Olympics watched so far
 

4-man coxless: I'm always up for the easy dick joke. This is actually rowing with nobody calling when to stroke. Interest: mild

Some long cycle race through the country: People crashed. I didn't know anyone in the race. I didn't think I would watch the whole thing under any circumstance. Jacquelita noticed the awesome landscapes in the background and that became the thing to look at. It became annoying that there was a race going on. Interest: moderate

Beach volleyball: I thought this sport was only invented to have hot lean bodies in tiny swimsuits. They should have judges for that. The Aussie men beat the US men because one of our guys couldn't block. You would think they could find someone who could block. So I'm calling shenanigans on this "sport". Even with the hot bodies I can't remember anyone paying any amount to watch this "sport" in person, unless they were teenage lads playing it on a video game. I can't remember it ever being televised on any network except for ESPN2, and even then it was on at 1:30 am and I don't think they bothered to identify which team was which. Interest: tad

Swimming: is better since they have the new cameras to watch better underwater. Some people seem to do it a tiny bit faster than the others. Some times the races are close and sometimes they are not. Interest: little

Synchronized diving: another bogus "sport". This one involved two guys diving at the same time to see if they could, you know, dive at the same time. Some of em could do it real good, others couldn't. An announcer was too excited that the Brits had taken silver, the first medal in any diving event for them since 1960. The announcer was helpful in determing for us which of the divers had entered the water before the other, thus messing up the whole synchronization of the dive. Interest: none

8-man, uh, with cox: somehow more interesting than the coxless. Now they described the race with the added technical detail of number of sculls per minute. Interest: some

I actually sat through the silly dives program to watch the cycling. interest high.

Turns out NBA players can't play fundamental basketball. interest none.

Swimming bah. interest scant.

I'll prolly watch some track and field, hurdles and sprints are cool, like the Bruce Jenner event. interest a bit

gymnastics = child abuse. interest nada.

Costas and Ms. Perky awful, just show the games, no yammering. There really is no way to do the Olympics right but NBC isn't even trying.

Rho and I watched soccer on Telemundo last night...heard Andres Cantor lose his mind...beautiful.

So far, the games have been good. The coverage has been average...too many commercials, and not as good as Salt Lake. I can't believe all the empty seats...that's ridiculous.

oooo... interest keen.

The empty seats are pretty lame. Somebody likes these games...

gymnastics = child abuse. interest nada.

Men's gymnastics isn't as bad, since you have to be much older (relatively) before the muscle mass really can develop. It's still an intense amount of training as a youngster, but at least for the guys it's usually more their decision than the parents'.

You're probably right about the mens gym. Didn't they talk about putting an age limit on the "womens"?

All I know about what's going on at the Olympics is that Puerto Rico left USA in the dust in the opening game for basketball. Walked ALL OVER them.
Interest: fleeting

One of the saddest things I've ever seen, in a way, was when I went to see a college women's gymnastic meet back when I was in school. Sure, it was an auditorium full of people doing something that they presumably enjoyed doing, so it wasn't exactly torture, but every performer in the room knew that she was five to ten years too old, an arbitrary number of pounds too heavy, and in most cases breast reduction surgery away from even _dreaming_ about high-end competition.

(Of course, I went because I was a horndog who got to watch attractive girls in skimpy leotards bouncing around for my enjoyment.)

It's a sport where you're essentially retired once you reach your upper teens. What's up with that? At least figure skating has a bunch of ice shows as a Senior Tour of sorts for the A- and B-listers.

As for basketball, I dislike the sport as a general rule, and have a permanent black mark on Olympic basketball as being the Trojan Horse that erased the notion of Olympian == amateur, so I draw a tiny bit of pleasure from the ass-stomping Puerto Rico delivered. Since the Dream Team came about because American's collegians had the audacity to actually lose a game, now who will we send in? The Globetrotters?

I'd like to see the NCAA champs go, maybe taking a few other talented kids chosen by the coach.

Show me 30-35 year old, 140 lb women consistently doing gymnastics on par with or much better than 15-20 year old, 110 pound girls/women and I'll show you some paradigms being shifted.

Is the inherent flaw with the older/heavier women, or with the judging requirements that essentially require gymnasts to be prepubescent pixies, more so with every passing year? I mean, Mary Lou Retton wasn't exactly a big girl, but she could eat most recent Olympic-caliber gymnasts as an appetizer.

About the only other sporting profession I can think of where growth spurt == retirement is being a horse-racing jockey.

