The Official 2012 Summer Olympics Thread

[rudel.dietrich]

Usain Bolt is simply amazing.

[Déjà Bru]

Sorry to have been a consistent downer in this thread. I did start off being excited by the Olympics, but the things that have bothered me about them seemed to have come to a head to the point where it prevented me from enjoying the games.

Here, let a professional say what I meant to say:

No amateurs, no miracles. Headed into the final weekend, the U.S. men’s basketball team — led by NBA stars such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James — is on track to win its fifth gold medal in the past six Olympics. The women’s team is closing in on its fifth consecutive gold.

Good for them, and America, but something is missing.

Before professional athletes were allowed to participate openly in the Games, America used to relish being the underdog. U.S. collegians took on the quasi-professional communist bloc teams and pulled off the occasional against-all-odds upset, none bigger than 1980’s “Miracle on Ice” victory in Lake Placid against the mighty Soviet hockey team.

Today, the U.S. Dream Teams are like that Soviet squad. If they win, it’s expected. Ho hum. And if they lose, it’s a huge blow to national pride.

Sure, today’s system is a lot more equitable. It’s just not more exciting.

Thrill of victory. Until its regular broadcasts went off the air in 1997, no TV show captured the emotion of sports better than ABC’s Wide World of Sports, which promised viewers “the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat” and routinely delivered. These days, nothing on TV captures that extraordinary range of human feeling better than the Olympics, where a lifetime of dreams and years of agonizing training can turn into joy or despair in seconds.

Of course there are moments of agony, for athletes and viewers alike, when the omnipresent cameras get so close to someone who has just lost that you want to snap at NBC and demand a little privacy.

Luckily, though, the cameras tend to dwell on the winners. Watching night after night is like taking a mood-elevating drug that has no bad side effects. In the 200 meter individual medley, for example, American swimmer Caitlin Leverenz placed third, and the camera caught her face as she looked up at the scoreboard and realized she had medaled.

A jaded viewer might think: It’s third place. But for Leverenz, 21, who had worked for this from age 7, often getting up before dawn to put in grueling workouts, it was an Olympic medal. Her face showed shocked surprise, a surge of joy and then tears, then joy. The tiny moment was over in seconds, but it was impossible not to be moved.

One pleasure of watching the Olympics is the constant reminder that joy is universal, and that it is difficult not to find yourself grinning when you see the sheer, unfeigned thrill on the face of anyone who has just won gold, silver or bronze.

London Games' hits and misses

The problem is, too much Michael Phelps and LeBron James, not enough Caitlin Leverenz. So, what do I do? Do I never watch the Olympics again?

I don't know. But, sharing my thoughts here helped. You were all part of my Olympic therapy, whether you liked it or not.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Sorry to have been a consistent downer in this thread. I did start off being excited by the Olympics, but the things that have bothered me about them seemed to have come to a head to the point where it prevented me from enjoying the games.

Here, let a professional say what I meant to say:
London Games' hits and misses

The problem is, too much Michael Phelps and LeBron James, not enough Caitlin Leverenz. So, what do I do? Do I never watch the Olympics again?

I don't know. But, sharing my thoughts here helped. You were all part of my Olympic therapy, whether you liked it or not.

I agree with you but some of the non tennis players, basketball players are professional these days. In a way I'm kind of glad that the big money stars are in the Olympics reason being I have more admiration for the likes of Jade Jones who won gold for GB in taekwondo, her story is that she couldn't afford to go to the youth Olympics so her town collected the money to send her now if people like LeBron weren't at the Olympics this story would be just another story to me but it's bigger to me personally because of the rich athletes that are at the Olympics. Also unless I've been asleep alot of the time I don't think the basketball as really been covered on the main channels over here, it will have been shown but you'll have had to hit the red button to see it.

Just one other thing, I'm kind of the opposite to you. I wasn't really into it at the start but the more it's gone on the more I've enjoyed it and be sad to see it finish, it does help however that little old GB is kicking butt.

PS

I think they worked it out if GB had the population of China they'd have won 583 gold medals (joking)

[Teddyballgame]

But that's a silly article. How many mornings did Michael Phelps wake up and swim? How many agonizing practices and yardage did he suffer through? Why should we resent and begrudge him because he wins? The Olympics are filled with thousands of athletes who have worked hard and sacrificed a lot, they don't all get the coverage they deserve.

[Skipaway]

I think the main problem of Olympics not being that enjoyable for Americans is mostly a problem of American media coverage. It's not just NBC, but most of the media.

First of all, the games are presented as if only Americans are competing. Opponents are all Washington General types that don't worth any mentioning. There are a lot of interesting back stories about athletes all over the world, but you'd not see them in American media.

Secondly, the media is trying too hard to create story lines, instead of focusing on the sports. Coverages are all star-based, not event-based. The weirdest situation might be Lolo Jones, where the whole situation feels more Jersey Shore than an international sport competition.

So yeah, it's easy to feel as if Olympics is all about over-exposed star athletes. That's far from true, but the American media don't let you see anything else.

[ukhotstove]

Question for everyone, what's the reaction been to your countries medal total so far? GB wise I think we were after around 60 medals which we have reached, well will have reached by the end of the games but I'm not so sure we were thinking of as many gold medals as we have done. I know we were aiming to finish 4th in the table and at this moment in time we are 3rd and should be our final place.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

I think the main problem of Olympics not being that enjoyable for Americans is mostly a problem of American media coverage. It's not just NBC, but most of the media.

First of all, the games are presented as if only Americans are competing. Opponents are all Washington General types that don't worth any mentioning. There are a lot of interesting back stories about athletes all over the world, but you'd not see them in American media.

Secondly, the media is trying too hard to create story lines, instead of focusing on the sports. Coverages are all star-based, not event-based. The weirdest situation might be Lolo Jones, where the whole situation feels more Jersey Shore than an international sport competition.

So yeah, it's easy to feel as if Olympics is all about over-exposed star athletes. That's far from true, but the American media don't let you see anything else.

One thing I've never asked my cousin is, do you not have a red button or something? The BBC have shown the games over here and if you press the red button on your remote you get a menu of all the sports, which means you can watch any of the sports live.

[ukhotstove]

*Breaking News*

Mo Farah as ditched God save the Queen when he collects his medal and will instead use this as the national anthem.

YMCA - YouTube

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Question for everyone, what's the reaction been to your countries medal total so far? GB wise I think we were after around 60 medals which we have reached, well will have reached by the end of the games but I'm not so sure we were thinking of as many gold medals as we have done. I know we were aiming to finish 4th in the table and at this moment in time we are 3rd and should be our final place.

Germany is pretty thrilled to be in 5th. Usually the winter Olympics is where we are among the medal leaders.
There was dissapointment that we didn't feature in either mens or womens football but it has been a summer of dissapointment for German football after Bayern lost in a game they were picked to win and then Italy soundly beat us in the UEFAs.

Here in Switzerland they are just enjoying the games and happy to medal where they can.
They got their first gold in 88 years. In Equestrian. Then a surprise in Triathlon.

There was some disappointment that they did not qualify for handball.
I have become a handball fan since I moved here. It is a pretty excited sport once you learn it. Basketball fans should eat it up.
And if it could catch even just a little fire in America I think they could get good in it pretty fast. Especially a womens team with title IX.
The skill set between handball and basketball is pretty close.

Baseball pitchers could convert pretty easily too.

I would love to see Lebron James, Kevin Durant and Steve Nash play handball.
Maybe not, Lebron might actually kill someone.

[ukhotstove]

I'd have thought Germany would have been a bit dissapointed, they don't seem to have a star name like say Drechsler they also used to have a top cycling team.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

I'd have thought Germany would have been a bit dissapointed, they don't seem to have a star name like say Drechsler they also used to have a top cycling team.

Germany has become more like America in that they take more pride in the accomplishments of women athletes more than they used to. We don't have anything like title IX but in the last 20 years or so in the secondary school level there has really been a push to get young women playing organized sport.

That is the real difference between America, South Korea, Japan, Germany and China (in a somewhat different way)
The massive investments in womens athletics have paid off.

But America did themselves a service in the late 70s with Title IX. Young women up through the college level have just as much opportunity as males to excel at sport and have equal scholarships, team places and facilities.

It makes me excited for my own daughter too. If she has any inkling of athletic gift then she has literally dozens of options where she can apply herself.

Makes me feel bad for the poor women of Afghanistan or any number of other places where they are still second class citizens.


Cycling has been somewhat disappointing but I don't really follow it. But being 5th overall with 43 medals has caused some national pride, at least in the press I read. As I said, usually we are more suited to the winter games.

We were 1st overall in 2006 and 2nd in 2010.

Now if we could only divert some resources into producing some basketball and hockey talent. We have 82 million citizens, booming numbers of immigrants and money to spend on trivial things like sport. We just need to put the necessary investments into the facilities and coaching and maybe in a few decades we can start turning out some basketball and hockey teams who can make a good showing of themselves.

[Déjà Bru]

Assessment of the TV coverage:

[ukhotstove]

Bit biased but personally thought they were the best games ever, I actually enjoyed the opening ceremony rather than the closing one. Disliked the fact that corporate and official seats were left empty, what they should do is put on the Olympic website a name and shame page of companies or officials that don't use their seats, something like the Chinese official didn't use their tickets for boxing or Coca Cola didn't use their tickets for the show jumping.

All in all although I really enjoyed it, looking forward to the Paralympics. Just one other thing rumour as it that our own Kenyan Cheena is going to be knighted and given a job for life as GB's mascot reason being when he mentioned GB not winning a gold the flood gates opened and we couldn't stop winning them