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As many of you know, the Olympics start on August 8th, 2008 in Beijing. This thread will be for Olympics enthusiasts, rather than about the political side of China and the Olympics (of which even as of today there is developing news of a hubub going on).
I'll try over the next month and a half to try and do an overview of some of the favorites and expectations for the sports and any news items I come across so when the Olympics actually start, you'll know what to expect and such, if you aren't a regular Olympic news reader. Fair warning, I'm probably going to focus on American atheletes, but non-American Hatrackers should feel more than welcome to post about the shining star atheletes from their own countries.
On a personal note, we found out today that my future sister in law's brother will be on the US Oympic rowing team, and her whole family will be going to China to cheer him on in August!
Only a month and a half left until the games begin!
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Blayne Bradley
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I am lobbying for a Magic: The Gathering to be considered an Olympic sport. Whose with me!!??
Anyone know if they have any olympic martial art sports? I'm trying to figure out which sport to be excited for.
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Taekwondo is an olympic sport, as are boxing and judo.
Edit: Wrestling is also an olympic sport, but I cannot remember whether it is winter or summer.
Personally, I'd really like to see some sort of mma enter the olympics. It apparently almost happened in Athens, but fell through.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I am lobbying for a Magic: The Gathering to be considered an Olympic sport. Whose with me!!??
Sounds great, but the problem would be
Announcer: "kobiyashi of japan is now tapping 8 ice covered mountain...he plays an ice goblin AND,.. OH MY GOD SEARING FLESH IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S ALL OVER AND THAT ONE GUY IN THE STAND GOES WILD !!!!!!!!!"
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Gymnastics is usually my focus during the Summer Olympics. Occasionally, I'll catch a track/field event but they don't interest me as much as the racing events during the winter season.
I'm also really excited to see Taekwondo this year. I keep seeing that phone commercial on tv with all the TKD siblings doing flips around their house. I'll also probably catch Judo and maybe boxing since my instructor keeps insisting that I should watch a fight sometime. Unfortunately, there's no Karate (for an unknown reason) though I know its on the list of sports being considered should any be removed from future Olympics. Shaolin hasn't become as popularized which is unfortunate because I'd kill see a Wushu or kickboxing competition outside of tiny, fuzzing videos on youtube.
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Since I have a competitive gymnast in my house, that is where we focus. My oldest daughter also loves to watch diving. I enjoy some track and field and swimming.
But I truly love all things Olympic. I'll watch as much of it as I can. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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A friend of mine at works plays cards with Michael Phelps; they went to high school together. I'll have him put in a good word for you Carrie.
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I became a huge fan of men's swimming last summer olympics, and I might try to catch Olympic fencing as well.
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I was never really interested in the team sports aspect of the olympics. For instance the basketball or baseball. Never seemed very, I don't know, Olympic to me. Track, biking, gymnastics, swimming. These are olympic trials to me. Ping pong, horse riding, and volleyball, well I'm probably not going to tune in. These people who practice these sports are altheletes to be sure. Olympians? I couldn't say.
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Men's swimming had a good cast of characters in '04. From cowboys like Gary Hall Jr. to pretty boys like Peirsol and guys who quitely get it done like Krayzelburg not to mention the horror of Crocker choking in the 4 x 100 freestyle. It was all there. Swimming, track, gymnastics are what I like to watch. I like the blend between individual events and relays.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Though probably not for the reason Carrie does.
This is probably true.
(And I've already got my Phelps-hookup [should it ever prove desirable...], but thanks for the offer. )
I do watch a fair bit of gymnastics, but I purposely ignore that trampoline event. It makes little sense to me.
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Trampolining is very similar to olympic diving, but certainly not identical, they should have separate categories.
What if Chinese human rights abuses interfere with specific events in the Olympics, can we debate it then?
I remember reading a Newsweek article about a Chinese olympic diver who won the silver or gold last olympics and dislodged his cateract jumping. He is now blind in one eye but is still training the other divers as well as competing. I really hope he doesn't lose the other eye trying for the gold again.
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There's a big article in TIME magazine about Chinese training methods. They comb the countryside looking for kids, take them from their homes, force them to train for 8 hours a day with substandard education, and the ones who don't make it can't get into college because their education sucked, and many have problems with drugs and alcohol, and their suicide rates a fairly high too. The Chinese think that if they can win more Golds than the US, then they'd be #1, so they're focusing on events where a lot of medals are up for grabs.
I guess those kind of Olympic specific things are okay to discuss, though I'd like it sidelined in a month when the games actually start.