Don't ask me, I'm no gymnast. I don't know how their politics work. I just know that the 'best' ones are very young, meaning they're going to be easier to be very nubile and are more likely to weigh less and the less weight you have on your body, the easier it is to hold it up on one arm or one hand while balancing. Of course there's the side note that young skinny females in leotards are societally more attractive than older heavier females.

Also, if you'd call professional dancing a sport, professional ballet has fairly strict height and weight restrictions too. I guess it could fall under a similar 'sport factor' that ice ballet has.

Show me 30-35 year old, 140 lb women consistently doing gymnastics on par with or much better than 15-20 year old, 110 pound girls/women and I'll show you some paradigms being shifted.

Try 12-14 year old. Even being 17 is pushing it. Obviously the younger girls do it better, but the point is why spend so much time and energy learning a skill that you are destined to lose before you're even done being a teenager? Meanwhile you're at risk for stunted growth, a fallen uterus, and horrific arthritis, to name a few.

This year they seem to be allowed makeup, and the uniforms with their shiny breastal areas point out any top these chicks may have. And still there was this skeleton of a lass yesterday who looked around 11. :eek: What kind of circus act is this anyway? If it's all about endorsements now, when do the child labor laws kick in?

You could say the same of any of the Olympic sports. They all risk their bodies to be able to say they are the best at what they do.

Personally, I enjoy watching both the men's and women's gymnastics. There seems to be some presumption in this thread the the (mostly) teens in the women's gymnastics are not there from their own desire to compete. That may be true in a few cases, but they seem pretty competitive to me.

My girls have been in gymnastics since they were little. They do it because they enjoy it.

I watched Soccer, Iraq vs. Costa Rica.
Interest: mild

Watched women's snatch. Damn. If you haven't watch that. Their legs are freaking tree trunks.
Interest: Moderate

I generally watch gymnastics in the summer games and figure skating in the winter.

I wouldn't. :D

It's not that I'm petitioning for Rosie O'Donnell to join the US Women's Gymnastics Team; by nature, it's a sport designed for agile and lithe bodies. But like its cousin (women's figure skating), it's a sport with highly subjective judging, based on aesthetics as much as on technical skill, both weighed towards a ridiculous pixie ideal.

There's now a lower age limit of sixteen on the Olympics and other international competitions, which will help somewhat, though it won't stop little girls from starving themselves, attempting progressively more dangerous routines and spending umpteen hours per day in the gym. If you're competing at the top level at sixteen, you're beginning your training at what, 6? 8? That's a training schedule in place of a childhood -- one that seems designed to catch gymnasts "at their prime" at a point before their immature bodies start growing fully at puberty.

But at least there's a market for aging figure skaters, or at least those who make at least some name for themselves. Stars on Ice, Champions on Ice, Ice Wars, Ice Capades, dressing up in a furry costume and doing Disney on Ice, whatever...

Ever heard the phrase "stage mother?"

There's a difference between competing and competing at an elite level. I played Little League baseball from 8 until 13, then gave it up when it became clear that the talent level had passed me by and it wasn't fun any more. So far, so good. But could my parents have guided me into "training" at a very young age, attempting to prepare me for a sports career, helping to mold my priorities towards what they felt would be best for me (i.e. spending hours in the batting cage or on the mound instead of out doing kid things)? Certainly, and I would've been too young to argue much.

99.9% of parents whose children participate in sports aren't stage mothers/fathers, so to speak... but every youth organization has its horror stories to tell about the parents who are nuts, and who will let nothing stand between them and Junior's budding sports career.

Nobody's saying that there are lots of Olympians who don't really want to be there, or would give it up if they weren't being held at gunpoint; far from it. What I'm saying is that the vast majority of Olympians in other sports are _adults_, who can make conscious decisions about their training, desires and choices. If you wait until an aspiring gymnast is early-teens to begin training strenuously, it's far too late by contemporary standards, because she'll be competing with gymnasts who've already been doing triple backflips for years. Plus, your daughter might've eaten a cheeseburger at some point and thus not meet the aesthetic ideal necessary for competitive judges to take her seriously.

Should young girls be prohibited from participating in informal gymnastics? Of course not. But the age ranges for competition should be increased dramatically, and the judges' expectations should be revised to focus on what actual, mature bodies are capable of. Nations should not be trotting out parades of sixteen-year-old eighty-pound waifs with the eyes of the world and the expectations of their countries upon them.

Anybody know if they are bothering to broadcast the target shooting and archery?

I had wanted to watch the opening ceremonies, but Eagles Preseason Football was on, and well, you gotta have priorities.

