The Official Olympics Thread
 

Hey all,

As we're all sure to be following the Olympics, I thought I'd start a thread to focus our discussion a bit. In the same way that "wacky news" has its own thread because, beyond "wow, that is weird," it doesn't generate much discussion... sporting events can be a little, "Alex Despatie rocked! Woohoo!" And, yes, that was a Canadian example. Sue me.

The point is this, for the moment (we can always change things up later, as events progress and news emerges), I thought we could focus our Olympics discussion on one thread.

So, what are everyone's thoughts on the Games so far? What events are you looking forward? Which athletes are you keeping an eye on?

What a great idea, Sunny. Thanks!

Unfortunately, we've had our first casualty of the Beijing Olympics:

U.S. coach's kin killed in China attack - Beijing Olympics News - MSNBC.com

Relative of U.S. coach killed in Beijing attack

BEIJING - A knife-wielding Chinese man attacked two relatives of a coach for the U.S. Olympic men’s volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing, killing one and injuring the other on the first day of the Olympics on Saturday, team officials and state media said.

The man then committed suicide by throwing himself from the second story of the site, the 13th century Drum Tower just five miles from the main Olympics site.

The brutal attack shortly after midday was all the more shocking because of the rarity of violent crime against foreigners in tightly controlled China, which has ramped up security measures even more for the Olympics.
Story continues below ↓

I didn't post the whole article so please click the link if you wish to read the entire thing. This is really unfortunate but sadly not surprising. I hope there won't be any more events like this.

I always do enjoy the Opening Ceremonies because of the usual color, pageantry, the parade of Nations etc. Last night I thought the scroll and the dancers "painting' on the LED screen was pretty cool as well as the performers walking around the globe.

As for the lighting of the Olympic flame - it was good but I honestly thought it went on too long. Not taking anything away from the skill and physicality of that athlete in doing what he did but after awhile it made me dizzy just looking at him. My personal favorite was in 1992 in Barcelona. I believe it was an archer on the Spanish team who lit the torch by shooting an arrow into it. It was short, sweet and boom - it was one of those wow moments.

When I heard about the stabbing I thought it was a terrorist attack. There's a lot of reasons why I don't think China should have been awarded these Olympics and this is an awful way to start these Games but honestly in America we live with crimes like this everyday. It's a terrible tragedy and hopefully the volleyball team can come to grips with it as much as possible.

I thought the opening ceromony was good, but i feel like the only person in the world not bowled over by it. All i keep reading is how it was the greatest opener and how London better step up their game (I'm not sure how people know what they'd got planned to step up from mind?), but i really wasn't as wowed as i was by Sydney, or Athens. Especially not considering the money and suffering gone into it.

As unpopular opinion it may be, London, as you were the country to start the parade of Nations, please be the country who finishes it. It's too long. I actually hope London cut their opener down and make a new tradition, it's been getting far too long over the years.

Hey, no one's forcing anyone to watch it. I really enjoy watching all the teams pass by, and it gives all teams an opportunity to be recognized, especially the smaller ones that may not receive any recognition in individual sports. Besides, as more countries get involved, the parade will get longer. I'm hoping to see an Iraq team in the London games myself.

Hey, I'm American and I love him too, so it's all good. :lol:

I thought it was a great opener, truly magical. However, did anyone else find the 'Go Green' section hypocritical? An important message, no doubt. But well, dont China have 16 of the worlds 20 most polluted cities?

I too wish everyone would stop instantly writing London off though. It's a beautiful city and i know there more than capable of putting on a hell of a show.

Next Olympics will be in my neck of the woods Vancouver :woot:

That happens at every Olympics though, after Sydney people were saying 'beat that Athens' and after Athens people were saying China couldn't do better. People are always caught up in the most recent hosting nation. It's the nature of the game.

I have to say that what bothers me the most though, is how people seem to have forgotten the human rights issues and pushed the plight for Tibet aside because of the display Bejing put on. I'm dissapointed in how fickle some people have become.

I tried to watch the opening ceremonies in their entirety, I really did. But I got bored. I'm sorry, I thought a lot of it was very impressive (then again, considering they have no workers' rights to speak of over there, you would assume it'd be impressive)... but it went on for so long.

And the NBC anchor team who did the talking while it was happening were NOT helping. "Here, the Chinese are dancing over a depiction of papyrus, representing China's desire to turn over a new leaf and present a new image to the world." Hm, right. And it had NOTHING to do with the fact that China invented paper.

Also, didn't appreciate how, a whole freaking hour into the national delegations, they totally snubbed the Canadian delegation. "And here come the Canadians.. as we go to break."

Bleh. No offense to Matt Lauer and whomever that was who was talking with him.

On related news, the episode of Ghost Whisperer that was airing against it was really good, even if I'd already seen it.

No, some people actually think the opening ceremony for the Olympic games in Athens was better. It's all a matter of opinion, of course.

It takes courage to watch the Beijing Olympics in its entirety. That's like 6 to 7 hours each day. I caught the Women's weightlifting yesterday and although the U.S. wasn't in it, I applauded Xiu Chen of China for winning the gold and setting a new world record. Lifting 260 pounds isn't easy on a female. :lol:

Gah! I was watching our president (*cringe*) talking on the Olympics today, and something he said was "I don't see America having problems."

*sigh* Isn't it ridiculous when the person asking the questions is smarter than the person answering them?

Also, I heard a rumour about how some of the people for China might be extremely underage and how they're lying about their age to compete. Thoughts?

So far I haven't found myself enjoying the coverage of the games as much as when the games where f. e. in Sydney or Athens. The spark isn't there yet, I'm going to blame that on the ongoing humans right issues, which are always in my thoughts - and I refuse to forget about them during the Olympics.

Furthermore, when I was watching some coverage of the men's and women's cycling competition yesterday, all I could think was 'How do they even breathe with all this smog?'

I mean, it looked like you could cut the air with a knife, even with the rain pouring down during the women's race. China is promoting the games as the 'green games' - can't say I've seen much of that yet. Of course that's a rather small problem compared to all the human rights issues, but if it looks like this when they've closed down a massive amount of plants and limit the traffic, I don't want to know what it looks like on a regular - non-olympic - day in Beijing.

Really?

Swimming has been really exciting.

Olympic fireworks faked for television. The article is here. Basically, the footprint fireworks weren't real. They were a 3d computer image.