Olympic Boyfriends should be seen and not heard

My Olympic Boyfriend of the Day from the early days of the swimming competition should have let his record stand for itself, because he comes off sounding a bit cocky during the post-race interview.

"My time was excellent," Kosuke Kitajima said. "This is what I was hoping for and I won with that time. I tried to swim precisely for each stroke and keep a good rhythm," he added. "My performance was perfect and ideal. I would have been baffled if you do not say that was perfect."


Oh well, confidence is an attractive quality.

So many boyfriends, so little time...

The last few days' posts have been posted late and out of order, so scroll down a bit to see if you missed any.

Day 15 - He's here, he's Australian, get used to it!

Openly Australian diver Matthew Mitcham won the gold in the 10-meter platform diving today in Beijing. I wasn't going to bestow upon him the honor of being my Olympic Boyfriend of the Day until I got this email from an admiring reader of this, the hottest blog on the planet right now:



With encouragement like that (and a horse's head cut off and placed in my bed last night... thanks a lot!) how can I resist welcoming Matt through my revolving door of Olympic paramours. I mean look at him:









Cute, talented, comfortable wearing very little clothing, and willing to spend a lot of time on his hair in between diving rounds -- he's got it all. In fact the only reason I almost passed him by today is because he truly has it all: he already has a boyfriend who has been by his side through all the olympic competition (here he is on FaceBook):
Lucky devils -- both of them!

Matthew is hot, happening, and (although I hate to have to share, but sharing is caring) today I dub thee, Matthew Mitcham, my Olympic Boyfriend of the day.

Day 14 - Today I am a Clay(not Aiken)-mate!

He catches shotputs between his ear and shoulder:

He runs:

He jumps:

He flies:

He can grab a large stick...

...and bend it a whole lot:

He sometimes forgets to wear his shoes:
...and frequently forgets his shirt as well:


For all those skills, and for winning the 2008 Olympic Decathlon, Bryan Clay is my Olympic Boyfriend of the Day.


Sorry... those are the rules.
(but call me later, ok?)


(I bet he could do a mean Colin Powell impression, too:)

Day 12: Where there's smoke, there's friendship

Alexander Despatie, your smoldering good looks and stellar diving techniques make you the Colin Ferrell of the diving board, and my Olympic Boyfriend of the Day.
(seriously: is that a McDonald's logo on his shirt???)


But you're not just a medal-winning athlete. When no one was mingling with the Chinese athletes a few years back you persisted and made many acquaintances on the team, and a best friend in Chinese diver Wang Feng. Such a good buddy, actually, that one night (after putting back a few pints with him) you made four burn marks on your arm as part of a friendship pact with Feng. (here's the whole story). You can see the marks on Feng's arm here:

I guess I'm not the first one to see how special you are because somebody else beat me to the punch in making this video that I would have totally made had they not already made it:

Day 11: Truth in Adver-diving

I want to have an Olympic diver as my boyfriend of the day... but let's take some time out here to see if Olympic divers are really as hot as they seem on TV. What happens when you slow the footage down and actually freeze frame them mid-dive. Here are some of the results (from previous competitions) as they could only be brought to you by the Russian website of the paper Pravda (Russian: Правда, or "The Truth"):







Is this Lance Bass?

Day 10: Oh, Canada

Oh Canada, you've been punked in film (Canadian Bacon) and song (Blame Canada) and now it took you eight days to get a single medal at the Beijing Olympics. How could that happen??? Even places like Togo, Croatia and Azerbaijan already had medals by then.

You made up for it by sending this guy, Jared Connaughton, to the Olympics:

No, he hasn't won any medals (yet!) but he certainly serves to distract from the memory of that eight day abstention from victory.

Connaughton hails from New Haven, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He's a track & field athlete representing the land of the maple leaf in the upcoming 200m and will also run the 2nd leg of the 4x100m relay. He's already successfully qualified for the 200m semifinal on Thursday....so don't blame Jared -- Blame Canada! Off the track, Jared is a Law student, and a Cancer, born on the cusp of Leo, making him a sensitive introvert, ambitious, proud, creative, flamboyant, nurturing, traditional, strong, expressive, organized, inspiring, intuitive, cheerful, self-assured, practical, realistic, romantic, social, dependent, passionate, generous, emotional, and today's Olympic Boyfriend of the Day.
(P.S.: why does he need all those upper body muscles to run track? Oh... nevermind, they can stay.)

