What's the best Olympic sport?

I really like to watch relays, whether they be swimming or running.  It's exciting because with individual races, there's always the chance for a comeback, but more often the person who gets out to a lead wins the race.  With a relay when you've got 4 different people jumping in, there's always a chance for lead changes and sudden exciting changes like that.  Plus it involves teamwork, which I like.

Also good is gymnastics, of course :-)

I'm with Dana on the entire racing thing.  Anytime it's a team or individual trying to get from A to B faster than someone else, I really enjoy it.  Track is awesome, the swimming is exciting and I also really enjoy the rowing (I'm biased because I rowed all through high school).  I really enjoy the Water Polo too.  I get tired just watching it.  And of course, gymnastics does rule.

I think I prefer longer events like the road cycling because the lead can change so much. That said, I do enjoy the swimming and rowing. I also secretly love the final rounds of the weight lifting.

I was telling nitedreamer that it's very different to watch the Olympics here. New Zealand only wins a handful of medals, so every time someone is in a final the entire country comes to a halt. Although I will admit to being pretty pumped to see the Mens 4*100m relay the other night. :)

I appreciate the willingness to give gymnastics a nod. I'm INCREDIBLY biased, but I have to go with gymnastics as well. I just got back from Beijing and while I was there I went to men's gymnastics (3 sessions), Men's Volleyball, Women's Beach Volleyball, Men's Water Polo, and Track and Field.

I had an amazing time at the track events - just like Dana said, all the events are incredibly exciting. I couldn't care any less about the Women's Heptathalon generally, but you wouldn't have known it by how I was yelling at the event. Also, the bird's nest stadium is the most beautiful stadium I've ever been in.

On the other hand, I couldn't help but to be struck by the narrow nature of some of the track sports. For example, I religiously watch the 100m sprint races and respect them as athletes, but there's just not that much to it. For those people, it's a full time job...9.69 seconds. The analogy I drew was that it would be like gymnastics being turned into an iron cross contest. Instead, there are 6 distinct events (for men, 4 for women) that all require a relatively discrete set of skills.

Anyway, that's all for now...I'd love counter arguments

That's a good point about the diversity in some sports (i.e. gymnastics, or some of those swimmers who do a bunch of different strokes) vs. the narrow focus of others (i.e. running in a straight line as fast as you can for 10 seconds).

Did you have an opinion about the gymnastics judging, Deej?  For example, last night I watched some of the women's individual event competitions, and one of the Chinese gymnasts landed on her knees on her second vault, yet still got the bronze over a bunch of gymnasts with pretty good landings.  I thought that was kind of ridiculous.