Don't make me get political wolfie. :)
Anyway, apparently there is a ban on blogging by athletes... so here is one.

http://www.goldblatt.info/

Let's see. Hmm - a lot of ideas in there.

- Yes, I know about stage mothers. I don't know, but am willing to suppose that this occurs for some of the gymnasts.

- According to the nbcolympics web site the current ages for the us team are 25, 26, 18, 18, 16, 16. That sounds, to me, old enough that they could make the decision themselves.

- Young, small-chested girls are on the gymnastics team because young, small-chested girls have the balance, coordination and stamina to do the best at the routines that make up the competition. It's the same reason all basketball players are tall.

- On the other hand I don't think kids should be forced into it.

- What would happen, if the age limit was raised? Most early teen girls haven't developed yet and are naturally skinny and flat. If you raise the age limit, won't girls that could have competed naturally at a young age be forced to have surgery and starve themselves if they want to compete? I don't know that this is the answer either.

Mrs lookout and i have been watching gymnastics because my wife was a gymnast until college when real life and the breastessessess took over. she still loves it even though her knees, ankles, and wrists are shot at 33.
we were talking about the age thing last night and the way i see it is that a "generation" of american female gymnasts missed their shot at the olympics.

the girls from the '96 games were so popular that they brought a number of them back for 2000. the girls competing this time around were too young for 2000 - so where did all the girls of the "right age" from 2000 go? but anyway - in 2000 there were a number of the top girls who were 19-24, not from just america either. i think the one russian (or ukranian, whatever) svetlana ob..... was 23-24 and she just rocked. but for 2004 they've got all the pre-pubescents back. bummer.

for some reason I watched men's synchronized diving. the Greeks won gold! Watching them celebrate was more entertaining than watching the diving, but I wasn't exactly watching for the diving...I was watching for the cuties in speed-os. The shame! :blush:

That's how the team is now, after the age restriction was imposed a few years ago. Wasn't that long ago that I remember a fourteen-year-old on the US squad. It's a step in the right direction.

Hardly. The average pro basketball player is certainly taller than the average everyday person, just as an average gymnast is more agile and flexible than an average everyday person. This doesn't suggest that either basketball players or gymnasts do or should all fit into the same physical mold. The NBA had room for Muggsy Bogues, Manute Bol, Charles Barkley and John Stockton, as each filled a different role on their teams.

Gymnastics is more of an individual sport than basketball, obviously, but a similar principle applies. If the standards by which gymnasts are judged are rigidly set in such a way that only prepubescent pixies can attain them, which should change -- the standards or the gymnasts? Changing the standards (or, in some cases, the preconceived notions of judges about how gymnasts should appear) would seem to be the saner route, IMHO.

There are athletic feats that 14-year-old, 4'7, 80-pound gymnasts are capable of that an 19-year-old or 22-year-old gymnast, having matured a bit more and added some height, weight and muscle to their frames, cannot do. There are athletic feats that the older, bigger, stronger girls are capable of that the less physically mature girls are not. All of these girls can be as physically fit and toned as their age, build, diet and exercise regimens can make them. Should elite gymnastics admit one group but not the other?

Figure skating has these adaptations built into judging, to some extent. If one is sufficiently technically skilled, one doesn't have to be an aesthetic delight to watch, and vice versa. The champions tend to be a blend of both, but many Olympics have pitted someone who attempts groundbreaking jump combinations against someone performs less spectacular jumps but is more elegant in style. (Like any sport that's primarily ranked via subjective judging, it's severely flawed, and some forms of it are more reasonable than others.)

If girls need to have surgery and starve themselves in order to compete in a sport, the sport needs to be changed radically. If only participants of a particular body type (an unhealthy one, at that) have any chance of succeeding in a sport, the sport needs to be changed radically. Them's the breaks.

I can't believe NBN and other Cellar dirty ol' men let that one get by without comment!

:eyebrow: um, "women's snatch"? i know what that means to me, but what does that mean to you?

edit: i didn't realize 99 pointed this out before i got to it.

As always, I'm enjoying the Olympics and not giving one damn about too many commercials (typical!), that the US Men's BBall team lost (I'm like big deal!), NBC's coverage (which isn't all that bad to me) and anything else that has complaints. To me, this is just one great big sports festival and I am loving it. The opening ceremonies were awesome..the Greeks really put on a show!

