I love these little aggregator coincidences: this afternoon The Science of Sport puts up a good piece on swimming’s credibility crisis, and this evening I catch this NewScientist article on a new nanotech fabric that is unwettable (too bad the word “waterproof” is already in play). You can leave it in water for hours and it comes out bone dry.

Nice little piece in The NY Times on the importance of relaxation to performance. They site the Michael Phelps example, of course, but I'd point to the Usain Bolt/Asafa Powell example as the more glaring one. As Anthony Lane put it in his opening paragraph to his excellent piece on the Olympics:

The morning of Friday, August 15th, was one of unaccustomed freshness in Beijing, and it brought forth two objects, both wreathed in legend but hitherto hard to spot. The first was a boiling ball of gases some ninety-three million miles away, known as the sun. The second was the sprinter Usain Bolt, whose homeland lies more than eight thousand miles away, in Jamaica, but who was now a hundred and thirty metres from where I sat. I was close to the finish line of the hundred-metre track, and he was at the start, awaiting his first heat of the Games, and going through his pre-race routine: glancing to the heavens and beating a brief tattoo, with his index fingers, on an invisible drum. He shimmied on the spot, revving his muscles, as all athletes like to do--the most febrile being Rafael Nadal, the young minotaur of the tennis circuit, who hops up and down, before every match, like a small boy in need of a pee. Bolt's nerves were less twitchy than that. Indeed, from this first heat up to the final, the following night, he seemed to be participating less in an Olympic sport than in a gargantuan party, which happened to have a sporting theme. My deepest fear was that he would break the world record and then test positive for rum and Coke.

Lane's first article is even better. Read 'em both (although it's a bit after-the-fact now).

Thanks to reader llimllib for pointing out the Women's 100m Final. Like the men's race, totally worth watching for Shelly-Ann Fraser's dominant performance, but even better is the joy she expresses in her post-race celebration and interview. Makes me happy just watching her.

• First, I have to express my awe at the 100 meter dash. If you didn't see it live, you must watch Usain Bolt's world record run. Sweet Mother of God. His semifinal heat looked like that too; so relaxed, coasting to victory. Imagine how much he would have beaten the record by if he hadn't started celebrating 15 meters (!) out. Also, definitely watch the super-slow-mo version. I love watching the timer count off the tenths in the background as he runs by, celebrating. Related, here's Tyson Gay's hamstring injury footage. It's like a NASCAR crash. I knew those guys generated tremendous power, but I didn't truly appreciate how much until watching it go very wrong. Looks nothing like one of my hamstring pulls. You'll be prompted to install Microsoft's Silverlight plugin to watch these. It's basically Microsoft Flash (like we needed another rich media format).
• Admit it, Phelps has you thinking about getting into the pool. Tim Ferriss has a good post up on the Total Immersion program: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too. My big obstacle is the inability to keep the water from going up my nose.
• Discover magazine: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Sports Technology.
• Science stuff. Modern Forager on what happens when you fast: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
• More science stuff. Lyle McDonald on leptin: Part 1 and Part 2. Much more complicated than some of the recent popular press stories imply.

• I first read about the Thai sport of takraw years ago, and then forgot all about it. Crazy athleticism, volleyball without hands, bicycle kick spikes, etc. YouTube has some takraw action (via Frostillicus).
• The guys at The Science of Sport have put together a wonderful montage to kick off the XXIX Olympiad. Really well done.

• Ross Enamait put up a compilation video. Every time I think I'm in shape, watching Ross reminds me how much more I could accomplish. Ross's videos always get me psyched for my next workout.
• On the lighter side, Average Athlete vs Olympic Athlete. Funny, but also really puts it into perspective. Those guys obviously aren't olympians, but they look pretty fit.
• Even lighter, the Tour de Donut. Mmmm... Donuts...

My favorite Olympic story so far. I love how the guy really doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.