Day 9: Xiáng went the strings of my heart

Why did I start this blog? Because there was one athlete I was hoping would be my for-real Olympic boyfriend, and I thought I'd mix in all these other hotties to seem less obsessive (although I'm sure that hasn't been the result.) You can imagine the devastation I felt when my cellphone buzzed at 9:05 PM PST with a Breaking News text from NBC Olympics saying Liu Xiang had withdrawn from the games due to injury.This is big news: it's as if Phelps had shown up without his Speedos, or Beckham gave up soccer and took up needlepoint on the eve of the World Cup, or Michael Jordan played baseball instead of....
Anyway, a nation of 1.3 billion supporters wept:Liu, despite the fact that your achilles heel really turned out to be your Achilles Heel, I see your many accomplishments, your good hair, your great looks, your big strong legs, and your charming Coca-Cola commercials and want you to know you are still my choice for Olympic Boyfriend of the Day. Speedy recovery.

Endorse This!

Breathe a heavy thigh of relief...

Day 8: The greatest

He's got 175 gold medals, he's broken every world record ever written, his arm span is 144 feet, and his feet grow naturally in the shape of swimming flippers. He can breathe in 400 gallons of air at once and go for two weeks without coming up for air. He farts like an Evinrude outboard motor for extra propulsion. He will someday use all his endorsement earnings to build a city lined with canals where people swim everywhere they want to go and his palace in said city will be at the corner of Butterfly and Freestyle (and they city's red-light district will be on a street called BreastStroke).

He's the man, the myth, the legend, the denizen of Baltimore (land of my family! holla!) who knows that once you go Gold you never go back, and if you have long fingernails you can touch the scoring pad from farther away. He's Michael Phelps.Michael: If I make you my Olympic Boyfriend of the Day for just this one day will you promise not to sit through any more interviews where Bob Costas asks "Are you the greatest? What's it like to be the greatest?' and also "How'd your Mom become as big a celebrity as you?" (Hint: it's because NBC keeps an extra camera on her to edit in more and more footage of her on each special recap episode.)

Mr. Phelps, seriously, you are truly amazing, and we should both feel honored that you're my boyfriend (for a day). But if one more analyst asks if your medal count pales in comparison to those of Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis because their sports award fewer medals I'm going to have to break up with you... but according to the rules of this blog, I'll break up with you tomorrow anyway: so I guess just whichever comes first.

Day 7: He ain't heavy(weight), he's my brother!

Call me greedy, because for the third time since the Olympics started I just can't narrow it down to one choice today.

Greco-Roman wrestling's Guenot brothers won gold and bronze for France on the same day. Oh brother, indeed! I take thee both to be my lawfully wedded Olympic Boyfriends of the Day.

Steeve Francois Fabien Guenot (below) is 5'8'', 146 lbs, he's a 23-year old Libra who works as a security guard on the Paris Metro.


Twenty-nine year old big brother Christophe Rene Marcel Guenot (below) is 5'10'', 163 lbs, and a Capricorn, and works as a Security Guard when he's not wrestling.


Full coverage at Oh-La-La Mag

Day 6: Roger, over and out!

James Blake, currently the 7th ranked professional tennis player in the world and the top-ranked American player, did something nifty this week: he dispatched Roger Federer (ranked #1 in the world at the time) from the Olympics 6-4 7-6 (7-2) in the quarter-finals in Beijing. He's got all that going for him, and he looks like this: Not only that, he went to Harvard (for a couple years) and runs with celebrities (like John Mayer & Gavin DeGraw). And when his head isn't shaved he sports the Sideshow Bob hairdobut he makes it work:Unfortunately, breaking news reports indicate that he just got ousted from the Olympics by a player who lacked the good grace to acknowledge that a ball had actually touched his racquet.. So, Blake's Olympic dreams for 2008 have ended. But that just gives him more time to be my Olympic Boyfriend Of The Day.

Day 5: It takes two!

What can I say: I like results! Sure some athletes have more interviews, more Wheaties boxes, and more Teen Beat covers, but in the end I want someone who can bring home the Gold. If he's serious about his work, fine. And if he comes as part of a matched set, I say the more the merrier! That's why, today, China's Gold Medal-winning 3m Springboard Synchronized Divers Qin Kai and Wang Feng are my Olympic Boyfriends of the Day.
Intense in practice, serious on the springboard, yet light-hearted in victory: they know how to let down their "Great Wall of concentration" when the competition ends: they laugh and cheer, they hug, and they shower together on worldwide network television.
And how about a cheer for this sport of synchronized diving? This sport lets everyone at home be an armchair judge: no need to learn a bunch of arcane rules, just match 'em up and if they're different they lose! It's as if an Olympic sport had been made out of the old Highlights For Children magazine "What's the difference between these two pictures?" game, except that now that we're adults the pictures are perfectly built Greek Gods in tiny Speedos! Zeus be praised -- let's start by finding the differences in the picture below: