If they gave Gold, Silver and Bronze to the chemists behind the athletes’ performance, I’d watch that awards ceremony.
I went as a guest of Visa, a sponsor to the '98 Nagano Olympics. We had access to the special club house for the VIPs, had charted busses which took us past where the peons had to walk and bypassed security to get to the special seats, front and center for popular events.
It more or less ruined it for me, because everything was so carefully manufactured to be emotionally manipulated while “we” were above all of that.
Dude, that’s how college athletics works. She didn’t get paid for winning the pro tourneys. If she did she would have lost her NCAA eligibility. All I’m saying is that, of all the pro athletes in Rio, you picked possibly the worst person to use as an example.
I think that, when they switched the Olympics to alternating two-year schedules, it became “all Olympics, all the time” between the stories of the host cities and the hype and the general idea of it as a special event wore thin. Maybe I wouldn’t care anyway but I do feel that the new schedule made a decent contribution to my general sense of Olympics malaise.
I’ve watched it as entertainment before, either a sport I had a little interest in, or something that’s not much practised around here. Not all of the coverage mind you, but I found it an ok past time when it was on. But with the scandals surrounding athletes, the IOC, the host nation and so on and so forth I’d rather watch as little as possible this year.
I don’t piss on the enjoyment friends’ and family find in it, so I’ve watched some with them, but haven’t tuned in on my own account.
It would be nice if he came out of the quarry once in awhile and socialize.
I stumbled across some clips from the gymnastics gala, an unscored, medal-free event where gymnasts just show off and sometimes do goofy stuff. Some of those were worth watching, just for the sake of being amazed at what the human body can do. The tumblers and the Chinese team’s acrobatics display were particularly gape-worthy.
So, interest in the actual games? None at all. Medals, records…meh. Watching some of the athletes show off what they can do when they’re not competing, though, held my attention for a bit.