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Basically, America is the most populous wealthy nation with a long history in the games. Having read a book written by an economist about why certain national soccer teams do well (this), I think the theory can be applied to the Olympics. The economist identified three important factors for international sporting success:

• Population
  
• Wealth
  
• Experience at the sport (which results in pre-existing facilities and coaches etc)
  
  If you look at India, which has a large population, it has no real experience at competing successfully at the Olympics. Basically, the only sport Indians care about is cricket. Whereas the US has been in the modern Olympics from the start.
  
  If you look at China and Russia, they have the experience and big populations, but are quite poor countries compared to the US. An even more extreme example would be; how many people in Uganda do you think can afford high spec road bikes to train on?
  
  Lastly, compared to countries like Great Britain and France, which are wealthy and have a long history at the games, the US has a much bigger population. It may only be 5% of the world population, but it is still the third most populous country.
  
  If you look at medals tables adjusted for population and GDP, both can be seen here or here, the US isn’t near the top. Then again, I would argue that athletes from countries in the Caribbean often benefit from training in the US, with its per-existing sports infrastructure and wealth – which these charts don’t adjust for. Also, European and Australasian countries will have large scale sports programs despite their smaller sizes, so that they are more likely to find talent despite their smaller populations. Nevertheless, the US does benefit from its large population, but it still captured 11% of the medals compared to having 5% of the world’s population, so I guess the rest is down to wealth and experience.
  
  I suppose this is why the Olympic organizing committee says that there is no official medal ranking, because the medals are given for individual achievements. If someone from Latvia won a medal, it is as much down to their hard work and dedication, as anything else. The Olympics is about humanity coming together to celebrate sport, this is why non-medalists, such as the Iranian judo player/fighter(?) Wojdan Shaherkani, embody the Olympic spirit as much as Usain Bolt.
  
  Now let’s all hold hands and cry because David Rhodesia is so polite…
  

Here ye go:

DVD

Blu-ray

Note these are both Region 2

Also of note:
"It was the Olympic Games we’ll never forget and this Official London 2012 release will ensure we relive every golden memory. Featuring over nine hours of footage, it marks some of the best of the BBC’s Olympic coverage including the amazing successes from Team GB, and the key moments from the rest of the games. In addition to this it will also include, highlights from Danny Boyle’s unforgettable opening ceremony and the musical extravaganza of the closing ceremony. "

So it may be a little GB-heavy for foreign fans and it may miss bits of the ceremony.

Honestly, a somewhat dumb, but really fun book is The Olympics Most Wanted. It's a book full of insane, strange, and funny top 10s through the olympics' history, and is one of my favorites.

The Canadian Streams are always high quality, and I think there are ways to make it look like you are in Canada to get past the restrictions.

Other options, maybe a relative or roommates relative has satellite and you can explain the pickle you're in and can borrow their satellite login email and password. It doesn't affect anything else other than getting you past the stupid timer so I've found. NBC streams haven't been so bad this year.

Universities or coffee shops closeby sometimes have satellite TVs set up, look around, they usually have NBC primetime at very least.

Grab an antenna that you can plug into your computer to pick up tv signals. They're pretty cheap now. Again, kinda stuck with primetime options here too, but it's something.

My experience this year has been better than most, though it took some setup.

• I started by learning about each of the sports and making a list of what days and times the things I was interested in would be happening
  
  
• Then I borrowed a login from Grandma
  
  
• uBlock Origin helped with banner ads, and manually cleaning up some of the weird page elements, but the video ads only got blocked when I added a r/Pihole to my network.
  
  So now, if I'm up at 5a I can watch r/curling narrated by a late night jazz radio host live with, at most, the occasional two second "Commercial Break" splash screen. If I sleep in I just watch the streams as I want, and try to avoid spoilers.
  
  I haven't bothered with primetime, so I don't get the bad commentators, I don't see any ads, I can skip the parts that are slow, and I have thus far watched everything I've wanted to from the comfort of my bed. But it did take some setup.

I own How to Watch the Olympics: The Essential Guide to the Rules, Statistics, Heroes, and Zeroes of Every Sport. Note that the edition I have is the same inside but has a very different looking cover.

It's structured as a reference guide, with a section on every Olympic sport explaining the rules of the sport, but it's also fun just to dip into randomly and read about a random sport you don't know much about. Many facts and figures and explanations of the rules of each sport, but also some quirky anecdotes.

It's probably not exactly what you're looking for, with much of its historical information being firmly of the "trivia/anecdotes" kind.

That would definitely help - it's what Kathryn Bertine did. But it's not enough to be the best in the country. You'd also have to reach the Olympic qualifying standards. The only exceptions are the wildcard spots for IOC development nations.

Edit: I also forgot about the spots for the host nations. Sadly OP has missed the Vancouver and London Games, and neither Canada nor the UK will host the Olympics again for a long time.

I'm watching and recording the Olympics on my iMac using this and a powered ATSC antenna like this (but I think it's sold for like $30 at Target).

There's a 2 disc pre-order on AMUK due 29th October. Not sure how much footage they'll include:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/London-2012-Olympic-Games-DVD/dp/B008T5M4O8/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/London-2012-Olympic-Games-Blu-ray/dp/B008VSHXEE/
http://www.bbcshop.com/sport/london-2012-olympic-games-dvd/invt/bbcdvd3745/

Although Danny Boyle says he is going to release a special edition of the opening ceremony showcasing things that might have slipped you by in the original broadcast.

I don't know if they used it for this event, but I did see some track cameras - basically, it's a camera on a rail that can move horizontally. Like this with a camera on it and longer.

I feel like "a body of water" == "a piece of flat land", and an olympic sized pool == a regulation, lined soccer field with properly sized nets. You can learn to swim anywhere (and most swimmers don't grow up or always train in swimming in olympic sized pools, which is more than double the length of a regulation high school/college pool, although they do have blocks and walls), just like you can learn soccer anywhere. And open water swimming is an olympic event, as long as you can find some way to mark the distance.

Semi-related: here's a book about some rando kids who learned to swim in a ditch, and ended up at the olympics. Full disclosure, I only read the back and the first chapter, and I wasn't drawn into the book, so I don't really know how their story shakes out.

Looks like the entire program is available for download... check out how much of it was Underworld!

http://www.amazon.com/Isles-Of-Wonder-Opening-Ceremony/dp/B008QAYB4W/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343610149&sr=301-1

It's available on DVD. I have it.

Olympia: The Complete Original Version (The Leni Riefenstahl Archival Collection) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FQJA2S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_TBJYDb7HPD5PP

I think they are just waiting to get it all together on one DVD. I don't know if it will be available to download as well:

http://www.bbcshop.com/sport/london-2012-olympic-games-dvd/invt/bbcdvd3745/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/London-2012-Olympic-Games-DVD/dp/B008T5M4O8

Presumably it will made available for international customers to order or from other stockists.

You can order DVDs and books from Amazon.co.uk and have them delivered to the US. The shipping is generally not outrageous.

Rio 2016 Olympic Games [Blu-ray] https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KOOXGMK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_GxMLybC9GY4G9

You can get it from iTunes or Amazon!

This is very true. It has one of the lowest injury rates of any sport according to Starting Strength.