Olympic Poseur: Trampoline

During these Olympics, Poseur will spend each day watching and reviewing one sport. He also promises to stop referring to himself in the third person.

Today's Sport: Trampoline

I tried to keep an open mind. I really did. As I've run through the more "minor" sports of the Olympics, I've tried to find the good in each event and look for the appeal. Even events that I didn't personally connect with, like equestrian, I tried to see what other people saw in the sport. And usually, I can find something to hang my hat on, something that explains the sport's status in the Olympics.

Trampoline sucks.

How the hell is this an Olympic sport? It just seems like the sport for the guys who couldn't hack it at regular gymnastics. When you look at the gymnasts in "artistic" gymnastics, as the Brits like to say, they have broad shoulders and chests so thick that you could mistake them for superheroes. The trampoline competitors were downright scrawny in comparison and honestly, the flips and twists seemed less impressive than those on the vault.

What a colossal letdown. It was like watching cycling only with training wheels. It was like watching the gymnastics "B" team. I couldn't have been less interested.

The Favorites: China

Of course. If there's a marginal sport with borderline competition, there is China. Always investing heavily in the Sports No One Cares About, trying to pad that medal total.

The Gold Medal: China

Dong Dong. Yeah, that's his name. Get your giggles in. He seemed a likeable fellow, but once again, it just seemed like the gymnasts not good enough to do the parallel bars or whatever. The US guy missed the trampoline at one point, which seemed kind of incredible. But I didn't care. I actually don't want us to be good at this, the most JV of Olympic sports.

Swimming and Track Update

The Americans won another three golds, and took silver in the splash and dash. The 50m free lacks technique, but it sure is a lot of fun. There was a nice moment of passing the torch as our past great, Phelps, won individual gold one last time while the possible future great, Missy Franklin, crushed the field in the 200m backstroke. She's only 17, so it's fair to start speculating about Rio 2016.

This is one of the few nights in which swimming and track overlap. Track's just getting warmed up, as we got our first look at the women's 100m and the men's 1500m, two of the premier events of track for a century.

We also got our first medals of track. Ethiopia and Kenya dominated the women's 10,000m. Shocker, I know, seeing African nations kicking ass in the distance events. Tomasz Majewski of Poland successfully defended his gold medal in the shot put in a minor upset, beating the current world champ, American Reese Hoffa. It's good to see the Olympics proper start in the main stadium.

PodKATT's LSU Olympic Update

The rest of the LSU athletes not playing basketball got their start on Friday as Kelly-Ann Baptiste and Semoy Hackett, both running for Trinidad & Tobago, aced their preliminary heats in the Women's 100m, with the 4th and 9th best times of the round respectively. They'll race in the semi final round at 1:35pm Central and hope to advance to the final at 3:55pm. Also today, Damar Forbes failed to pass the qualifying round of the Men's Long Jump.

Along with the Women's 100m, Saturday also sees the start of the Men's 100m for Richard Thompson, who will start in the 2nd qualification round at 6:30am

Up Next: Rowing