Faux-Greek lettering on the Grandstand intro. Acres of taut, muscled flesh. Tiny, bendy Romanian gymnasts sobbing. A breathless Sally Gunnell asking, "well, are you pleased with your fourth place?"
Number of drugs scandals: 3 (athletics/swimming/badminton)
Number of weeping gymnasts: 6
Number of dropped relay batons: 2 (Britain/Jamaica)
Percentage of British athletes failing to live up to expectations: 86
Mention of epics/gods/tragedy/Troy: countless thousands
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I get a bit too emotional every time someone wins a medal though and end up spending nearly the whole time in tears. Fucking silly mare.
Anyhew, I sincerely hope none of the badminton players get done for drugs. Unless they are Koreans. Because they alway look so dour and Kim Dong Moon wins everything.
Please tell me they are not having bloody curling this year though. Why did they show so much of it last time? It was as exciting as watching soup grow cold.
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Is there a summer boredom equivalent? Maybe small bore rifle shooting?
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Astromariner
Going the right way for a smacked bottom
posted
I love watching: the athletics, swimming, (synchronised swimming is a special treat if I manage to catch it) diving, gymnastics, showjumping and eventing. Everything else bores the tits off me.
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posted
Oh yes, Astro, you have just listed all my favourite events!
Stuff like fencing, archery and shooting should be fun, but they don't do it properly like in films.
Even watching the pointless filler like tae kwando and table tennis is amusing for the commentators trying desperately to sound enthused and knowledgable.
Plus, I think Colin Jackson might be joining the lovely Roger Black to form an unbeatably hott ex-athletico TV presenting duo.
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quote:Originally posted by Astromariner: I love watching: the athletics, swimming, (synchronised swimming is a special treat if I manage to catch it) diving, gymnastics, showjumping and eventing. Everything else bores the tits off me.
Yes. And ice-skating in the Winter Olympics. Although not swimming, so much.
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Astromariner
Going the right way for a smacked bottom
posted
I love the ice-skating in the winter olympics! I could watch it all day. Although I prefer figure skating (where they do the exciting stuff like triple salkos and death-spins) to ice-dance, which looks too easy to be impressive: I always think "I could do that, nae bother". The rivalry between countries makes it more interesting though - I remember when Torvil and Dean did their last Olympics (grand finale to Let's Face the Music and Dance) and all the french press made jokes about poor Jane Torvil looking like a flying pig.
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posted
Ice skating is the only good thing in the Winter games though, and you don't need to be in a wintry country to have an ice rink.
So, I propose scrapping the winter games and adding ice skating to Astro's list to make My Ideal Olympycks.
I also propose a DrugsAided Games, where athletes can only compete if they have taken performance enhancing drugs. How fast could they go? Which drugs would be most effective?
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posted
Oh! Oh! There is a programme on Channel 4 tonight about the effects of drugs on performance, testing various substances on athletes and seeing which ones do best (I think).
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Ice skating is the only good thing in the Winter games though...
There's ski-jumping, luge and the good old four man bob. Winteralimpex rocks my world. I want to make some Thornesque comment about liking the event so much that it makes me jizz a stream of pure ice, but I'm not sure it'd be advisable.
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Astromariner
Going the right way for a smacked bottom
posted
The four-man bob, like ice dance, loses valuable interest points by looking like a total piece of piss, especially for the people who sit in the middle. So far as I can see, their only tasks are: sit still; keep head down.
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posted
I have to admit that I don't give a fuck about watching sports. I have occasionally watched ice skating, and did indulge in a stoned watching of some fit men running once (Commonwealth games, maybe?) which culminated in me and London in fits of giggles by encouraging them to Run to momma!, and out of the two I would also be in favour of the Winter Olympics - but I'd rather play SSX Tricky.
This isn't to say that I don't think its a great achievement what these athletes have done blah-de-blah but I just don't get a thrill out of watching it.
quote:Originally posted by Astromariner: The four-man bob, like ice dance, loses valuable interest points by looking like a total piece of piss, especially for the people who sit in the middle. So far as I can see, their only tasks are: sit still; keep head down.
