Rio 2016 Olympic Games

The coverage of one of the Winter Olympics by the US network (I forget the year & the network) was so totally over-the-top pro-USA it sickened me. It's taken me a while to renew my interest, which is still pretty limited.

 

The video wouldn't play.....

 

^You have to watch it on YouTube.

I watched the bicycle races, and I think it was kind of crazy the decent that both the men and women had to do. In both races the leader crashed out with ~10 km left. (Although the woman's leader needed to take a different line through the curve, that was a nasty crash and I'm surprised she wasn't hurt worse.) The men's race crash, I surprised they didn't get run over by the cars or bikes in the chase group a few seconds back.

Rio is doing good so far it looks like.

Bill Murray had a good idea too. I could probably have completed the bike race, but would have been hours behind them.

 

That was actually a pretty terrible tackle...

I hate to admit it, but I was not impressed by the ability of the USA Olympic...OLYMPIC 7s rugby players. They made a lot of terrible, basic mistakes that I don't even think my college team would have done. I'm under the impression it's because they're playing 7s and not 15s. The back row never seems to be very good at basic rugby skills compared to the forwards.
--- merged: Aug 9, 2016 at 2:20 PM ---
I watched it again. I'm pretty sure it's an illegal hit.

The media obviously doesn't know anything about rugby. They seemed to congratulate her for a dangerous hit.

 

My wife seems curiously interested in Togo and Taekwando.




I don't understand.

 

:facepalms:

 

My wife has an interest in Men's Gymnastics,

which appears to be much like my interest in Women's Beach Volleyball .

 

I like cheering for the athletes from the small countries, or those who have only a few athletes at the games. I think if the US, China, and Russia just keep racking up the metals then the other nations won't take the games seriously, as it might be too hard to compete against them.

 

USA takes the team gold in gymnastics!



Yesterday was also a fantastic night in the pool for the US. I'm definitely a Ledecky fan! (and Lochte, what is up with that hair?)




And I know I keep repeating myself and this happens every Olympics, but seriously, the coverage is really bumming me out. I do kinda love the swimming commentators, though. They get just as excited as I do
--- merged: Aug 10, 2016 at 11:09 AM ---
ETA: Shit, I wish I could do this. Dang, Aly.




Oof, that is not-great quality. But you get the idea.

 

Why yes Fiji, we would totally love for you to ruin USA's rugby dreams.

 

I've seen a couple of the swim races, and some diving, because I occasionally enjoy the water stuff. But mostly I've been watching the gymnastics (which Little Levite refers to as "monastics"), because that's what I've always enjoyed watching.

I am perpetually astounded by what these young ladies can do. The sheer level of discipline, focus, determination, drive, fitness, and physical skill they display is beyond belief. I cannot even conceive of the years of blood, sweat, pain, struggle, persistance, and grit that lie behind those incredible few moments on the floor or bars or beam or vault.

Plus, you know...ass!

 

The Ass Factor isn't there for me with the Women's Gymnastics; the young women are more like 'girls' and I'm old enough to be their grandfather. Butt if you want to talk about the other Women's events...........

I usually find the Floor Exercise to be a total yawner, but last night three performances blew me away. The young women from Brazil (Andrade, I think) was out of medal contention, had nothing to lose, and gave it everything she had. Later Raisman and Biles did the same.

 

Yeah, Raisman and Biles were both amazing! I'm watching clips online, not TV coverage, so I didn't see the whole thing, just their routines.

As for age and the ass factor, I'm probably old enough to be their father, myself. But that doesn't mean I can't look and appreciate.