London 2012 Olympics Thread

[afleitch]

Speculation is mounting about who will carry Australia's flag, which is an honour bestowed by the chef de mission on games' eve. As with every other country, it is the highest honour our Olympians can receive, but the choices have been a bit odd over the years. My personal pick would be cyclist Anna Meares, but the odds seem to be in favour of rower Drew Ginn, who'd also be a good choice. Who will be carrying the flag for your countries?

We have Sir Chris Hoy again. The big question of course is who will carry the torch.

[BaldEagle1991]

Speculation is mounting about who will carry Australia's flag, which is an honour bestowed by the chef de mission on games' eve. As with every other country, it is the highest honour our Olympians can receive, but the choices have been a bit odd over the years. My personal pick would be cyclist Anna Meares, but the odds seem to be in favour of rower Drew Ginn, who'd also be a good choice. Who will be carrying the flag for your countries?

We have Sir Chris Hoy again. The big question of course is who will carry the torch.

Probably some English soccer player.

[Senator MaxQue]

The two people most likely to have carried our flag (hurdlers Perdita Felicien and Pricilla Lopes-Schleip) were both eliminated from the Canadian Olympic Trials despite being two of the best hurdlers in the world. So, neither will carry our flag.

Well, the flagbearer was announced last week, it's Simon Whitfield (triathlon).

[Platypus]

ooh, good choice from the Canadians.

[Sibboleth]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/shortcuts/2012/jul/24/working-class-jacques-rogge-ioc

hahahaha

[pugbug]

ooh, good choice from the Canadians.

Ha, considering he was the first gold medalist at the Sydney games...

[danny]

The olympics haven't started yet but we already have an athlete kicked out. Voula Papachristou was kicked out for making a racist comment on twitter, she is a supporter of Golden Dawn so I suppose it isn't very surprising.

[Hatman]

ooh, good choice from the Canadians.

Ha, considering he was the first gold medalist at the Sydney games...

^^ This was my post, I didn't realize I was logged into my gf's account. Anyways, Im disappointed at Canada's 2-1 loss to Japan.

[ilikeverin]

Off to London tomorrow, going to Proms on Friday and avoiding Olympics stuff

[Platypus]

Three things:

1. Simon Whitfield didn't win the first medal at Sydney, or even the first Triathlon medal, which went to a Swiss woman, Brigitte McMahon. The first gold went to an American woman, not sure of which sport.

2. Really over the corporate sponsorship of the games, it seems to be more infectious than most years.

3. Melbourne really should be the permanent Olympic city.

[Leftbehind]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/shortcuts/2012/jul/24/working-class-jacques-rogge-ioc

hahahaha

A refreshing take on the we're all middle-class/bourgeoisie horsesh**t. 

[Hatman]

Three things:

1. Simon Whitfield didn't win the first medal at Sydney, or even the first Triathlon medal, which went to a Swiss woman, Brigitte McMahon. The first gold went to an American woman, not sure of which sport.

2. Really over the corporate sponsorship of the games, it seems to be more infectious than most years.

3. Melbourne really should be the permanent Olympic city.

1) My bad.  I forgot about the ladies.

3) lol

[BaldEagle1991]

3. Melbourne New Orleans really should be the permanent Olympic city.

[afleitch]

The Olympics Drinking Game - Opening Ceremony

Celebrity Watch

Elton John (plus 1 if 'His Partner David Furnish' is there)
A Beatle (plus 1 if it's Ringo)
A Rolling Stone.
A Spice Girl (but not Posh)
Princess Anne (plus 1 if she's wearing a tracksuit)
A Miliband.
Ken Livingstone looking sad.
Mitt Romney.

Opening Ceremony

'London Calling' by the Clash.
Any Beatles number.
Umbrellas.
Bowler hats.
A 1970's punk.
A mini.

Parade of Athletes

Broadcaster misses a small nation to cut to something else (this should get you drunk by itself).
Broadcaster cuts to Prince Philip after African nation marches by.
Audible boos when Israel march.
Ironic cheers when Jamaica march.
Libya debuts it's new flag.
Audience don't know it's France when the announcer says 'La France' and need clarification in English.
New Zealand interrupt the ceremony with a  haka (plus 1 if followed by shot of Queen looking pissed off).

