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Beijing Olympics 2008
I didn't see a general thread out there to discuss the Olympics. So I thought I would make one. It's only about two days away!
I'm pretty excited about watching it with my kids. Hopefully they will get into them. |
The Women's Soccer tournament has already started, with 6 games already played. Men's Soccer starts tomorrow.
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Except that they started today. USA 0 - Norway 2 (women's soccer). Ew.
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How in the world did China get an Olympics?
China revokes visa of gold medalist, Darfur activist Cheek - Fourth-Place M... - Olympics - Yahoo! Sports "Olympic gold medalist and outspoken Darfur activist Joey Cheek has had his visa revoked by the Chinese embassy, hours before the speedskating champion was set to fly to China. And he wasn't even planning on wearing a mask when he got there. "Chinese officials don't need a reason to revoke anyone's visa but, in their eyes, they had plenty of reasons to snatch Cheek's. He is the founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes whose goal it is to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan. China's military, economic and diplomatic ties to Sudan have been well-publicized in the lead-up to the Games. |
I am hoping the China Olympics are a trainwreck for the sake of Schadenfreude.
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I used to be so psyched to watch the Olympics when I was a kid. But I find as I grow older, it holds less and less of an appeal to me. I wonder how much has to do with the state of international sports today, with so many international events now (and the accompanying TV media blitz), it's lost the thrill of a "once every four years" unique event for me. I will watch some of it, but by no means am I scheduling around certain events.
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Agree completely with tyketime and DC...I can't quite put my finger on what killed it for me. Maybe the constant "pending drug test results" so-and-so won or the constant political overtones that seem to overtake the true spirit of it all.
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I still like them and will watch a lot of it, but what has irritated me more and more each time is the incessant "USA USA USA" coverage -- when an event comes down to a 10 minute profile of the American entry and then maybe 10% of the contestants are shown actually competing.
I tend to watch the Canadian coverage more, but they're starting to do the same thing it seems..... |
I think the "human interest story" stuff is more perception than reality, at least for the 2006 and 2004. With more channels this year I think there'll be even less of that (just stay away from NBC in prime time, if possible).
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I remember it starting in the 70's and then getting steadily more annoying into the 90's. I think you're probably right about 06 and 04 being toned down from the peaks, but I'd still rather just watch the damn events.
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$$$$ |
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I'm 8 years older than you (give or take whether your profile is accurate), so we're not all that far apart in age but I've got an almost completely opposite feeling about it. It's the lack of the USA/USSR (and associated allies on both sides) that has pretty much killed my interest. Well that & the high percentage of events that I wouldn't look out my window to watch much less bother to choose over anything else on television. |
The USA/USSR battles did have a great us vs. them kind of feel, but now we are back closer to real sport. Aside from some of the major sports like basketball and soccer, we've got a bunch of people who have been training their whole lives for this one moment. Once it is over, their lives will probably change forever as they are forced to take on a new focus.
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So, is there anywhere that will tell you exactly WHEN events are happening? NBC's site just says "Women's Volleyball, somewhere between 9 AM and 9 PM" Thanks, NBC, I'll be sure to watch! :nuts:
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It's a funny thing though, the Olympics (to me). Sports like Handball for example I wouldn't even dream of watching outside of the Olympics, but as soon as something like a gold medal is up for grabs, it grabs my attention. It's only really team events and track and field stuff that I watch though. |
Pro athletes ruined it for me. How exciting was it to watch a bunch of college kids beat Team USSR? Awesome.
Now they want to dump baseball and softball. But they keep crap like ballroom dancing. And I looked all day for Olympic coverage and couldnt find it anywhere except UHD (some hi-def channel I dont get on directv.) Any help finding coverage would be great. |
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This is exactly it. I remember as a kid, you would always see the medal counts with the references to the USA vs the "Eastern Block" where East Germany, USSR, and a few other communist countries would be the "bad guys" and team USA was trumpeting the cause of democracy in every event that they won... Maybe it is the events in the world, or the disappearance of the cold war, or no strong rival such as the USSR was, but it just doesn't feel the same anymore. And lets face it, I just don't really care about men's gymnastics if there isn't some patriotic reason to watch it. |
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Agreed, always was built up as we were sending amateur athletes and the Eastern Bloc countries were grooming young men and women to win at all costs. There was always that big buildup of us vs. them. I have always preferred the winter games over the summer games as most of the winter games are not events that you see on tv everyday. |
The Olympics are only around so I can have hope to someday build toccer up enough to see it played in the Games. lol
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I like the winter games better too... but there are plenty of interesting summer games sports. I like most of the swimming events and short running events. Men soccer is usually fun (especially when you consider its the young, up and coming players).
