Well, its Official. I’m really tired of the constant, same commercials being run over and over and over and over and over over and over and over and over and over over and over and over and over and over over and over and over and over and over.
Toyota, I’m not going to start my impossible. That sounds like a real stupid thing to do and a waste of time. And a fancy tail-gate ain’t gonna make me buy a truck. Hell, the only reason I have for a giant truck is to haul my camper, and you gotta take the tailgate off for that!
Too few. There were long stretches of the race where the only humans beside the riders were organizers. Its always fun to see fans cheering on the riders.
Awarding another Games to Tokyo wouldn’t be totally without precedent. Innsbruck hosted the Winter Games in 1964, and again in 1976. Denver was originally scheduled to host in 1976, but opted out in '72. I assume Innsbruck became the replacement because they already had all the infrastructure.
As to hosting the Winter Games vs. the Summer, there’s an awful lot of expensive facilities needed in the winter, and you can’t repurposed a bobsled track or a ski jump into something else.
An amazing ride; she looked exhausted after she finished. Hell, I get tired just watching.
And that’s not a typo, either; it really was 1896 for Austria’s last medal in cycling.
I’m not gonna buy a truck either, but I like the commercial with the cat.
It’s a good event, but I feel like the Olympics need to find some way to reign in the extravagance. It must cost tens of millions to build that artificial whitewater course. What, did they not have a river somewhere they could use?
I can’t remember the year, but a Greek runner won a medal (Gold??) in 200m (or some other short race). The comment was “That’s the first Greek sprint win in over 1000 years” (or something like that)
I suppose the whitewater course could be opened to the public after the games. I know it looks like fun to me, and I’ve only got limited experience with whitewater rafting.
I used to white water kayak when I was 13-18, it’s a lot of fun, I still remember the excitement of being able to do my first recovery roll which opened up being able to get onto more serious water.
The book chronicling the first descent of the dudh kosi river down Everest is a great read.
Are there any tricks that actually involve stairs (there are plenty that involve the railing). Other than tradition and that they are emulating real places I’m not sure what the purpose of the stairs on the skateboard course are…
Not true; the city of Sarajevo was able to repurpose a lot of that into good cover against people shooting at them. (Sorry. Probably still too soon for that joke).
I am watching so much handball. Men’s and women’s. I’m pulling for Sweden in the men’s competition, and France in women’s.
Wow. Skateboarding. Something I can hate in the Summer as much as Half-pipe in the Winter. Like somebody said above, how many different ways can you slide down a rail? I don’t care what kind of silly names you call it, its still sliding down a rail.
I’m having a hard time finding anything I want to watch.
It sounds like that might include the rowing venue, as well.
A purpose-built course is probably the ideal; lets them move gates and obstacles, control the water flow, and make everything perfect. But as I said, I think the increasing extravagance is hurting the Olympics, and scaring cities away from hosting. Boston prepared a bid to host the 2024 Games, and was going to be the official U.S. bid, but was voted down by local residents. And because of all the colleges here, Boston already had a lot of venues that could be used.
I’ve been wondering if they could contain costs a bit by extending the length of the Games. If they were extended to a month, they wouldn’t need so many different venues; have the basketball for two weeks, then gymnastics in the same building for the next two weeks.
I don’t think the basketball/gymnastics type of venue is the issue (as this sort of arena is probably already present in most areas or at least would be useful after). But a velodrome? A whitewater course (whatever the technical term is for that)? A pool suitable for high diving? For that matter, a pool suitable for swim competitions with large numbers of bleacher seats? Many are not needed any longer. If you go back and look at Rio, or Athens or even Beijing, many venues remain unused or are even decaying.
BTW, my understanding is that both the Los Angeles and Brisbane bids assumed the use of existing venues, meaning they think they can hold down costs.
Lots of places have one, but to host the Olympics you need at least two. Basketball and gymnastics are happening at the same time. Add in rhythmic gymnastics, badminton, boxing, fencing, karate, judo, handball, shooting, table tennis, taekwondo, trampoline, volleyball, weightlifting, and wrestling; you need an awful lot of indoor venues.
In general, I would say that the continued dominance of the US women’s soccer team and men’s basketball team is bad for their respective sports; parity is always good.
I’ve been on quite a few tours of London , both in person and virtual, and the guides always point out what was built for the Olympics and repurposed. London definitely did the Olympics right
But then if the city wants to reuse one or two venues for all of the indoor sports, they’d have to extend the games out for months, during which they’d still have to pay for the athletes’ lodging costs at the Olympic Village.
The IOC could, of course, mitigate this by requiring the athletes to arrive so-and-so number of days before their events start and then immediately leave when they win or are eliminated, but I predict this will not go over well with the other countries.
Another issue is that if the Olympics were extended to a month or more, the broadcasting networks will have a very real problem of “viewer fatigue” setting in after the first 2 - 3 weeks.