[True Federalist]

I feel sorry for London.  Any mayor that supports his city making a bid to host the Olympics deserves to be voted out of office.  They simply are not worth the cost and hassle.

  Every summer games since L.A. '84 (except the notoriously mismanaged Athens '04) has turned a healthy profit.

This is correct, of course. Plus, it's great for future tourism. And, you get to host future world class events at your new facilities. Of course people who claim to be fiscal conservatives run and hide when they see large price tags...

And by the way, to those who suggest the Olympics are a bad thing for the city they are hosted in, do you support abolishing the Olympics all together? I mean, they have to go some where.

If you think the Chinese were honest about their bookkeeping for Beijing...

And I doubt that the various host city OOCs get charged full price for the security costs involved.

As for the infrastructure improvements, the benefits from those should be considered separately from the games themselves, since at least in theory they could have been built anyway.  (Tho I'll admit that with human nature the way it is, they might not have been built without the Olympic carnival coming to town.)

As for improving tourism, with the possible exceptions of St. Louis and Atlanta, every single Summer Olympic host city already had reasons for tourists to be aware of them and want to come visit.

As for abolishing the Olympics themselves, I'd not mind if this overblown spectacle of nationalism masquerading as a means to advance world peace were abolished and/or severely revised.  There is no particular reason to assemble an amalgam of unrelated sports together for a concentrated two week overkill.  The early modern Olympic games were more spaced out and the events were held over a period of months, not weeks.

[Platypus]

Not long now Our flagbearer will be Jackson, which is an excellent choice. What events are people looking forward to? Some highlights for me will be the women   s basketball final, with luck we   ll beat the yanks; the 10m platform diving, with Mitcham hoping to go back to back with golds, and the men's team pursuit at the velodrome, where the poms and aussie teams are both incredibly, incredibly strong. I'd argue that the track cycling will feature the most impressive moments of these games, all things going to plan...expect the already unbelievable world marks to fall left and right, mainly to the Aussie and 'Team GB'.

[BushKenya]

I love the Olympics in several ways.  I'll touch on two main ways, the sports junkie in me loves the competition.  The political junkie in me loves that it provides a nice, 16-day respite of Democrats and Republicans rallying together behind Team USA before the nastiness of the home stretch to the Election begins.  (At least the Summer games).  I will be watching the Opening Ceremonies tonight at 6:30 pm CDT and I will be watching as much of the Games as I can over the next 16 days!

[Speaker Dereich]

So when will we know who is going to light the Olympic torch?

And in other Olympic news, it looks like NBC is going to snub fencing: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/2012-olympic-fencing-nbc-snubs-mens-fencing-195200621--oly.html

I'm disappointed, I was really looking forward to seeing it, I wasn't interested in it 4 years ago and its the only Olympic sport I'm any good at.

[Platypus]

Beautiful opening, I got a bit teary at the welsh bit. Then they had a dig at us Aussies, not so cool...

[Platypus]

Faaaaark, this is amazing. Emotive, note perfect, no sappiness, but a proper recognition of glory and terror in the past of Britain. Truly exceptional.

[You kip if you want to...]

Can't wait for you Americans to see the NHS bit of the opening ceremony. Governor Romney must be terrified.

[BushKenya]

Can't wait for you Americans to see the NHS bit of the opening ceremony. Governor Romney must be terrified.

It won't be that big a deal.  Remember, Obama ran his loud mouth during "God Save the Queen".

[Platypus]

Things went a bit weird with the nhs/kids bit, and as great as the bean scene was, and the bond scene with the queen and those hilarious corgis, the music scene was a bit of a dud for me. And now the flame!

[You kip if you want to...]

Things went a bit weird with the nhs/kids bit, and as great as the bean scene was, and the bond scene with the queen and those hilarious corgis, the music scene was a bit of a dud for me. And now the flame!

Yeah, there were part which I thought that non-Brits just wouldn't "get"

[Platypus]

someone needs to be shot for the Paul McCartney disgrace. Bloody awful. He was almost as bad at the jubilee concert, what on earth convinced Boyle he'd be any better now? Especially with a backing track out of synch. Truly awful.

Also the kids lighting the cauldron was a dash gimmicky, but the petals were cool.

All in all, I'd give the first half hour 5 stars and the rest 2 stars.