But like all good sport, you're waiting for something to go wrong. Of course I don't care about a bunch of guys sliding down a mountain in a metal sausage skin. But if there's a chance they might fall out, "flip the bob" or generally get injured, then it gets much more interesting.
Besides, they have to run fast, push and jump before they get to the siting still stage.
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posted
perhaps if they made the track a little wider and sent them down 5 at a time it'd be more interesting. Possibly also making it steeper and a lot longer, like down the side of a mountain?
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quote:Originally posted by Uber Trick: I just don't get a thrill out of watching it.
It's not a "thrill", so much as the pleasure of lying on your bed cramming Pringles into your gob yelling RUN FASTER YOU USELESS WASTER, and enjoying dropping comments like, look at that technique, man, no control! as though you knew what you were talking about. This is why watching all sport is good. All good sports, I mean, not the rubbish ones like rugby/cricket/golf etc.
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turbo
Gold..... What is it good for? You can't eat it, you can't smoke it, yet everybody wants it.
posted
I love the Olympics, especially the swimming. I used to swim competitively myself, which is probably why I like the swimming so much and it was all very much enhanced by the fact that two Dutch swimmers did so incredibly well in the last Olympics. AND they both train at my gym! The girl has really huge shoulders and NO bum at all.
Apart from the swimming I like the diving and all the running events. I'll watch anything else if it happens to be on though and if I'm tired/lazy/pissed enough I really get into it. We spent one ski-ing holiday watching curling every night after the pub. We even got to know the names of all the curlers (?) and could comment on their technique as if we knew what we were talking about.
I'm looking forward to the Olympics. When does the whole shebang start?
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posted
Sorry - I just realised I came across as a total h8r and I did that thing which I get annoyed about myself, so to save you the hassle and to act as recompense VP, please be insured that I am right now giving myself a severe talking to, to be followed by an hour of self-flagellation.
edit: ON-TOPIC - Maybe self-flagellation could be an Olympic sport?
edit edit: lol, VP, sorry, I said Astro. I I'll add an extra 30 mins.
posted
Who cares about the sport when Bjork will be singing at the opening ceremony, dressed as a mountain and lake. Apparently. Hooray!
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posted
Turbo! In your position as curling afficionado, maybe you can enlighten me on something that's vexed me for years.
When the people with the broom scrub frantically in front of the anvil (or whatever it is that's serenely floating down the ice) are they trying to make it go faster, and thus further, or slow it down to make it stop on the target?
[Off topic - just back from an interview for that job for which i had to answer the 'bring your gays to work' question. I was so nervous I spent the hour beforehand in the khazi, and am now on a post-stress high. So do forgive me.[
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quote:Originally posted by herbs: When the people with the broom scrub frantically in front of the anvil (or whatever it is that's serenely floating down the ice) are they trying to make it go faster, and thus further, or slow it down to make it stop on the target?
I am not Turbo, but...
They do it to decrease the friction and make it travel faster (and therefore presumably further) and also to make it curve less. I think the curving reason is why the sweepers tend to go most mad towards the end of the stone's run.
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The stone (which prolly has some kind of 'proper' name...) will naturally follow a line of least resistance (ie path of least friction), so the folks with the brushes can actually cause a small change in direction by their efforts.
Monumentally dull, but true nontheless.
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turbo
Gold..... What is it good for? You can't eat it, you can't smoke it, yet everybody wants it.
posted
Unfortunately, I'm not the font of all wisdom on curling as I was drunk for most of my curling viewing. My experience is limited to "the blonde bloke with the funny nose is good". However, here is Turbo's Guide to Curling:
Curling is played within a curling rink on a playing surface ice called a 'sheet' with granite stones. The goal of the game is, after all 16 stones are played (8 by each team), to have a stone of your team's closest to the center of the house, called the 'tee'. This is accomplished by sending your stone to rest in scoring position by utilizing one of many shots. Some for these are a 'draw', by knocking your opponent's stones out of scoring position (a 'takeout'), and by guarding your own stones with others. The team with the closest stone to the 'tee', inside the house, scores a point, or more if they also have the second closest stone and so on. Each round is called an 'end' and consists of two stones delivered by each player on each four-player team. The stones are delivered from the hack on one side of the sheet to the house on the opposite side. This consists of the player pushing off from the hack with the stone and releasing it with a spin, or 'curl'.