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Winter Games > Summer Games
The thing that kills it for me is the style of the U.S. TV coverage. When I lived in the UK, I really enjoyed the BBC coverage, because they would actually, you know, show the competition. The BBC would flit from one event to another, each with their own play-by-play and color commentator (usually a former competitor) and they'd show a ton of the events. Even stuff like badminton which you never see on U.S. networks. You got a really good feel for the various sports and it was kept interesting. Compare this to NBC et. al., who it seems spends 50% or more of each hour with some sappy "human interest" story, almost solely focusing on a U.S. athlete, and then shoehorn in some events, almost always the "marquee" events. Completely uninteresting. |
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To be fair, the NBC coverage you're discussing is mostly found on the prime-time coverage each evening on the NBC network. They have several other channels that have coverage that is much more event oriented. For example, the HD Soccer and HD Basketball channels are just one game after another. The Universal HD channel has a lot of great events planned with minimal storytelling. As long as you steer clear of NBC in prime time, you should be pretty happy with the coverage. That evening coverage is catered to women, hence the stories to help the viewer be emotionally involved in the event. |
You can also watch stuff online this year (2,000 hours of stuff online v. 1,400 hours of TV).
You can watch 1st round badminton tomorrow night if you really wanted to. I'm pretty sure the people who are still stuck on the "human interst" angle haven't actually watched the Olympics since 1996. |
We'll be watching a lot as my adopted daughter will really enjoy seeing lots of shots/stories on China.
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Yeah, the "human interest" stories, while probably still too numerous, have been in steady decline since the 1990s. I don't really see them as that big of a problem anymore.
My real issue with the Olympics is that most of the major events will be shown on a severe tape delay. The nature of the modern Internet is such that it's almost impossible to avoid getting results spoiled. It's not as simple as, say, not going to a specific site or a specific thread. Because of the massiveness of the Olympics, you basically have to avoid your computer altogether, and even if you do that, ESPN will gleefully spoil everything without much if any warning if you happen to stumble on any of their zillions of channels. I think I would immensely enjoy an Olympics held in the U.S., but the time differential is the biggest obstacle for me. |
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That's definitely true for me. The coverage in the 90s really killed my interest entirely. With you guys saying that it improved a lot in recent Olympics I may make more of an effort to catch some events this year. |
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US-China has potential for a US-Soviet like medal race, but the problem is that the countries rarely go head to head. We're not producing Ping Pong players and outside of the one hurdler, they aren't producing Track athletes or swimmers. Women's gymnastics is the one huge showdown that I'm sure will dominate multiple nights of prime-time coverage. |
I wonder if I'm the only person who thought that massive drum thing in the opening ceremonies evoked memories of Germany in the 30's?
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Chinese National Anthem
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I am curious to see the "before the games" and "after the opening ceremonies" comments on this thread.
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I agree with JimGA - I'm not sure exactly what look China is going for with these opening ceremonies, but fascist, totatlitarian and monolithic are the words popping into my mind.
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Only thing saving them in my eyes are the Olympic Soccer & Basketball channels available in HD with individual game listings. |
Nice gimmick with the people inside there. I kind of saw it coming but it was still a well crafted moment
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While the "color commentary" of the opening ceremonies is driving me a bit nuts talking about the "cinematography" and the genius of Johnny Moe or somesuch, the opening ceremonies have been rather amazing.
Another note ... anyone notice Bush and Putin were sitting next to each other? They cut to a shot of them and they appeared to be somewhat animated. Does anyone know about the timeline of the Russian bomings in Georgia? Was Russia bombing Georgia during the ceremonies? |
Hey George, you havnt been watching TV today have you? no. Good...enjoy the show.
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I assume everything is done by humans. When we were in China there were people pushbrooming the freeways and standing for 12 hour shifts at the end of grocery aisles for questions. The volume of people is truly staggering and they just don't need to mechanize a lot of things we take for granted.
On a side note, and I'm not sure what this means, but my wife and I are engrossed while our Chinese daughter is much more interested in her Disney princess game. |
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The scheduling in blocks has always been an Olympic programming touch. While it certainly would be nice if the blocks where more specific and spliced up differently, but these are live sporting events and the schedules routinely get all shot to hell pretty quickly. Plus, unless you're awak in the middle of the night, all ove the coverage is going to be time delayed and edited so that an event that took an hour or two will take like four hours in editing. Swimming is going to be the star event of these games since they are essentially the only events that will take place live in U.S. prime time. |
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Here's a decent guide for online viewing to get proxies and other countries feeds - hxxp://valleywag.com/5034866/the-definitive-guide-to-watching-the-olympics-online |
That United Airlines spot (which I assume was a network buy that everybody just saw) was actually pretty creative.
