[Tournament] 2008 Olympic Games discussion thread

I'm guessing that up until the Games begin on August 8, 2008, half of the posts in this thread (including this one) could belong in the Political Palace.

The debate about China being a good host was obviously short for the bidding committee, which wasted no time saying "yes" to an Olympics based in Beijing. Obviously their concerns weren't with the air quality or general sanitation, let alone the continued oppression of the Tibetan people and of free speech in general. While I'm certainly inclined to believe that any country would be a fitting host for an international athletic competition, considering the IOC accepted Beijing's bid practically out of hand (over Paris?) the country's longstanding political issues related to the incumbent Communist regime must certainly have not been an issue.

The issue here, of course, is that the Olympics were never a political event, nor were they meant to be. It's just that political events have a way of occurring during the Olympics (1972), happening around the Olympics (1980, 1984) or just using the Olympics as a political fulcrum or for propaganda (1936). The issue here is that the Olympics are supposed to be free from politics and simply to promote freedom and peace in general, which is of course how the "Free Tibet" crowd is spinning it. I can't say I blame them for trying, but there aren't enough boos, hisses, whistles and jeers in the world for the blatantly obvious timing of these protests. Where were you guys in 2000, before Beijing was even picked to host?

So, of course, now a few countries (France, in particular) are kicking around the idea of protesting part or all of the Olympics, which will never happen. Look, you guys shot yourselves in the foot by ALLOWING China to host the Olympics, now suck it up and play along. Boycotting the Olympics is the saddest mistake any country would make, because you are politicizing something that doesn't deserve it.

As for the athletics, I'm always excited to catch the Olympics if it's on, but considering that the Red Sox and Athletics are playing two baseball games in Japan that start at 6:05AM EDT, I would be doubtful to catch anything live. Though my understanding is that, as usual, these Olympics will be the most widely covered yet, including some pretty widespread Internet coverage. I'm most excited about Michael Phelps trying to destroy some Olympic records for number of gold medals won.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yeah, yeah, we all hate the Olmypics. Crass corporatism, done deals, statefaggotry, all that.

But what bit do we invariably end up watching at the expense of the other: the tastelessly high-budget TV event, or the otherwise low-key sporting-excellence-olympic-ideals stuff that (for our information!) goes on for whole fortnight after opening night?

Apart from the problem of us, the other problem is flags. The games can bever be politics-free because the modern movement's centred around nations. In order to make it politics-free you'd have to inject a new level of corporate participation that would make NFL look as grassroots and organic as a school fete.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Can't wait for the boxing part, interested in seeing how Cuba and Russia are gonna box. Russia has been working on a much more active style and the Cubans are well... Cubans. Other countries have also developed and I dont think Cuba wil ltake as many medals as they used to. Also interested too see how China perform overall.

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My eyes will be on Michael Phelps. He's only, what, 24? And he's only 4 gold medals away from having the most of any athlete ever. (He needs 11 medals overall to break that record, which I guarantee he'll do in London.)

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Incredibly, I have never heard of Michael Phelps until about a week ago. I didn't even realize Ian Thorpe had retired.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Anyone know what the deal is with the new Speedo swimsuits? Everyone who used it beat their old record. Multiple times. Now the swimmers are trying to figure out if they want to drop their sponsors or win. That fine line of cheating is getting blurred.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It's not cheating if it ain't biological

I plan to watch the opening ceremony. Since the Philippines has no chance of winning any gold medals, I don't intend to tune in on any events. I wonder if this is the year China will beat the USA in gold medals...

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Trigunnerz

Anyone know what the deal is with the new Speedo swimsuits? Everyone who used it beat their old record. Multiple times. Now the swimmers are trying to figure out if they want to drop their sponsors or win. That fine line of cheating is getting blurred.

I recall there was a very similar controversy during the 1988 Winter Olympics, held in Calgary. A breakthrough had been made in speed-skating technology; rather than use the curved "traditional" style of blade, developers tested a thinner, longer, straighter blade.



This breakthrough allowed for several records to be smashed during trials, with more expected to be broken during actual medal competition. There was a lot of uproar, as I remember, since some camps felt the blades made the sport reliant more upon technology and less upon human accomplishment.

In the end, however, the blades became universally accepted as the optimal choice for competition. Once they were accessible by all athletes, the "advantage" was gone and all mutterings of cheating ceased.

This is most likely what will happen with the Speedo suit. Unless the IOC intervenes to deem the suit unsportsmanlike (doubtful), then the rest of the sport will simply have to adapt to the new technology and embrace it as yet another tool. Innovations are made in sports science all the time. As long as the enhancements aren't biological, it's all good progress and keeps the sport dynamic.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Planning on watching men's basketball, swimming, and some track and field. Maybe some triathlons here and there and whatever pops up that I didn't even know the summer games did.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Trigunnerz

It's not cheating if it ain't biological

True, but it does mean different starting blocks for different competitors, which is almost as sour. The more public money that goes into national sports institutes the better the position available.

I always like to check out some of the sports where the R&D's largely irrelevant. So often you can get sensational competition when the Fijian and the Kazakh have as good a chance of medals as the German and the Brit.

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Originally Posted by Trigunnerz

Anyone know what the deal is with the new Speedo swimsuits? Everyone who used it beat their old record. Multiple times. Now the swimmers are trying to figure out if they want to drop their sponsors or win. That fine line of cheating is getting blurred.

So are the crotches of the athletes who wear those new Speedos, if you look around.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

So how about that opening ceremony, huh? Absolutely amazing spectacle, but I guess that's what enough money and people (15,000?!) can get you. Was particularly impressed by the giant footstep fireworks, though I suppose the effect was probably lost on anyone not watching on TV.

