2022 in Beijing, 2024 in Paris, 2026 in Milan, 2028 in Los Angeles, 2030 to be determined and 2032 in Brisbane.
I see that Russia is competing as ROC and an Olympic flag instead of their own nation.
Enjoying watching the rowing prelims, though it looks excruciating.
I figure that’s probably going to be only one I’m able to attend in my lifetime, so all my budgeting / travel plans / scheduling for the next 7 years is gonna revolve around that.
Beikoku (rice country, which I gather implies country of plenty) is not an official name anywhere. It’s handy for news stories. Also, by the way, Igirisu refers only to England, not the UK.
I think the word you are looking for is kanji. Kana refers to either or both of the two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana.
So I see they chose Naomi Osaka to light the torch in the opening ceremonies. I just walked into the living room and saw it happening on the TV this morning (NBC, Today Show, probably delayed). Isn’t it unusual for a competing athlete to do this? I’m mildly curious about why this decision was made, and whose decision it was.
You’re right. It was early, I’m tired, and was trying to figure things out live. Stupid brain not working great.
Cool stuff from the opening ceremonies:
- The flying drone globe
- The pictographs
- Jazz piano
Disappointment: Where was sumo wrestling?
I watched a little bit of handball today on NBCOlympics.com. Only three goals separated winner Norway from Brazil.
I plan on watching a lot of handball, gymnastics, basketball, swimming, diving, and beach volleyball. Maybe some soccer and baseball, too. Hard to get excited about watching Olympic baseball when MLB is on and my Nats are in contention for a division championship.
Field Hockey is really cool, just finished watching Japan vs Australia. Now onto France vs Argentina in handball, another sport I rarely see outside of the Olympics
Olympic flag bearer stats (I/NBC missed some countries). Most countries had two flag bearers
Most is swimming with 66
Track & Field 46
Judo 24
Surprises:
Sailing: 9 – including both from Austria (!)
Fencing: 6
Gymnastics: 2 (Uzbek Gymnast is 46!)
Brian
The people acting out the pictograms did an amazing job. It’s just too bad there couldn’t have been a stadium full of spectators to cheer them on. (And the drone fleet was amazing as well.)
I was digging some 3x3 basketball tonight. I don’t think I’d seen that before. I like how the NBCSports app lets you pick any sport to watch and follow. That way you’re not looking through grids and different channels to find the sports you’re interested in.
What was the point of that? How did it relate to sports in any way? Just to make an already drawn out program even longer?
I just can’t get into the Olympics this time.
What was the point of Queen Elizabeth parachuting into the London 2012 opening ceremonies? What’s the point of releasing fake doves? What’s the point of lighting a torch? Why even have opening ceremonies? How does it relate to sports in any way?
Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron in Sydney and went on to win a gold medal those games.
She was picked by virtue of having won silver in Atlanta, and also being one of the first (the first?) Aboriginal Australian to medal in the games.
This was a triumph.
I’m making a note here, huge success…
The NBC coverage sucked. A few minutes before the American team came in, they cut away to a pre-taped segment with Dwayne Johnson giving a melodramatic intro. In the process, they skipped over a few countries, oh well.
They came back from a commercial and said “while we were gone, the athletes and officials took the Olympic oath…”
The thing with the pictograms was pretty cool.
Looking at this list on Wikipedia, I’d say about half of the “lighters” are competing athletes.
I’m into it, but the absolute lack of crowds makes things very odd. I was watching Brazil-Germany in soccer the other day and a goal was scored and I barely noticed. No crowd cheering really changes things. I’m watching beach volleyball right now and you can hear the wind whistling past the microphone and they are still playing that upbeat music you hear at beach volleyball, but no one is there so it is really strange.
It’s a bit ridiculous they don’t have fans at the outdoor events at least.
I’m one of the more cautious people and I pretty much agree. Filling the stands, even in a social-distancing way, with fully vaccinated people seems really reasonable.
Each country could have done the “north korean thing” of sending a set contingent of fans, which would have been hilarious, but a way to have a more fair sampling.
Or just pay Japanese people to cheer aggressively for everyone to make it more fun.