What to watch in Beijing

The Olympic Games begin Friday and for 16 days we’ll watch some sports for the fi rst time in four years. But what to watch, especially when often knowing the outcome given it’s already tomorrow in Beijing so today is history or something like that. When covering the Redskins in Japan in 2002, I once wrote two days of events in the same edition of the paper back home.

There are 38 sports from “athletics” — code for track and fi eld — to wrestling. As a community service, I waded through the listings for your TiVo needs.

Watch basketball. The U.S. seems serious over winning the gold medal for once. Forget table tennis. If Forrest Gump can do it, is it really a sport?

Yes to beach volleyball. No to volleyball. It takes two seconds to notice the difference.

Sprinters are cool. The modern penthathlon is out. I like old school pentathlons when George Patton competed in 1912.

Swimming is in, if only to see the new Speedo suits. Speedo offered me a sponsorship deal not to wear them, but I’m weighing Nike’s double offer to don Speedo’s skin tight outfits. Anyway, forget synchronized swimming. No explanation’s necessary. Indeed, forget any other water sport like rowing, canoeing, sailing, diving and water polo. How do they keep the horses from drowning anyway?

Boxing is always a must. Nothing like settling a dispute with your fists. Skip archery, fencing, tae kwon

do, judo and shooting.

Weight lifting is always interesting if only to see how the Russians are using steroids. Football turns out to be soccer. Darn, I was looking forward to seeing the Chinese women’s football team until reading the previews.

Gymnastics always fascinates us for some reason. Why? Americans could care less otherwise. Conversely, wrestling is nothing like the WWE.

Olympic hockey is also more interesting than you’d suspect. Too bad we have no idea who’s playing.

Finally, just say no to badminton, baseball, cycling, equestrian, softball, handball, tennis and the triathlton. Fortunately, NBC probably won’t show much. I mean, you’re going to watch handball for an hour?

China is the slight favorite over the U.S. for most medals. It’s homesmog advantage. They were born with iron lungs. Linesmakers say China will win more gold and bronze medals while the U.S. will take more silvers. Wish I could take these guys to the track to bet exactas and triples.

If you have some extra cash, take Hungary in water polo over Serbia. Australia is the slight choice over Austria in the men’s one-person dinghy sailing while fi ve nations are co-choices in keelboat sailing. That fantasy league must be impossible to draft.

But, my paycheck is going on Italy in the men’s team archery. They’re giving 10-1 — suckers. I wonder if NBC will show the finals?

Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Contact him at [email protected].