Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 By the time many of your are reading this post, I will be on my way to the airport to catch my flight back to New York City. The Beijing Olympics will have concluded and thousands of others will be making their way home—some with gold medals, some with memorable images and stories, others with bruised egos and many with goals of practicing for the next four years in order to shave an extra few hundredths of a second off their performances in time for the London games in 2012. I for one couldn’t be happier.  This has been the best Olympics I’ve experienced, and while the host country has played a good part in this, other factors have been much more instrumental in making this a “great success” as Borat would say. (more…)

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 For those of you that are just waking up in the U.S., The “Redeem Team” won gold today against Spain while you were sleeping.  It was the NBA’s—I mean Team U.S.A.’s—first gold medal since the 2000 in Sydney. I must admit I wasn’t expecting much action or reaction at the conclusion of this game,  but boy was I wrong.  It was a pretty good game, and I’ve rarely seen such excitement out of NBA players even at the end of an NBA Final.  Spain gave them a good run, and early on they were ahead, but at no point did I see Team U.S.A. break that much of a sweat—they just played solid basketball and had great performances from Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. It was a real treat to see those three and their teammates so genuinely excited at the conclusion of the game and when they received their medals.  I’m at the closing ceremonies and getting ready for that—so I’ll just drop a few quick pictures in for now. (more…)