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[RedKing]

So, I figure we might as well have an Olympics thread to commisserate about the actual events and medal counts and whatnot. A few ground rules to keep this shit loosely on the rails:

1. No denigrating another country and/or their team. If you want to cheer on your own country, fine! If you want to cheer on someone else's country, fine! If you want to call Country X's team "a bunch of spoiled, cheating fucktards", NOT FINE.

2. No meta-discussion about the Olympics itself as an institution. Yes, there's plenty of room for criticism about a bunch of rich, industrialized countries holding an athletic event that their superior training programs and advanced gear allow them to run away with. However, that criticism belongs in another thread, maybe the Chill Progressive thread. Likewise for grousing about how much of a pain in the ass/waste of money the Olympics are for the UK.

3. No spoiling. Most of us aren't in the UK, so we may not be seeing events live. If you're going to talk about an event that just happened realtime, put it in spoiler tags please.

I think that covers the main pitfalls...I reserve the right to add more rules if it becomes apparent that they're needed.





Now then....yay Olympics! Who's planning on watching the opening ceremonies? I still remember the ones from Vancouver and Beijing, and I think London's got some big shoes to fill. Looking forward to watching it with my daughter tomorrow night.

Also interested to see how much of "home boost" the UK gets in medals. They placed 4th in Beijing, with 19/13/15. China's insane medal count (51/21/28) will no doubt drop precipitously this go around, but I'd wager they still wind up in the top 5.

Is there a particular event you're eager to watch? Or a particular athlete?

[Svarte Troner]

I can't wait for the hockey part! What? In 2 years? 

Oh well, I'll probably end up watching the opening ceremonies and tennis or something.

[RedKing]

LOL...yeah, I'm more partial to the Winter Olympics myself. But I still enjoy watching most of the events. In the US, we get the telegenic events (that the US has a shot in) like swimming, track and field, and gymnastics. Not so much things like fencing and archery, where the US barely even registers as a blip. S. Korea dominates archery and the traditional dominance in fencing is France, Italy and Hungary. Though like a lot of sports, that's all in flux to some degree. I'm also hoping to catch table tennis at some point because Olympic-caliber ping pong is a thing of beauty.

Oh, and beach volleyball just because...well damn, who wouldn't want to watch? 

I think the track events are some of the most egalitarian, because there's not a lot of gear and not a lot of high-tech training needed. You just need to be fast. So you get guys like Usain Bolt from tiny Jamaica who come seemingly out of nowhere (to folks who don't follow competetive running between the Olympics) and blow by runners from larger, advanced countries.

[miauw62]

Mh, Belgium probably wont win any medals anyway.
Except mayby for cycling.

Also, i find it quite ridiculous that this is apprantly "the largest military operation since WW2" in the UK.
(ofcourse, there isnt alot of war to fight in Europe)

Anti-aircraft turrets on top of buildings? Seriously?
Go put them on governement buildings or something, but not on appartments.

[Jervill]

So, when's the women's volleyball?  I really don't care about any other sport in the Olympics.

[Frumple]

I... just realized I don't even know when the olympics start...

Probably won't be watching, though stuff like archery sounds interestin', for all that there's zero chance it'll be shown on any tv I have access to and I'm too lazy to hunt it up online~

Wasn't even aware they did archery. Guess I should look at an actual list of events, eventually...

[MonkeyHead]

It started yesterday, with the early games in womens football, with mens football today. Somewhat weirdly these football games are mainly taking part in Cardiff (Wales), Glasgow (Scotland) and other venues in the north of England as until the opening ceremony, no events can take place in London itself. There have been some very entertaining matches already and a few shocks.

As for the Games - well, like every 4 years I find myself very keen to see as much of it as possible. The torch relay was a waste of time though, but that didnt stop me going to see it twice. More so as they are now in the same nation (sort of) as me the times will be easier to keep track of. From what teasers the media here have managed to get hold of, the opening ceremony (by Danny Boyle) will be VERY british. Expect many nods to stereotypes.

As for coverage, the BBC have it ALL covered on TV, radio and online. Of course, your ability to access this might vary, depending on where you are in the world, and I am not sure how thier website reacts to proxy browsing

[RedKing]

Opening ceremonies are tomorrow evening.

List of events:
•archery
•badminton
•basketball
•beach volleyball
•boxing
•canoe / kayak
•cycling
•diving
•equestrian
•fencing
•field hockey
•gymnastics
•handball
•judo
•modern pentathlon
•rowing
•sailing
•shooting
•soccer / football
•swimming
•synchronized swimming
•table tennis
•taekwondo
•tennis
•track and field
•triathlon (swimming, biking, running)
•volleyball
•water polo
•weightlifting
•wrestling

Apparently the Rio Olympics (2016) will add rugby sevens and golf.

[MonkeyHead]

Rugby sevens is a genius inclusion. It allows a platform for minor olympic nations (south seas islands in particular) to compete with more sporting giants in the sport like the GB nations, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The possibility of Fiji winning a gold is brill.

Wheelchair rugby is sport at its best. I reccomend seeing that when the Paralympics start.

[Sirus]

I kinda want to see fencing. No real reason why, I just like swords.

[ghjijhg]

I'm looking forward to the swimming events.

[Megaman]

For some reason the Olympics have no spark for me anymore. After the last one it was just meh for me.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I want a parkour event. If they can have gymnastics they should have parkour too.

[Sirus]

I want a parkour event. If they can have gymnastics they should have parkour too.

That would be cool.

[Guardian G.I.]

I'm really interested in how the Belarusian football team will perform.
Also, looking forward to see shooting events.