Our Favorite Olympic Athletes (so far)_ One of Four

Wow! A blog entry about a tweet from 2008 women's American Olympic gymnast Shawn Jonson has drawn very, very hits so far. Hopefully, that will not be the case with this one.

We are looking at some of our favorite Olympic athletes. Today, we start with American male athletes, but we will also include international athletes as well:

1) Tony Azevedo, 31, water polo, Long Beach, Calif. (was born in Brazil), Stanford University (pictured top): The United States water polo captain is one of many American athletes born on foreign soil, but fortunately even fringe right-wingers will accept athletes representing the United States irregardless of where their birth certificate is from. Team America (3-2) faces an uphill challenge as they lost to Hungary 11-6 yesterday. They lost by the same score earlier to Serbia. This result will pit the United States against Croatia (5-0) in the quarter-finals. Azevedo is part of the team that won silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

2) Justin Gatlin, 30, sprinter, Brooklyn, NY, University of Tennessee (pictured center)_ Gatlin who won gold in the 100-meter relay at the 2004 Athens Olympics, had the misfortune of running against the legendary Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt who has won the same event in the last two Olympics during the current summer games (Gatlin did not participate in Beijing). Gatlin raced the event in an impressive 9.79 seconds. Bolt's Jamaican teammate Yohan Blake took silver in the 100-meters. The National Zoo in Washington, DC, named a male cheetah cub after Gatlin.

3) Richard Lambourne, 37, indoor volleyball, Louisville, Kentucky, Brigham Young University (pictured below)_ Lambourne who has played professionally in Belgium, Greece and Poland is the libero of a so far undefeated United States team that won gold in 2008, and last defeated Tunisia.

4) Ryan Lochte, 28, Daytona Beach, Florida, University of Florida_Lochte has had both the fortune and misfortune of being on the same national swimming team as Michael Phelps. But, Lochte will leave London with two golds, two silvers and one bronze medal.

5) Chris Paul, 27, Winston-Salem, NC, Wake Forest University_ Paul is a local hero in the Winston-Salem area where he went to high school at West Forsyth, where we imagine his number is retired. Yesterday, Paul, who now plays for the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA, scored 17 points in Team America's 126-97 win over Argentina, in which the United States only had a one-point lead at half-time against an Argentinian which has beat them in a shocking semi-final result at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

6) Galen Rupp, 26, track (10,000-meters), Portland, Oregon, University of Oregon_ Rupp won silver in the 10,000-meter race finishing second to Mo Farah of Great Britain on Saturday.

http://www.usawaterpolo.org

http://www.gostanford.com

http://www.usatf.org

http://www.usavolleyball.org

http://www.teamusa.org

http;//www.nationalzoo.si.org

http://wfu.edu