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I read that Beijing is so plluted they are spending the next weeks seeding the clouds so that it rains. I will see if I can find a link.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: There's a big article in TIME magazine about Chinese training methods. They comb the countryside looking for kids, take them from their homes, force them to train for 8 hours a day with substandard education, and the ones who don't make it can't get into college because their education sucked, and many have problems with drugs and alcohol, and their suicide rates a fairly high too. The Chinese think that if they can win more Golds than the US, then they'd be #1, so they're focusing on events where a lot of medals are up for grabs.
I guess those kind of Olympic specific things are okay to discuss, though I'd like it sidelined in a month when the games actually start.
*nods head* I read that article as well, it was fascinating though definitely heart wrenching. But I suppose we will see if all this organized hard work pays off when they distribute medals.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Elizabeth: Here is one:
Phelps dropped an event, which was really a backup firewall event anyway. And there was some excitement in the Track and Field trials yesterday.
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Watched some of the swimming trials tonight.
Sometimes I wonder if Phelps is an android or maybe a genetic experiment. He's insane.
But apparently some girl in Australia qualified for 16 (?) swimming events. Woah! They expect her to cut back to eight but still!
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That IM that Phelps and Lochte swam was pretty sweet. I wonder if he would've done that well if his buddy wasn't nipping at his heels.
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im looking forward to the soccer, tennis, table tennis, and basketball. when the olympics were here in atlanta my family went to at least 20 different events and had tickets to every soccer game both men and women. it was really really awesome and we all have great memories.
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It's not like no Americans have never injured themselves chasing medals, or I guess there was that gymnast (Kerry Strug?) who went ahead and vaulted on a ankle that was already sprained. I'm also seeming to recall that it turned out they would have won without that effort. Some called it sick and wrong, others said that's what the games are all about.
I feel kind of disillusioned about performance enhancing substances, myself. But I'll watch anyway.
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I'm trying to figure out why I'm such an Olympic nut even though I don't follow or appreciate the US baseball, basketball, football or hockey leagues. I don't care whether bulls, bears, or sox win. I'm sure the money in professional sports has something to do with it, but mostly, I think I'm under the opinion that the young men and women we send to compete represent the best of us. It's not necessarily humility. I like the swagger of the '92 US Basketball team and as much as I'm looking forward to swimming, I'm going to miss the shot of Gary Hall Jr. in a red, white, and blue silk boxing robe wringing his hands above his head like Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. HERE
I think I understand the Olympic as moral in a way that traditional professional sports aren't. Maybe it has to do with free-agency in professional sports and players not being tied to the culture of the places they represent. Or maybe it's the homogeneity of the US, that one team winning is much the same as another.
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I guess that no matter who wins, the producers tell their "olympic story" which is about how they are a normal person with problems so you always feel like you are on the winning team -- the team of humanity. I think one of my favorites was the first final in 2002, that Italian cross country skier who came back and won after breaking her pole and getting a new one she jumped back in and passed the Russian going uphill. That was awesome. Once again, the motto pretty much nails it: Citius, Altius, Fortius. Though I may have got those in the wrong order. Jer. Fixed it.
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*nods* I like the stories of people who finish despite having no chance of winning, or do their personal best even though they know they aren't going to win, or persevere despite injury or mishap. That's the part of the Olympics I like. I'm a big fan of the movie Cool Runnings, too. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Paul Hamm, believed to be the States' only real hope of a gold, or maybe even a medal in men's gymnastics, is pulling out of the Olymipics citing his broken hand as the reason. He was hoping it would have recovered by now but it hasn't. Despite having the problem with his hand, he still managed to score two points higher than anyone else at the qualifying rounds. I'm wondering where his brother is in the mix. His twin brother Morgan competed in 2004 with the men's team.
Chinese officials are preparing to take 90% of Beijing's cars off the roads and are also preparing to close more or even all factories in the city. Air pollution has failed tests in recent days for a passing grade in air quality, and visibility is down to a couple hundred yards. Construction in the city has also been halted. Half the three million cars that regularly travel the city's streets have already been removed to no effect.
Some countries, including the United States, are offering breathing masks to atheletes to minimize the impact of the air.
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: I'm trying to figure out why I'm such an Olympic nut even though I don't follow or appreciate the US baseball, basketball, football or hockey leagues. I don't care whether bulls, bears, or sox win. I'm sure the money in professional sports has something to do with it, but mostly, I think I'm under the opinion that the young men and women we send to compete represent the best of us. It's not necessarily humility. I like the swagger of the '92 US Basketball team and as much as I'm looking forward to swimming, I'm going to miss the shot of Gary Hall Jr. in a red, white, and blue silk boxing robe wringing his hands above his head like Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. HERE
I think I understand the Olympic as moral in a way that traditional professional sports aren't. Maybe it has to do with free-agency in professional sports and players not being tied to the culture of the places they represent. Or maybe it's the homogeneity of the US, that one team winning is much the same as another.