Looks like an exciting two weeks of competition lay ahead. I'm especially pleased by that everything's broadcasting in HD, which looks brilliant. When you can see the individual pores on athletes... yeah, that's crazy.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Summer Olympics? They play ice hockey? No. Oh, but there's football? Oh, but none of the pros bother showing up. So... I'm watching high jump?

Yeah, I skipped track day in high school, too.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Try some real hockey, milkbagger.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Yeah! Because when real men play hockey they do it wearing skirts!

FELIPE NO

Nah, real mean tuck their shirts in.



What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

So, the opening ceremony.

It was interesting for me (I just came back from China after living there for three years. Yes, I came back BEFORE the Olympics. No, it wasn't due to visa issues.) on several different levels. I'm going to start off by saying this, they waited for this day for a long, long time. On their 200<b>6</b> new years show, they had so many references to the Olympics that you would have thought it <b>was</b> 2008. I mean, they had references about it <b>everywhere</b> including signs, buildings, and products like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, etc. And my students were more than ready to tell me how this was China's "chance to show the world how it has evolved and grown". I even got that speech once to a time I <i>didn't</i> mention anything about the Olympics so I know they have been excited for a very long time and have worked hard for it. If there was one subject my students had interest it, it was the Olympics. Whether it be giving a interary with regards to how they'd get to the Olympics, where they would stay, etc, or whether they would join the Olympics and what they would do, or something else like it, they'd talk non-stop.

Even moreso, they saw the Olympics as the big one. I mean, the commentators couldn't do it justice how important they saw the Olympics. Given all that happened the last six months (the blizzard, Sichuan Earthquake, etc), students and others were giving the talk more or less as troops who kept on going, who didn't give up despite the circumstanes. They would talk about all those things as China had to overcome, all of those setbacks or such, and how they perservierd (SP?) to make it. I mean, they <b><i>really</i></b> saw this as THE biggest moment in modern if not straight-out Chinese history.

It was creative that they used the fact that they had so many people for so many things in the show. There really are a lot of people. I don't mean that as a statement, but as a way of life. While here in the States, I could go some place any not see anyone while walking there until I get into the store, there, you can't usually go one block over with seeing five people. Even when the students were gone, on the campus I lived on, I would wager I'd see at least five or six people going from my house just to the outside. Another big differences is there are so many people that there is much less space in that you don't have situations where you walk for twenty minutes before you get to a store. Stores are everywhere because people are everywhere and they need those stores. So I thought it was clever they embranced in that for the show.

To me though, it felt like it didn't have nearly the Chinese feel to it in some ways. Yes, it showed Chinese history, had Chinese actors and actresses, used Chinese characters such as peace/harmony, the counting system, etc, and SOME traditional Chinese garb, but it really wasn't how they have shows in China. Granted, I guess having some sort of Chinese play would have made little to no sense for most foreigners. They also didn't really have too many Chinese songs. Generally on their shows there are a lot of Chinese songs both current and past. I would love for Shlyph's thoughts on this and just everything overall to compare notes.

The show itself in an interesting twist though, was kinda CHinese in that it ultimately had a Western feel to it (speaking of western feel, I dunno what they were talking about with McDonalds over there. They hand it to you and smile, just like over in the States. Nothing elaborate). What I mean is, when I was in China there, there <i>are</i> times and places you can feel and see traditional aspects of China but a lot of it is slowly disappearing into a Western-ish style of things.

The fireworks were nice although I have seen so many fireworks while in China (they use them for anything and everything and 100X of that for Spring Festival) that it just didn't have the impact. That's not China's fault though. Interestingly enough, the colors were red (if you noticed red as a common theme, good for you. It's their lucky color/color used for stamps that they use for just about any document to show it's official among other things), or yellow and orange which I think together make red too.

Overall a nice show, and it was fun to kinda look at some of the cultural things, and even just look at a few characters and say "Hey, I know that one!".

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The opening ceremony wasn't quite as propaganda-ridden as I had feared, and in retrospect that was quite a wise choice by the Chinese, but the part where the children representing China's ethnic minorities symbolically gathered in unison under the Chinese flag was truly stomach-turning stuff.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Why do you hate children

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Fuck yes, Micheal Phelps strikes again! Holy shit, he literally raped everyone in the pool.

1 down, 7 more to go.



You did good too Park Tae Hwan.

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Originally Posted by Kimchi

Holy shit, he literally raped everyone in the pool.

That didn't happen.

Why would you make up such an outrageous lie?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Now I probably have to wait 5 hours to see that race.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Pangalin

That didn't happen.

Why would you make up such an outrageous lie?

Obviously it happened, did you even watch the damn thing?

He broke his own record and plus there was difference of 3 seconds between himself and 2nd place.

*goes back to watch Chinese doing gymnastic*

I have good feeling about Chinese dominating gymnastic this year. I hope don't fuck up like back in '04.

G'night y'all, day 3 awaits us!

FELIPE NO

No, I didn't watch it.

Because rape is an obscene and monstrous crime and is not broadcast on television.

If your story is true, I certainly hope this sexual predator is banned from the Games henceforth. The very idea sickens me.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Kimichi

Obviously it happened, did you even watch the damn thing?

He broke his own record and plus there was difference of 3 seconds between himself and 2nd place.

*goes back to watch Chinese doing gymnastic*

G'night y'all, day 3 awaits us!

Quote:

literally

1. in the literal or strict sense: What does the word mean literally?
2. in a literal manner; word for word: to translate literally.
3. actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy: The city was literally destroyed.
4. in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually.

I know that some swimmers will do anything to get the gold, but rape everyone else in the pool? Isn't that a little extreme and, oh I don't know, "out there"?

Edit: Pang beat me to it, but this works as a double-post to emphasise the apparent stupidity~

Jam it back in, in the dark.