

    also, brittney reese has SWAG and women’s beach volleyball is incredibly awesome and attractive

    as for soccer, my heart is still crying, but GOOD LORD i hope Pia returns to Sweden soon, we need her so bad it’s not even funny

  20. also this is slightly unrelated but it makes me so incredibly angry when i hear male football experts saying that maaaybe Pia’s ready for taking on a men’s team now, at least as an assisting coach…

    seriously, i hope she shuts your fucking mouths by shoving ALL THOSE BIG CHAMPIONSHIP MEDALS DOWN YOUR THROATS

  21. Another few highlights for me were in the womens rowing

    1/ Kathleen Grainger who finished second in the past 3 olympics now finally won the gold. It brought some of the bbc broadcasters almost to tears.

    2/Kat Copeland’s reaction after she won : omg we won the olympics,followed by the legendary sentence : we’re going to be on a stamp :)

    3/Claire Balding,an out bbc broadcaster,who was absolutely brilliant in all the sports she presented,knowladgable,well prepared,funny and she managed to do something unprecendented,namely being recognised in the press as probably the best olympic broadcaster off the olympics on the bbc. Sportsjournalism is normally a bastion of male chauvinism,so being recognised both by men and women as an exceptional broadcater is amazing

    4/And Kelurs is right the equestrian was heartbreaking,loosing on the last obstacle(the swedish amazon would have been the first woman individual olympic champion);and she is also right on the extreme cuteness of Kasja Bergqvist.

    5/the amazing wall to wall coverage by the bbc ( i watched it all the time instead of Belgian television)

    • Rowing! Yes! I was only able to cach the women’s 8 semifinals and finals — sad I missed everything else, but glad I saw the US crew win gold.

  22. Dear Rest of the World, you are most welcome for our handling of the Olympics, we LOVED having you all come to stay – fun times yes? – and we are really sorry about the closing ceremony, we got ourselves in a bit too deep and before we knew it there was an octopus and a ghost ship and Jessie J got confused with Freddie Mercury and to be honest even we don’t know what Russell Brand was doing an impression of Willy Wonka for…Anyway, let’s not mention it again.
    See you for drinks in Rio? Love G.B x

    • The closing ceremony was quite good in that it reminded everyone that Britain is really quite rubbish at things like that normally and that the opening ceremony should be appreciated even more for its amazingness.

      I never ever want to see Jesse J playing air guitar ever again. Or Boris dancing. Or Eric Idle doing racist dancing. Or a children’s choir dressed in white singing Imagine and making a giant John Lennon face out of their bodies.

      *shudders*

  23. ‘England has more weirdos per capita…’ The Olympics were NOT held in England, they were held in Great Britain. England and Britain are not synonyms they are not interchangeable. It’s like calling the whole of the US Texas or something.

    • If I’m not mistaken, Great Britain is comprised of England, Scotland, and Wales. The island that houses both England and Scotland is commonly referred to as Britain. London is both on that island, and in the territory known as England, therefore, wouldn’t the Olympics have been held both in England, as well as in Great Britain? Consequently, Great Britain is now the United Kingdom (and Northern Ireland), so they would technically have been held in the UK too?

      Also, London is the capital of the Sovereign state of England, like Cardiff is the Capital of the Sovereign state of Wales, and Edinburgh is the Capital of the Sovereign state of Scotland.
      Please do correct me if I’m mistaken.

      • You’re getting there, although you may need to go back to that wikipedia entry to check on the difference between Great Britain and the UK (GB + Northern Ireland = UK). You’ve also probably invoked the wrath of the population of Wales for failing to mention that they share land mass with England and Scotland. Luckily, most of said population are sheep, so they should be fairly easy to spot if they do start planning revenge.

  24. I have spent the day trying to get tickets for wheelchair rugby at the Paralympics because I saw an interview with one of the players a few days ago and he said “Wheelchair rugby is way better to watch than normal rugby cos in normal rugby they hold back a tiny bit because they’re scared of spinal cord injury but WE DON’T CARE COS WE’VE ALREADY GOT SPINAL CORD INJURY!”

    And that made me go, wow, wheelchair rugby is going to be insane.

    But there are no tickets left for it.

    That is my story.

  25. I for one (and judge me if you must) am glad the Olympics are over. Now I can start reading AS and HuffPo again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Olympics, and narrowly missed the opportunity to attend in Beijing as a competitor, but am very tired of reading heavily biased articles about US Olympians winning gold medals. Apparently, people from other countries won gold medals in some other sports too.

    Also, Still not over the US/Canada soccer match. It’s a sore spot, and biased commentaries from AutoStraddle that jabbed and jabbed at that wound lead me to remove AS from my Facebook, and Twitter until after the closing ceremonies.

    Sorry guys.

    • I will however, admit, that Rapinoe is hot, and plays a mean game of footie. Also, that I’m glad to have you guys back.

    • Yeah, I have to say I was pretty disappointed with the Olympics – I realize that AS is an American website and so that’s their focus for news and stuff, but because it was so rah rah I think it felt different for this subject.

      The USWNT does not have a monopoly on being gay, hot, or awesome. Christine Sinclair 4 lyfe.

      • I know there’s a US Soccer icon on this comment but seriously Captain Canada take all my evens and convert them to unfs.

        *counts on one of those foxy AS interns to come along and fix it so the gif shows*

        Plus adorable Canadian gaymo Sophie Schmidt.

        Karina Leblanc can come too.

        • God I remember when I was 12 and the U19 Championship was a big deal and I thought the goalie (Erin McLeod was super cute) but, of course, as a 12 year was too oblivious to realize what that meant. Now, as a queer chick, that goalie is still super cute ;)

  26. Still having #soccerfeelings… *Le sighhhh” for you Canadians too (except Tancredi- we’re broken up for good).
    Crossing my fingers that there will be more ‘victory tour’ dates in the north east. (NY, Boston, Philly, Ptown? Haha)

    • Imagine how incredible Maartje and Carlien must have felt,both scoring the goals that led to Olympic Gold.They must have gone mad partying afterwards :)

  27. Are you Dutch? Bc they did an interview with RTL Boulevard yesterday and they were in another tv program last Monday. They were “knighted” this week. I read somewhere that they didn’t spend the night together after the finals, and that Maartje sent Carlien a text to tell her how special this felt. That is so cute! And I love how open they are about there relationship, it makes me very proud.

    • Ik ben van Antwerpen,dus Belgisch,al wou ik wel af en toe dat ik Nederlandse was als ik al die prachtige sportprestaties zag. En ik vind het ook een geweldig lief koppel,en ben blij dat ze zo open en out zijn,en zo zijn er wel meer in Nederland. terwijl in Belgie eigenlijk alleen basketbalster Ann Wauters officieel out is,en er zijn er nog een aantal anderen die je wel eens in het niet zo heel erg grote partywereldje voor lesbos in Antwerpen tegenkomt.Maar voor wie de stap toch nog te groot blijkt te zijn om officieel out te zijn.
      en ik hoop nog steeds stiekem dat Femke Heemskerk ook lesbisch zou zijn :) (dan zou ik helemaal uit mijn dak gaan,lol)

  28. Haha, I had to google her, but who knows? Weird that there aren’t more out athletes in Belgium… In Holland we still don’t have any male gay soccer players, but the female athletes seem to be pretty open.

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