Morning coffee/Olympics open thread

It is a cool sport. It's very big out here at the HS level and I have a few friends whose older kids play. Their games are exciting.

and the outfits.

 

They look like theyre wearing the first attempts at Michael Jackons outfit from Thriller

It is... I ended up streaming the soccer from the BBC.  

NBC is atrocious -- totally took something beautiful like the opening ceremony and focused on all the shit.  

What was their excuse for tape delaying something in this hemisphere?

Not that I'm aware of.

They look like they ARE trolls!

That would be Bob Costas and Matt Lauer...

It is so competitive in China that the players move to other countries to gain citizenship and compete in the olympics.

I was riding the bus through the Baja California two years ago. I was setting beside this young woman who, like I, was headed for San Felipe.  We were talking and I asked her the reason for her travel. She replied, "business."  The discussion went on and I asked her what her business was.  "Table Tennis," she replied.  Different worlds. 

They're getting killed on rucks and the passing has been below average. If they play like this in the rest of their pool matches they might not win a single match.

Never watched Women's rugby before and so far it was the most entertaining event I've watched today. If they won't let football in the Olympics why don't we just send a couple running backs and linebackers over there and dominate.

They're showing it on NBC right now

Martin is a legit threat, this race is right up his alley. GVA is in the new break, but you can tell nobody thinks he'll last up all three climbs, because the break is working with him. If he were to finish with just that group he would be a sure winner. But I don't think he'll survive.

I like the Winter Olympics a lot more, especially for hockey and the ice skating events. Those just memorize me and they're exciting to watch.

The Summer Olympics, to me, are enjoyable only for the Opening Ceremonies. And even last night's weren't that great. While I greatly respect each athlete's commitment to training to peak physical perfection for their event, events like track/field, archery and rowing do not excite me in the slightest.

I'm sure that makes me a terrible world citizen, but that's about par for the course with most Americans these days.

On the topic of host cities losing money - we're often told that the 1984 L.A. Olympics made a profit, in large part because the city reused lots of older sports venues like the Coliseum.  

What a lot of people may not know is that L.A. was able to do that because it was the only city to bid for those Games - this was not long after the financially ruinous Montreal '76 - so the IOC couldn't shake them down and demand the construction of white elephant stadiums like it has elsewhere.  Nor could it demand a bunch of luxury perks for VIPs.  L.A., as the sole bidder, ran those Olympics on its own terms.  

Ironically, the success of '84 caused the reputation of the Games to improve so that other cities started bidding again - and then the IOC resumed its old habits of extortion.

 

 

Cycling is not a sport I am familiar with or generally watch, but that was an exciting last 20 minutes or so of that race. I find it fascinating that the cyclists were so far ahead of the cameraman on the motorcycle that we didn't really get to see the crash, just the aftermath.  I can only imagine what it would be like crashing a bicycle at those speeds.