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My heart swelled with pride when Bush checked his watch.
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And while I'm posting anyway, a couple of other things
1) Why do I have a sudden compulsion to watch this? 2) Djibouti !!! |
Adopted homeland of our own AE!
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Sounded like Iran was getting booed by a decent portion of the crowd. Haven't noticed that from any other country that's been announced so far.
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My son actually pointed out to me that Pakistan appeared to be getting booed earlier in the night (or, as he put it, "they're getting heel heat") |
I am sure my military and military sports background has everything to do with this, but this has to be an absolutely awesome feeling to be walking into that stadium as part of your country's Olympic team.
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I'm watching the Team Handball Prelims on NBCOlympics.com Fun stuff :)
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Thanks for the heads-up, Fozz. Team Handball is pretty cool! :)
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Just the sport and the crowd, no annoying announcers. I'll probably end up watching more online than I do on TV.
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Which seems to be weird since China and Pakistan are allies. Probably the Indians around the audience who are pissy :D. |
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Since then I've read a couple of accounts mentioning the warm reception that Pakistan got, so I guess we just misinterpreted the crowd response. |
Maybe the crowd was just chanting "Moooooooooslims!" or "Impeach Mooooosharraf"?
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Watching Live on NBCOlympics.com Looks like USA will have 3 of the 8 quarter finalists in Women's Sabre
(Sada Jacobsen, Mariel Zagunis and Becca Ward). Odds are good that USA will get an early medal, even gold? (Zagunis won the gold at the 2004 Olympics and is ranked #1 in the world, Ward won the 2006 Worlds Title, and Jacobsen won the bronze in 2004 at Athens), |
I watched Jacobson's and Ward's matches. Jacobson's was close, but Ward destroyed her opponent. I have no idea how good their opponents really were, though.
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(Each "discipline" of fencing is a one day, 64 fencer elimination tournament, matches are to 15 touches. Sabre's a bit wierd, as it's not ALWAYS first to touch their opponent, there's rules that once the opponent's launched an attack, you have to deal with it (parrying, or moving out of range) before launching your own.) |
And unlike epee or foil, you can use most of the sword (tip, front blade, top 1/3rd of the back) to score a point. In epee and foil, only the tip counts.
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Love the four in 1 video, have all four tuned to matches
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Zagunis is winning handily, but there's an injury on one of the other mats...
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Zagunis wins, 15-9 against the #3 fence in the world Yingying Bao. Got two shots at a medal there.
Edit:Jacobson wins 15-11, she's in the semifinals as well. Ward wins on a sudden death touch that takes the judge a minute to figure out and determine who had priority on the attack, 15-14. 3 USAers out of 4 in the semi finals. Great way to start the Olympics |
Semifinals will pit
Sada Jacobson (USA) Sofiya Velikaya (RUS) Zagunis (USA) Ward (USA) Semi-Finals, Bronze and Gold-Medal Matches will not start until 7 AM Eastern |
I tried watching all 4 like you said, but those videos were small. I couldn't make out the scores. I edned up watching most of the Jacobson match and the end of the Ward match.
Looks like there is a long break until the Semis (meaning I'll be asleep when they start). I wonder if there is a way to go to the video of the matches (if they'll save them) before knowing the results. (Looks like they might show it on USA at some point tomorrow morning. TiVo to the rescue again!) |
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Spectacular. I just bought my first HDTV, and the opening ceremony was simply amazing to watch. |
I like what I am hearing. The past 8 years this board has been very tough on the Olympics. When it gets going, it seems people get pulled in and become advocates. It seems it's one of those things that is more fun to be a part of than just thinking about it.
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Female Sabre Semi and Finals will be on MSNBC at 3pm
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(BEIJING) Beijing authorities say a Chinese man attacked two American tourists on the opening day of the Olympic Games, killing one of them before committing suicide.
The Beijing Municipal Government says the attack happened in downtown Beijing at noon on Saturday. Officials issued a statement saying the 47-year-old attacker, Tang Yongming, also injured an American woman and her Chinese tourist guide. The attack took place on the second level of the Drum Tower, a popular tourist attraction in north Beijing. Tang threw himself from the ancient monument used to tell time centuries ago. -------------------------------------- Wonderful |
Question: It might be a bit late now, but what's the stance on "spoiling events"
For example, the semis and the finals of the Sabre competition will air at 7 AM on NBCOlympics.com, should I avoid saying the results here for those of you who want to watch the medal matches at 3 PM on MSNBC? |
Sabre finals have begun. Results in spoiler tags.