Man, you are as naive about this, as you used to be about Chicago politics. The IOC is one of the most corrupt governing bodies of sport in the world. Of course that doesn't have anything directly to do with the athletes. Except for the doping scandals.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... Chinese officials are preparing to take 90% of Beijing's cars off the roads and are also preparing to close more or even all factories in the city. Air pollution has failed tests in recent days for a passing grade in air quality, and visibility is down to a couple hundred yards. Construction in the city has also been halted. Half the three million cars that regularly travel the city's streets have already been removed to no effect.
From an sports perspective, I think Beijing was an awful choice for the games. To put it bluntly, Beijing's population is roughly 17.5 million people living in the developing world. Now, the progress that they've made is heartening (opening three subway lines before the games, probably doubling the length of subway system and dwarfing that of Toronto, how cool is that?) but still between the factories, legendary traffic jams, and the fact that many people still heat their homes burning cakes of coal directly, improving the air quality to world standards in the few years since the bid is a bit of a lost cause. Add in the summer sandstorms, being away from the ocean, the security hastles of hosting such an event in such a big city...ugh.
From this perspective, if I was in charge of things, I think a city such as Dalian would have been much more suitable. Much cleaner, smaller, and easier to secure. Less appealing to the central government and the IOC probably though.
So while *politically* I think picking a city in China proper was an awesome choice (in retrospect), from a sports perspective ... not so much.
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Yeah. I know I wouldn't visit a city with poor air quality even to WATCH sports, much less participate in them. (I have never been to Mexico City though I've been invited, for this reason; my asthma is too severe to risk it.)
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Blayne Bradley
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Shanghai is more of the international city, but I would also agree with Dalian why? Because the Shi Lang is berthed there. Nothing would impress me more then some of the Olympic celebrations taking place on China's first aircraft carrier.
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quote:Man, you are as naive about this, as you used to be about Chicago politics. The IOC is one of the most corrupt governing bodies of sport in the world. Of course that doesn't have anything directly to do with the athletes. Except for the doping scandals.
When I see athletes cry on the medal podium, upon hearing the nation anthem and seeing the flag raised, I tend to think those are legitimate tears of awe, humility, and gratitude. Maybe they are just counting their endorsement deals when they get back home, or thinking how cool they are, but I like to think that they are identifying in a meaningful way, even if it's temporarily, with the ideals embodied by the flag and the music.
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I've become very jaded and cynical, because of the recent doping scandals in cycling and the way the World Anti-Doping Association has handled things. For the most part it isn't the athletes, I agree. One of the more interesting bits will be if the rates of asthma attacks go up with the athletes because of the pollution, if there will be TUEs (exemptions submitted by doctors for the athletes to take particular drugs) and how they will be handled. Asthma drugs in particular are banned, yet they may be absolutely necessary given the pollution situation. Also WADA has a new EPO test (although not peer-reviewed because they don't believe in it) and it is likely they will nab high profile athletes for EPO in order to make a point.
The U.S. already has a swimmer in trouble for a doping violation, even though the substance was believed to be ingested via an unregulated supplement, the athlete is liable, not the supplement company. If the Chineese athletes get nailed for doping violations at the same rates the other countries do, I will be happy. If they don't, then once again the system is rigged.
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quote:If the Chineese athletes get nailed for doping violations at the same rates the other countries do, I will be happy. If they don't, then once again the system is rigged.
Yeah, I just assume that many Chinese athletes-- and athletes from a host of other countries-- are juiced. It doesn't matter. As long as the US gets and keeps its house in order, I don't mind losing. It's a big world, and we can't control it.
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I don't know. I'm not sure that our house is any more in order than anybody else's. I hope it is, but I'm not sure.
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Chicago is a finalist city. It's not confirmed and from what I understand the decision isn't supposed to take place for another year.
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2010 is Vancouver-Whistler, BC, Canada for the Winter games, then the next Summer games are in London, England in 2012. 2014 Winter games are in Sochi, which is a resort/luxury Black Sea coastal city in Russia.
2016 is down to I think four finalist cities, of which Chicago is one of. The other three are Tokyo, Japan, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Madrid, Spain. Doha scored higher than Rio but was dropped for various reasons. Chicago scored third highest.
