I love watching the Olympics too. What I hate (I have to hate something) is that NBC doesn't let you watch online unless you have cable. (We're one of the Cable-Cutter families!) We can get the Olympics on our tv via over-the-air antenna and they look awesome on our HDTV. We don't have a recorder though, and have missed a LOT of stuff.
I've gotten up as early as 3:30 a.m. here and have still missed stuff.
My husband wanted to catch the women's soccer games and hasn't been able to see the recent ones because we can't watch the old games freely. They're done! Let everyone see them. Why do you have to pay for cable just to see these games online? If you do have cable, it's likely you may have a DVR from your cable company as well and can tape what you want to see. Doesn't make sense to me.
Anyway you're right about Phelps being one of the greatest highlights of these games. These swimming competitions are about the only thing that sticks out for me this year. Gymnastics Gabby is cute and did great for team and all around, but she blew it last night (wobbly and whoopsie there was a little fall on the beam there). I loved seeing a bit of the martial arts and loved the kayak races. I hate the volleyball and have seen way too much of that recently and not enough of the other stuff.