The Loudest Cheer?

By my ears, the loudest cheers were for Kobe, Yao and LeBron, in that order. The Kobe part of this list is unquestionable. He clearly is the biggest deal on that court, according to the crowd at the cleverly named Olympic Basketball Gymnasium.

The Bushes are sitting with Jerry Colangelo, the architect of USA basketball, and Yang Jiechi, the Chinese foreign minister, among others.

And the Chinese national anthem was an impressive bit of group singing. During the Star Spangled Banner, on the other hand, it was hard to hear any voices. The Presidential party appeared on the Jumbotron exactly as the anthem ended to cheers, so it was hard to tell if fans were cheering for Bush or cheering for Team USA.