A Gay Viewer's Guide to the Beijing Olympics

Most underrated sport for Americans
Badminton in the U.S. usually involves playing a friendly backyard game against an uncle, beer in hand. Competitive badminton, though, takes amazing coordination and athleticism. Shuttlecocks can be served at up to 200 mph. Asian countries tend to dominate the sport with badminton matches getting front-page play in countries like Indonesia.

Event not to miss: It’ll be tough to find badminton coverage on TV, but NBCOlympics.com will have the mixed doubles and men’s doubles finals early morning Aug. 16. For our money, the doubles are even better than the singles.

Coolest team sport you never heard of
The only team sport in which the U.S. doesn’t have a team at the Olympics is team handball (yes, handball). Very popular in Europe, handball is played by seven players per side (including a goalie) and involves bouncing and throwing a small ball through a goal. If you enjoy watching athletic Swedes and Germans, handball is your sport. In 2004, NBC showed many matches in their entirety.

Event not to miss: On Aug. 10, the 2004 men’s gold medallists from Croatia play early in the morning on NBC. The men’s gold medal will be decided in the early morning of Aug. 24 on USA Network.

Most gender-confused Olympic sport
The coxless pairs rowing. Sounds painful.

Event not to miss: There are so many rowing events, it’s hard to pick just one. Rowing events take place virtually daily from Aug. 9-18.

New friends, waiting on Facebook
With so many Olympians being high school and college-age, it’s no surprise that you can find many on Facebook. See somebody you’d like to say hi to? Go for it. You can find diving buddies Thomas Finchum (who logs on regularly) and David Boudia, cyclist Taylor Phinney, swimmers Garrett Weber-Gale, Nathan Adrian, and Luca Marin, Gymnast Raj Bhavsar, and many more.

Diver and Facebook fan Thomas Finchum

Photo credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Event not to miss: Finchum and Boudia will compete in the 10m platform synchronized diving, and the gold medal will be awarded in primetime Aug. 11 on NBC.

Rain is the least of their worries
If you tune in to an event and wonder why it’s been postponed, chances are it wasn’t rain. The Chinese claim to have a system that will destroy clouds and prevent rain from falling on the opening or closing ceremonies.

If only they had a system to get rid of the pollution that threatens to postpone events. How serious is the pollution problem? Just two weeks before the Games, on July 27, visibility in the city was reportedly just a few hundred meters and some Track and Field athletes are reportedly doing shorter events for fear of damaging their lungs.