Spoiler
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Can you imagine how much the Chinese spin doctors must be freaking out right now about that stabbing? NOT the image you want to put out there when hosting the world, trying to show you're not the bad guys.
Actually, I wonder if that's part of why this guy did it. :eek: |
Nice, first gold medal for Spain! (we were favorites so not big surprise)
Spoiler
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US women not doing too hot against Japan in Volleyball. I hope they pull it out as this is probably my favorite Olympic sport to watch. Gotta say Japan is putting on a show, though.
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I remember last time that once it was on tv, we could talk about it, but not until. Now that we have spoiler tags, it should probably be in there. That said, I don't know how anyone else feels about that but it seems reasonable. SI |
Woman's beach volleyball just makes me want to whip it out and spank it. I love uniforms from Victoria's Secret and celebrations that could be on the Playboy Channel. :popcorn:
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Fencing SUCKS! The Olympics are GARBAGE! Here's my myspace blog about it:
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Your blog fucking suck ass. Fencing is great.
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Ugh, I turned on MSNBC at 3 and it wasn't on. The chick on CNBC lied to me last night. |
Why do the fencers shriek when they're hit? That was a little startling at first - I thought she got stabbed right through the armor.
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I thought some of the fencing girls were kind of cute.
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dude. your blog said handball and fencing suck?
GTFO |
I was a bit disappointed by the fencing as well. I was hoping for a bit more defense and back-and-forth action. There is probably nuance that I am unaware of, but I didn't get the feeling that I was looking at world-class talent.
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Going to be tough. Watching sports live online and not talking about it, not really knowing when they will be broadcast on TV... Maybe have two threads? One with spoilers (free to talk about live online stuff) and one without (the one to go to just to talk about stuff on TV)? Either way, doesn't really matter to me. Extensive use of spoiler tags would probably be enough. |
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I'm not an expert on fencing (or even a novie or causal fan), but with the rules being different for Sabre and Foil and Epee, you might get more back and forth with Foil and Epee since only strikes with the tip of the sword count. |
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Probably the best option. |
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I'm hoping this is the case. I want to like fencing, but I just couldn't get into it this morning. |
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Oh, dude. You're so wrong...fencing is terrible. It's a lame "sport" for lame rich people. Watching the gold medal match was ridiculous. I can't believe someone won a gold medal for that. If I was her family, I couldn't even pretend to be excited. And just imagine, her family is going to have to watch that ridiculous dog and pony show at every holiday dinner. "Hey, aren't you Becky's new husband? Wanna watch my Gold Medal match from Beijing?" "Oh, wow! Yeah, you got a gold medal? That's AMAZING! Let's totally watch it!" "Ok, you're about to have a mindgasm!" (the video plays, and finishes..Becky's husband responds) "So you won the gold medal! Now, if you could be so kind as to tell me WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT BULLSHIT?" That is so not a sport. It's garbage. I'm convinced that the gold medal winner could go on a 20 year bender of booze and clove cigs, and come back and at least medal. |
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Handball could have been ok...I was just waking up when I watched the handball. I'll give it a pass. The fencing...yeah...no! |
I will quote MJ4H
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Olympics just ain't for you. |
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I enjoy many olympic sports, particularly the ones that display feats of athleticism. Swimming, track and field, hell, I even respect gymnastics. Maybe I'm just jealous. I was a great tag player as a child, but my mom couldn't afford to buy me a sword. ISiddiqui, you'd probably like the movie Stay Tuned, starring John Ritter..he brought the joy of fencing to inner city youths after he escaped a nightmare alternate, television-based reality. BTW, yes, I always turned that movie off when he started trying to make like D'Artagnan. Why don't the olympics just have paintball duels while their at it? 20 paces and then turn and fire your paintball. |
So anyway, back to the olympics now?
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they do have shooting. Just not with paintballs and at other people. |
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I was hoping someone could, you know...maybe TELL ME about the finer points of fencing? I'm only calling it out in the hopes of being proven wrong, like any good scientist (I am not a scientist) |
Three Americans standing on the pedestals? Why even waste the jet fuel taking them to Beijing? Just do this in Valdosta, Georgia...the true titletown.
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Just let me know when USA Men's Basketball play.
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FWIW, that's not at all how your blog post read. Anyway, they are showing the fencing semi-finals and finals on MSNBC now. |
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I thought the fencing fans would be a little less sensitive, what with the participants being STABBED WITH SWORDS! |
For anyone who would like to see what the sun can do to your skin, check out the beach volleyball finals on right now.
EDIT: errr..this probably isn't the finals.. |
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+1 |
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And depending on where you are the USA HD might not actually be temporary... :cool: |
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Please be joking. |
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