What really impresses me are the boat races. How do they stay going so straight? And how on earth to they place all those lane markers so precisely?
I feel bad for Japan building all these nice venues and then not being able to sell tickets. How about they get the fast track for hosting the next available games?
Were the top US basketball players left off by the coach, or did the players decline callups? I’m not up on basketball, but other than Durant, are there other top players there?
It seems like top players don’t commit to every Olympics. After this tough go at it, the hope will be to get some of the absolute best to go out.
It’ll be a while, I think. It’s Paris, Los Angeles, and then Brisbane, Australia. I don’t think they’d have a second consecutive Olympics in the Asia Pacific region which is inconvenient for live television in Europe and North America. Maybe 2036 goes to Canada? Or maybe they’ll take another shot with a developing country? I hope not, given the Rio disaster but we shall see.
Summer, I guess. The next Winter one is in 6 months and is just a bit west in Beijing.
And…the 2018 were in Korea, so the region has kind of had three in a row.
Watching the American women gymnastics, which NBC offers a special stream so we can track them.
One girl has a red uniform instead of blue. Is that different? Is she an alternate?
EDIT: Two are wearing red, I think? Why are they not all wearing the same color?
The only reason that there are three in a row is that the only other city that wanted the 2022 Games was Almaty in Kazakhstan.
Winter has become the “avoid all costs” Olympics it seems. I do remember Beijing getting it by default almost. Looks like Italy took 2026.
Lee Kiefer gets the 1st US individual women’s fencing gold (foil)
You know NBC would not air it if an American wasn’t in it, but I do like that they do show lesser know sports. Interesting that the athletes step on the foil to straighten it.
Brian
We watched the skateboarding for 10 minutes last night, won’t bother with that again.
The water polo is good watching.
Coach Stefan Kuntz had a very hard time gathering a squad and was only able to get 17 players (including 3 goalies, so there are only 14 field players) instead of the 22 possible. It’s a shame, but understandable, because the Bundesliga teams are in the middle of their pre-season phase and very reluctant to provide players, which they are not committed to. Then we got red cards in both of our first two games, which further diminished the selection. At the end of today’s game, Kuntz even let his second goalie switch to a field jersey because he was his last possible substitution if there had been a late injury. Sadly, this is by far not the best squad we could have sent to Tokyo.
Thank you for fighting my ignorance. Germany does look good on the attack. The Footballing World is a better place when The Germans are playing at their best.
There are even more hardships that will make winning a medal (which still is the official goal) difficult: since this squad was chosen rather randomly, it’s a collection of players who hadn’t ever played together before and in some cases even didn’t know each other. IIRC, the preparation training phase was mere two weeks, during which the team played only one game, a friendly against Honduras. So it’s no wonder that we look shaky, especially in the defense, because the players don’t already know the habits, runs and ways of their teammates. They are learning to get together as a team right on the pitch.
This is so odd. I thought, about 15 years ago, the US men’s basketball team embarrassingly lost (Pan Am games, or was it Olympics?), and they revamped the whole system: from then on, there would be a consistent core of (NBA) players who would practice together on several occasions across the year, coached (then) by Duke University’s Mike K.
I guess that plan didn’t last long.
ETA: I just realized EinsteinsHund was talking about German football/soccer! Every word of his/her post still applies. 
(Well, maybe not the last word.)
The latter. A number of players who would’ve been slam dunks (pun extremely intended) for attending the Olympics had it been a non-COVID year, such as LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry, and Chris Paul, declined their invitations in order to rest and recuperate following an NBA season that was compressed and had a delayed start last year due to COVID.
Another big name, James Harden, initially committed to playing in the Olympics, but later withdrew his commitment due to a hamstring injury he incurred during this year’s playoffs.
Glancing through the official roster, I’d say that the next top player is unquestionably Damian Lillard, but after him it becomes iffy depending on who you define as a “top player”. Probably Khris Middleton, Devin Booker, and Jayson Tatum?
Was Lebron considering going? I thought he had said he was basically done with the Olympics and also didn’t go to Rio in 2016.
I think that’s not a total coincidence, I had wanted to draw that comparison myself, though I know much more about football than about basketball: the standing of Olympic football in Germany is comparably weak like that of Olympic basketball in the US. In the first case, the Bundesliga, WC and Euro are much more important, and in US basketball the NBA overshadows everything.
ETA: apropos, I’m a he.
Yeah, I missed that part. I should’ve left him off the list if the criteria specifically includes them wanting to compete at the Olympics were it not for father time. However, the USA basketball organization doing the bare minimum of at least extending him an invitation was a no-brainer, even if he does decline.
Kiesenhofer won the women’s cycling road race by so much that Annemiek van Vleuten, the silver medalist, thought she won. Kiesenhofer was the only Austrian in the race, and the first to win cycling Gold since 1896.
Brian
Are you sad that there are too many, or too few? At least in the road race there can be fans (unlike most events)
Brian