The Olympics should be the pinnacle for the amateur sportsman that will later, if he chooses, look for the higher platitudes in professional sport.
:s mokin:
The Olympics should be the pinnacle for the amateur sportsman that will later, if he chooses, look for the higher platitudes in professional sport.
:s mokin:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
Agreed. Certain events aren't fit for the Olympics.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
Cycling is an odd one. Like motorsport there are a number of disciplines and specialisation. Ask Sir Chris Hoy how important the Olympics are? Does track cycling have blue riband events?
South American countries take it rather seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Uruguay won the first Olympics football sanctioned for pros which set the template for the World Cup.
Brazil has never won a gold medal.
This is correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by wedge
They always send as strong squad as they can. This time Brazil will probably send Neymar for one, who is not a second rate player.
Also on Uruguay they won those earlier Olympic tournament and firmly regard them as World Championship victorys in all but name.
To there credit the South Americans take any tournament they play in seriously. I hope one of those two win the tournament.
Indeed, that's why I differentiated between road and velodrome in my original post :) Track cycling has a world championships, however it's my impression that the 'lympics is the one they want.Quote:
Originally Posted by wedge
South American teams may take it seriously, but do they really take their strongest squad? I'm not sure on the rules of the Olympic tournament but shirley there is still a second rate element to the team? I mean, there may be seriously good players involved, but not all 11 will be of the standard that they send to the WC?
My guess is that many of you were too young to have experienced the Olympics in the days where it was for amateur athletes. The all pro's started in 1992.Quote:
Originally Posted by race aficionado
Before that the only "professionals" were mostly the the Soviet block athletes, where according to their political system, the professional athlete did not exist.
So according to saint Google, The soviet system would provide a very comfortable living for these athletes, but since they were not "paid" they were still classified as amateurs.
And even though there was a great differential in age and experience between, for example, a boxer from Cuba and a boxer from my home country Colombia,
It was always a treat to see if our man could knock the lights out, or actually survive the bout with the experienced contender.
This of course happened in other sports
So for Basketball for example, we were bringing college kids to face guys 5 - 10 years older who were bigger, strong, and more experienced. It was never a level playing field.
So I blame the Commies. ;)
so I should stop bithin'. I'm getting to be an old geezer, it is what it is, and I still enjoy the competition.
And this year we have the added bonus of olympic golf :p :
:s mokin:
The Olympics falls in the middle of WC qualification - which is different format which us Europeans take for granted. Instead of groups the S Americans qualify in a mini league.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
In effect its a no brainer for the S Americans send a strong squad because the Olympics works as a stepping stone for the WC.
You're allowed 3 over-age players for the Olympics - dependent on willingness of the clubs. In Beijing Argentina had Mascherano and Riquelme
I suppose it depends what sports you enjoy watching. We like cycling in our house and watch coverage of races four or five days a week. To be fair, we dont always watch the full days stage due to their length and us haveing to watch them after work but we'll probably watch the last 50km at least. Yesterday I watched the time trial stage of the Criterium du Dauphine. It was won by Britains Bradley Wiggins who is also currently winning the race and holds the yellow jersey. He also has two bronze medals, one silver and three gold olympic medals from the last three Olypic games. Coverage is out there, I suppose its up to each individidual as to whether its something they like and whether they actually want to watch it.Quote:
Originally Posted by wedge
There are world championships for both track and road cycling. Mark Cavendish won the world road championship race in Copenhagen last year. Great Britain really dominated the race and there was a seriously impressive ride from Bradley Wiggins. It's quite a feat to give your everything in a world championshipjust just so some other bloke can come through at the end and take the gold medal. You dont get that in many sports. Interestingly Mark Cavendish won BBC's Sports Personality award with 49% of the votes last year. Admittedly 2011 wasn't an olympic year or a year with a major football tournament. Maybe it was an easy year for a cyclist to win it.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
As far as track cycling is concerned the world championships are far more harder to win than the olympics. Due to Great Britain being so dominant in Bejing the rules were changed so that this year there will only be one entrant from each country in each race. The best two or three riders in a particular event might come from the same country. Many riders have already voiced their opinion that the world track championships are far harder to win as you are competing with the best of the best and not the person who might have been the best on a particular day when team selections were taking place.
How big is your house? :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by GridGirl
From all interviews I've read I'm surprised at how much tennis players want to win Olympic gold. It seems extremely important to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
If you're due to play in the Olympics and an interviewer asks how important it is you're hardly going to reply "Meh, I'd rather win the NBA" ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by theugsquirrel
That would be only for juniors competitors then. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by race aficionado
Especially if you're a tennis player. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
All tennis players, especially guys like Federer and Nadal put immense importance to it. If you followed tennis more closely, you would know it.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
Why would I pay more attention to a sport that I find tedious?Quote:
Originally Posted by Garry Walker
So you don't come across as ignorant when offering opinions about it, for one.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
I didn't think I came across as particularly ignorant. I didn't say (or intend to say) that no one in those sports cares about the olympics, I was merely pointing out that it isn't the most important part of their year. For example, if there was another prestigious track & field event at the same time as the olympics then you can safely assume that the majority of athletes would opt for doing the olympics rather than the other event. If there was one of the major tennis tournaments at the same time as the olympics then I don't think you can say with so much certainty that the majority would choose the olympics.Quote:
Originally Posted by theugsquirrel
As I said, the Olympics should be the absolute peak of a sport.
