Who To Watch: USA

Chitown Chick and I are going to interrupt your regularly scheduled Hump Day Hottie post for more Olympic goodness. CC and I were talking last week and we thought doing a watch list of all the athletes the general public haven’t heard about would be fun. We’re going to start off with the USofA (CC will be bringing you the world). Everyone knows about the US Men’s basketball team, Michael Phelps, and Ladies… favorite Ryan Lochte. And that’s fine and good. But do you know of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss? They’re rowers who finished second at the Olympic trials earlier this year and won gold at the Pan American Games in 2007.

So let’s look at a few more athletes the United States is sending who you should be getting up early and watching before heading out to work. Or your daily three hour “writing” time at Starbucks. Not that I would know anything about that type of stuff. Yeah.

Tony Azevedo, Water Polo

Azevedo previously attended two previous Olympics (’00 and ’04) and had the second highest goal total in the ’04 Games. He is the captain of this year’s Olympic squad, which won gold at last year’s PanAm Games.

Ryan Reser, Judo

Reser is a four time national champion, winning the past two years. He has participated in two world championships and won five gold medals at the recent PanAm Games. He was an alternate the past two Olympics.

Scott Gault, Rowing

Scott is a multiple NCAA champion while at the University of Washington. He had several fourth place finishes the past few years, but won a world championship this year and finished second at the US National Selection Regatta to qualify for the Olympics. This is his first games.

Demetrius Andrade, Boxing

A Golden Gloves champion in 2006 and 2007, Andrade won the 2007 World Championships. He won the Olympic Trials in his weight class to go to Beijing.

Cullen Jones, Swimming

Just the third black swimmer ever to represent the US, Jones will be swimming in the 400-meter medley relay and the 400-meter freestyle relay in which he was a member of the record breaking 2007 US team at the PanAm Games.

Sadam Ali, Boxing

Ali is a two time Golden Gloves receipent. He won all four of his matches at the Olympic Trials, although he had already qualified for the Olympics with a semifinal win at the Americas Qualifiers in March. He won silver at an Olympic test event in Beijing last November.

Jason Rogers, Fencing

Rogers was a member of the 2004 Olympic Team. He won bronze individually in sabre at the 2003 PanAm Games and gold as a member of the US team. He’s ranked 24th in the world. He also won two NCAA championships while at (sigh) Ohio State.

So there you go. A few athletes you should be watching the next two weeks. Any other US athletes we should be keeping an eye on? Please share. The more, the merrier.