*and it's only the 3rd day! More on the wayyyy!* :thumbsup: :D

Have you been watching the male swimmers? Some of those guys are gorgeous. Plus they're muscular, but not TOO muscular. :thumbsup:

The women's (girls?) gymnastics is the only other thing remotely interesting to me. It's amazing what they can do, but their bodies are going to be trashed by the time they retire.

[quote=garnet]Have you been watching the male swimmers? Some of those guys are gorgeous. Plus they're muscular, but not TOO muscular. :thumbsup:[quote]

Oh, yes. I am watching the men's swimming. Those guys are...are...well, they are HOT.

I've always enjoyed the girl's gymnastics. I was a big fan of Olga Korbut. She was just so awesome. And despite everything that has been posted about the arbitrary nature of gymnastics and the pixie-girls who inhabit the sport, I find it inspiring to watch.

So! Which country looked best in 'em? :D

I said before, I know next to nothing about the world of gymnastics, but I wonder if it's possible or if there exists a way to standardize age groups? You can have the younger set 13-15 year olds or so doing their thing with stuff based on speed, agility, whatever else they look for then have an older set, 16-18 or 16-20 years old, whatever, where the focus is more on strength and endurance. I'm sure there's elite quality in all of these ages if they look for the right stuff.

There aren't any others. :angel:

Inpenetrable security?
 

i guess i missed this one. i'd hate to be this guy when they "questioned" him. the greeks would have to be pretty embarrassed by this security breach.

but most importantly - could this be the beginning of a new olympic event?

*announcer voice*
going for the gold in the 3meter blue tutu event, is canada's own joe jackson.

Story

I love the games and I'll watch pretty much anything if I remember to turn the tv on. Watched last night; the men's team gymnastics and some swimming. You know what really annoys the shit out of me though? The minor point of interest in every event that they won't shut the fuck up about. Last night it was the 'every score counts' rules during men's gymnastics and Phelp's multiple medal possiblities during the swimming. At one point some stupid announcer had the gall to say "Not many people probably know this..." Yeah. Because it had only been mentioned 50 times at that point http://www.cellar.org/images/newsmilies/smashfreak.gif

I saw a report today that said ticket sales were extremely low. I think one of the problems is that there are too many sports. Once again, the economic principle of marginal utility seems to hold true; that is, the more you have of something, the less meaning it has. With sports like synchronized diving and swimming, the rest of the sports seem to suffer.

This, I believe, is one of the reasons that football, for instance, is so popular in this country. With only 16 games, each game becomes that much more fun because it seems that much more important instead of, say, 162 baseball games (blah).

I have to tell you, I am quite excited for baseball games (73-105).
Anyway, I digress.
I have had mild interest in soccer. And I will have interest in track and field when that comes on, being a former runner myself.

i can't wait for the next winter olympics - CURLING - WOOOHOOOO!

or maybe not.

Bottom line (pardon the expression) with respect to the women's gymnastics (and ice skating during the winter):

I don't like toothpicks.

LOL so many...can't choose! :D

For some reason, the Brits I seem to remember right about now...
:thumbsup:

This is shameless theft, but it's so great that I had to share. Bill "Sports Guy" Simmons on gymnastics:

If you're lucky enough to back a team that's caught up in a pennant race[*], you can milk a good month or two of actual excitement out of a baseball regular-season.
[*] This was true up to and including 1993, the year that Atlanta and San Francisco engaged in the Last Pennant Race Ever, the two best teams in baseball that year going down to the wire for a playoff spot. 1994 got wiped out by the strike, and 1995 introduced divisional realignment and the wild-card slot, changing September from a race to finish first to a race to finish first-among-the-seconds. Had 1993 happened in 1995, the Giants would probably have wiped the floor with the Phillies in the wild-card playoff series, instead of playing actual meaningful games in September. [**]

[**] Oh, and get rid of the goddamned DH rule, too.

Note to self: don't disrupt olympic events.
 

Update

they have tried,convicted, and hammered - i mean sentenced the 3meter tutu jumper already.

My vote goes for the Aussies.

And the Brits.

And umm....oh damn....

Yaaah for us non tooth picky women!

I've kept an eye on the basketball as much as I could. The Puerto game was a misery, and it was killing me to watch the USA-Greece game. I don't know if there's any validity to this, but it looked like they were fouling Tim Duncan for - from what I can ascertain - looking cross-eyed at one of the floor tiles, yet the Greek point guard could kick Lebron in the balls and there'd be no whistle.

well, you can call me paranoid, but i think there is a little prejudice coming out in some of the events that are judged. the women's US gymnasts were getting some lower scores compared to the others. their genuinely glowing errors are what kept them from getting the gold though.

i think the same thing may be true in basketball. if you already have a prejudice against someone or some team it would only be natural to see their errors more readily.