Sweeping Either a curling brush or broom is used to sweep in the game. Sweeping fine tunes the shots, and sweeping is what makes curling truly a team sport.
Sweeping affects the ice in front of the moving stone in three ways:
Smoothing or polishing the pebble, Removing frost or debris, Momentarily warming the ice to create a thin film of water under the stone that acts as a lubricant.
As a result, a swept stone will lose its momentum more slowly and thus travel further. For draw shots, good sweepers will sweep just enough to bring the stone to its desired position. On takeouts, sweeping will hold a stone on the line of delivery longer and reduce the amount of curl.
quote:Originally posted by Doctor Agamemnon When: glowing pregnants
What the fuck was that all about?
I have been enjoying the bendygymnastics and, surprisingly, the badminton.
I don't like the contrast between the muscled bullets of the swimmers' bodies, the slender toned grace of the gymnasts' bodies, and my body, though. Are they taking the piss?
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Four of your English years ago I was freelancing from home (ie. idling) and spent the whole summer watching the Sydney Olympics - it was Ceefax page gr888. FFWD to the present and I'm sweating in a portacabin just hearing about it. How sucky is that. Posts: 8657
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posted
On a slightly similar but not quite note, I;d quite like to watch the fencing.
I've never been a big telly watcher.
This year is the first year I've had access to more than the regular 5 terrestrial TV channels, and so I might be able to receive, via the wonders of cable, some sports that I'm interested in.
But, being an irregular telly person, I don't know where to find out when I can watch fencing, or on which channel.
The BBC website has a schedule for the fencing, and a schedule for their coverage of the Olympics... but not a schedule of when they are showing Fencing on the Olympic coverage. Or maybe I missed it.
I don't know if any other UK cable companies are covering the Olympics. The Athens2004 site doesn't help either.
Any ideas? Is there a "universal" TV schedule site that you TV-watchers use to plan your lives?
I'm not even 100% sure which channels I can get on this whizzy cable telly box yet. There's LOTS.
posted
But what about the sport of thundergays - synchronised diving? Is that not the gayest game for gayers ever to come out of the tradesman's entrance of the Manor of the Third Earl of Gaylordshire, Nancytown, Bottingford?
And the fact that we won a medal doesn't make it any less gay.
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quote:Originally posted by herbs: Is that not the gayest game for gayers ever to come out of the tradesman's entrance of the Manor of the Third Earl of Gaylordshire, Nancytown, Bottingford?
A bit of olive oil and some leather hotpants, and you'd be wrong.
quote:Originally posted by Doctor Agamemnon When: The BBC website has a schedule for the fencing, and a schedule for their coverage of the Olympics... but not a schedule of when they are showing Fencing on the Olympic coverage. Or maybe I missed it.
Check out Eurosport. As the coverage is designed for a pan-European audience, all of the events are given pretty fair coverage. Fencing might not be big here, but it makes news in France and Italy.
And there are no pointless interviews with twats like Tim Henman.
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turbo
Gold..... What is it good for? You can't eat it, you can't smoke it, yet everybody wants it.
posted
The Olympics never fail to surprise me with sports I never thought of as sports. I mean, shooting, what's that all about? I really don't think you can class a person who can run 500 m incredibly quickly in the same league as someone who can shoot a target with a gun. Or can you? Surely on eof those gun-shooter-people doesn't need to be top fit with mega muscles and special diets and everything. Or am I just ignorant?
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I'll add an extra 30 mins.
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