The Front Row with Tim Dahlberg April 23, 2012

One hundred days out from the Olympics and, finally, last week came some news we can use. U.S. Olympic officials trotted out the official team attire for the games, and everyone seemed pretty excited about the Ralph Lauren line that will make America's team look like it just stepped off a 1920s steamship in London.

Rest assured, though, red-blooded men of the world. Skimpy bikinis will still be the uniform of the day among most contestants in women's beach volleyball, despite new rules that allow contestants to be, shall we say, a bit more modestly dressed.

HERE ARE some things a die-hard Olympic fan - I'm talking about the kind who can't live without constantly checking U.S. medal counts - can look forward to in London:

BADMINTON: Lindanity! China's Lin Dan, considered the greatest badminton player of all time, goes for a second straight Olympic gold. His main rival, Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia, seeks to stop him. Let the shuttlecocks fly!

BOXING: Just when you thought the sport couldn't get any sillier, a decision to allow women to compete sparked a debate over how they should dress. Worth watching to see if a BBC report pans out after alleging Azerbaijan paid bribes in exchange for two gold medals.

ATHLETICS: This used to be track and field, but there's no cachet anymore in being the shot put or javelin gold medalist. Usain Bolt will be fun to watch, but that takes up about 30 seconds. Four words of wisdom: Bring back the mile.

SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING: Esther Williams is credited with helping make this a sport with her elaborate swim movies from 60 years ago. Still, hours of hilarity can ensue while watching women hold their breath upside-down under water. They dropped the solo event after the 1992 Olympics after no one could figure out who the swimmers were synchronizing with.

BASKETBALL: What's not to like about a team of NBA superstars playing for nothing but a gold medal, national pride, and a chance to sell shoes to an international market? To think, we once sent college kids to do this job.

BEACH VOLLEYBALL: For some, this could be the most entertaining sport to watch in the 62,432 or so hours of television and online streaming being brought to you by NBC. It will certainly be the most eye-catching - outdoors and right in the center of the political heart of Britain. Hello, Prime Minister! Then again, it could rain the whole time.

RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS: It's rhythmic, kind of. It's gymnastics, sort of. But mostly it's just the kind of thing that should be watched at your own peril and only every four years. You know, kind of like golf when it becomes an Olympic sport in Rio.

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org or twitter.com/timdahlberg