I have a question about the swimming competitions. Do they deliberately place the highest-ranked swimmers in the middle lanes? Every Olympics I can remember, swimmers in the middle three lanes or so have been the winners. It seems there's always that distinctive V-shape during the race, like a flock of birds. I don't know, maybe it's just my imagination.

I managed to catch a bit of the show jumping today, although I missed the dressage and cross country.

I saw on the standings board that the US got a gold medal for women's trap, but that would be one of the (numerous) events that doesn't get broadcasted because most people find it boring as hell, and after all, does involve those nasty, nasty guns. I don't think that even the obscure sports channel runs any of the shooting events.

Clodfobble,

I think they place swimmers in the lanes based on the times they had during qualifing. The faster swimmers are towards the center of the pool, because there's more 'disturbance' in the water going towards the outside.

I saw an American girl win the saber gold, my father-in-law was an All-American fencer so I'm expecting youth sized sabers to show up any day now. :) Another lady took the silver in white water rafting, wow she had some pipes on her! I also saw part of the time trial where Hamilton took Gold and Julich took bronze, very cool stuff.

They'll show a live firefight on the news but won't show somebody breaking clays...

Darn missed the horsies, the girls will be pissed.

Back before ESPN started getting contracts with "real" sports (i.e., football), all they ever had on was trap and skeet, celebrity trap and skeet, and curling. Oh, and the lumberjack contests.

I'll say this much: This Olympics is certainly the most visual as far as the city. My GOD, I love how NBC shows these sweeping, from-the-air shots of the city and surrounding areas. The ruins, the houses by the sea, the beaches, the SUNSETS! Pure heaven... :D A photographers DREAM!

And the other highlight of the games: Micheal Phelps kicking 100 types of ass in the swimming competitions (and he's from Baltimore...wahoooo!). :thumbsup:

someone else already pointed out that they put them out in the middle to minimize disturbances, but the put the fastest next to each other so that they race their fastest possible race. human nature causes one to only swim, walk, run, drive as fast as necessary to win. if the person in the lead can't see who may be in second they won't swim as fast.

i wrote that really poorly, but i think you get the point.

The EU won the olympics. just ask 'em. ok, so it is probably just a couple of morons that think adding the entire EU's medals together and then comparing that to the number of medals won by the US is fair, but i've seen the story in several places.

i got to thinking about it and i realized the flaw in their logic. each and every nation in the EU got to send a full squad to the olympics to compete. if the US sent a full squad from each state of the union, might the results be a little different?

i am only linking to one of the stories, there are quite a few out there.

article

Either PA or NY could have taken the gold in mens basketball!

Hmmmm.. is there a list of athletes by state?

I just got into a...'discussion' yesterday evening with someone (male) who was 'enraged and disgusted' by the WNBA on the whole. According to this man, women should not be playing basketball, as they are totally unfit for the sport, since they usually don't reach decent height, have distracting jiggly parts and care about their nails, which would break in 'real basketball play', among other things. He's convinced the US Women's Basketball team winning the gold while the men's team bombed is a fix, done to give a boost to Women's Rights, and that they probably slept with someone to make the gold possible. 'Buncha whores, all of them.'

I wanted to hurt this man. :mad2: I mean really hurt him. :rar: Blowtorch and needlenose pliers kind of hurt. :angry:
But instead I laughed at his pain. Because it was hilariously stupid. And in the end, I didn't end up with assault charges and I still felt good. :D

It's too bad he can't just turn off the tv so he doesn't have to see it.

What a dumb ass. He doesn't even justify a response in my opinion. I could care less about basketball of any sort, but that's just ignorant and silly.

And by the way, who exactly does he think is distracted by the "jiggly parts"? Probably the men watching, which has nothing to do with the players' skill level or ability.

There wouldn't be much of a difference if the US fielded 50 teams or 1 team. Only the best of the best make it onto that one team, so they are the ones who have a shot at the gold. If there are another 49 average athletes from other states who don't make it onto the field, it doesn't matter. They would have lost anyway.

you don't think that if they US sent 50 teams we would have won more medals? or if you reverse it. the EU only gets to send one team with the top three athletes in X event going? they would have fewer possible winners so they would end up with fewer winners/medals.

in the world of sports anything can happen. look at gymanstics alone. how often does the top ranked person foul up and not medal? some relatively unknown individual steps up and wins.

if we had 50 teams, we obviously would have won more medals.