It's going to be interesting to see how they choose which city to host the games. If Rio won, it would be South America's first game. The IOC is trying to branch out more, considering three continents have dominated (monopolized really) the games over the years, with the single exception of Australia. But Rio scored lowest in the initial findings. Madrid would I think be the second Olympics for Spain, but it'd be four years after London had it, which would put them close together on the same continent, and the IOC likes to at least try and spread them around. America has hosted 8 games, more than anyone else, and it will have been 14 years since Salt Lake City, and 20 since the last summer games we held by the time 2016 rolls around. Japan hasn't had the games since Nagano.
Ultimately I think some of these timing and geography concerns will get swept under the carpet a bit and they'll focus on who has the best facilities, etc. Rio's only real draw at this point is that it would be the first SA city to host the games. But I think Tokyo probably has more of an inside track.
We'll find out in 15 months.
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For some reason, Chicago seems like a really terrible place to have the Olympics. I don't know what it is (could just be my innate bias, having been raised in Wisconsin... ), but... well... where would they put everything?
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In their official application to the USOC, they said they'd have to build five new permanant venues and 11 temporary ones, combined with existing facilities for 27 total venues that would be primarily nestled with other buildings into four clusters that would serve the games and be within about 10 miles of the Olympic Village. Five of the 27 venues would be outside this range, but it isn't at all uncommon for some venues to be quite far away, as many were in Turin, Italy and will be in Vancouver-Whistler. The IOC was initially impressed by existing Chicago infrastructure, and the local citizenry seems to be on board. Much of the stuff that has to be built has already had funds pledged by private businesses, local groups and wealthy individuals. In addition to the buildings they know they'd have to make, Chicago has dozens of local sporting arenas and convention centers, which also includes the varios collegiate stadiums as well, plus the lakefront for beach and water events there. Rounding out their technical benefits is a strong transit system between the eleveted trains, two large airports and a metro system that snakes out into the surrounding towns, plus having ample hotel space. Those are the technical aspects, not all of what is graded in choosing a city, but Chicago ranks highly
Chicago is rumored to actually be a favorite among the cities. Rio lacks the infrastructure, Madrid is hurt by the London games being in Europe, and Tokyo by the Summer games now being held in Beijing. Much of it is rumors and hearsay. Rio's long shot seems to hinge on it's South American location. And anything from the war in Iraq to Bush leaving office could negatively or positively effect their decision.
Personally I hope Chicago gets it for two main reasons: 1. In eight years I should be both nearby and financially able to actually attend some Olympic events, so there's that personal angle. 2. After 2016, you're going to see a LOT more African, Asian and South American cities enter the mix with serious bids. Durbin and Johannesburg in South Africa are considered favorites well ahead of the actual process for the 2020 Olympics, and places like Doha and other Middle Eastern cities plan to redouble their efforts and India will probably snag a game in the next decade too. Many of these cities, and nations, have made great progress towards clawing their way out of the third world and deserve to be featured on the world's stage as hosts to this event. I can hardly say that Kenya doesn't deserve it, we should get it, especially since we've had it more than anyone else. I guess I sort of see 2016 as maybe our last chance to get in the mix for awhile, maybe even for a good 10 or 20 years. Everyone deserves a turn, but I sort of selfishly want one last hurrah in what will be the beginning of my middle agedness (I'll be 32 in 2016) before the games leave the US for a good long (and very much deserved) while.
Oh, and Carrie, as for "where would they put everything?" Many of the permanant or temporary structures are planned for either currently vacant lakefront property (for the Olympic Village, and those buildings would be sold as condos or rentals afterwards) or for temporary buildings in local parks.
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quote:For some reason, Chicago seems like a really terrible place to have the Olympics.
Honestly, Chicago seems to me to be a dream city for the Olympics. They would need to build an Olympic stadium because I'm pretty sure that Soldier Field isn't big enough, but with respect to Arenas and fields, between DePaul, Millennium Park, Washington Park, UChicago, Soldier field, Wrigley, Cellular Field, whereever the BlackHawks play,(this doesn't even include Northwestern) getting from Event to Event would be a breeze on a bicycle or on the El. I was in LA in '84, and I know the hours it took to get travel from events. Atlanta had the space but didn't have the infrastructure set-up. Chicago already has a healthy, skeletal set-up by happy accident.
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They've already decided that Soldier Field, while it would hold many events, including gold medal matches for various events, would not be the official Olympic Stadium. A new temporary stadium would be built, I think in Washington Park, and would be taken down after the games are over.
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