My apologies. That is fair enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJan
Today they are touting that the games are "£500m under budget" as they 'only' spent £1.5bn of the £2bn contingency..
Erm, that means they are £1.5bn OVER budget!!
I guess the spin they’re trying to put on it is that they had allotted the entire 2B as an expenditure, but have now saved the taxpayer 500M :mark: .
Are the accounting for the security budget being massively increased - once they realised the original budget was inadequate? Or the increase to the budget of the opening ceremony once Danny Boyle's ego got involved? Some of these targets seem remarkably elastic and I'm sure there's a column marked target=actual on their spreadsheet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Do you know what gets my goat most about these games? In spite of the several billion pound budget, and a time when there's rising unemployment especially among the young, almost everybody working at the events will be a volunteer. We couldn't use this vast pot of money to provide a few weeks' paid work for locals who desperately want it?
Even McDonalds have got the decency to pay the workers in their garish on-site calorie dispenser the minimum wage to shovel fat into the mouths of kids attending an event designed to encourage grassroots sport, but security will be provided by people expected to work for free or - in many cases - lose their jobseekers allowance.
£500m under budget means that the boys at the top get a lovely big bonus.
Of £500m?
no olympics thread is complete without Python's silly olympics: Monty Python - Silly Olympics - YouTube
"Survival"
That's all I know.
en español:
tiraMillas, la web de ocio de MARCA
Workers were out in force last night marking out the "ZIL lanes" which will whisk VIPs and sponsors around at the expense of ordinary road users. I expect mass civil disobedience is being planned even as we speak.
Dave B is the number 1 fan of Olympics :p :
I agree that the special treatment of useless VIPs is irritating but on the other hand it's a privilege for 1 month only so you can live with it.
In Athens, the funny thing about the Olympics VIP lanes was that they were visible even 5-6 years after the games. What kind of bloody material did they use? Regular lines fade out in just a couple of years :p :
That's the thing: I really enjoy the games themselves, just not all this faff!Quote:
Originally Posted by odykas
London Olympics: Lord Coe's astonishing sponsors outburst - The Daily Record
Not that I'd follow the Olympics much, but come on - this is utter b*****it. I'd just like that to be a case of poor journalism rather than actual facts...
The Zil lanes start today. I pity the fool who drives near London - any time really :)
I hope this games acts as a watershed in realising that sponsorship has gone too far. Why go to these lengths? Most sporting events are sponsored, do they have to use such stupid measures to 'protect' their sponsors? Of course not, it's completely unnecessary. If a business wants to associate themselves with the games then that should be seen as a good thing!Quote:
Originally Posted by N4D13
Thats ok because the Zil lanes are in London, not near it ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
They are annoying but they are only on the main routes to/from Stratford and even then not along whole routes, for example much of the North Circular doesn't have them despite being on the way from Heathrow to the site.
Its swings and roundabouts because thanks to the Olympics we've had much needed repairs and extensions to the road network where I live, if having these lanes (which don't affect me in the slightest) is the price then I'll happily pay it.
How to make friends and influence people, Mitt Romney style... Have to say I like David Cameron's putdown.
Oh, Mitt: those Romney gaffes in full | World news | guardian.co.uk
Yes, Mitt, we may bitch and moan about the run-up to the Olympics but dammit man these are our Olympics and if you knew anything about Britain you'd know that this is what we do: we whine and criticise but once the event itself starts we're pretty much all right behind it.
Go away and read "How to Win Friends and Influence People", you tool. :laugh:
Mind you, our politicians aren't much better at avoiding gaffes. The man in this video is our culture minister (at least for a few more weeks):
Jeremy Hunt almost hits woman with Olympic bell end - video | Politics | guardian.co.uk
(Much respect to the Guardian for slipping the phrase "bell end" into their headline ;) )
The Olympics haven't really started yet and I'm already bored. To be fair, I was actually bored of them around 2007, just after they were announced. The media and the papers have been insufferable with their glorification of "The Games" and "Team GB" for the last 500 years (sorry, 5, but it feels like 500). London, London, London, London, London is all I hear about. How great it will be for LONDON. I don't particularly care about London, I don't live or work there. And £11 billion for 4 weeks of tedium does seem excessive, for all the corporate sponsors and executives to have a jolly.
I won't be watching it, I saw 3 minutes of the GREAT BRITAIN (not Team GB) football game and it was the most horrifically bad atmosphere I've ever seen at a football match.
I'll be watchng the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday and then hiding for two weeks. Wake me up when it is over!
"London, London, London, London"? You do know that the match you briefly watched was in Manchester, don't you? :p
BBC Radio 4 news and current affairs programs have been geoblocked for the Olympics.
Well done. :angryfire
I blame the IOC.
Do you pay a licence fee? Well stop whinging then :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
Biggest show on earth. Really?
The FIFA World Cup would have been a much bigger deal for the UK to host.
The Olympics have started now. So it's time to stop complaining.