London 2012 Olympics Thread

[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).

[MaxQue]

Strange.

American hated, Canadians, British and Australians liked.

[MaxQue]

is Cuba there?

Yes. Their uniforms are a acceptable yellow.

[MaxQue]

No one cares about Palestine. (in this context, at least)

I bet all the non-American stations covering this (except for the ones in America's butt-buddies like South Korea) at least used the word "Palestine" on the air.

Canada said it. They skipped one country, Bahrain, here.

[MaxQue]

Hating the hockey venue, I can't comforatbly watch it. What were they thinking?

Hockey? In Summer Games?

[MaxQue]

Wow.

Here, there was only one criticism of the ceremony by the commentators and it was about the Chilean flagbearer, which had previously been suspended 2 years for doping.
Appointing her flagbearer is a dubious decision, yes.

At the same time, we are picky in the commentators in French Canada. Three people. An host, which is mainly in the factual and gives facts about the parts, introduce them and say the facts (X country has that much athletes), a commentator (the venerable Richard Garneau, which does that since the Rome Olympics, in 1960), mainly commenting the athletes and one well-known athlete (this time was Alexandre Bilodeau, gold medalist in acrobatic skiing at Vancouver).

Same hosts at the last Winter Games, except than the athlete was Alexandre Despatie, diver.
That time, the English Canada had Catriona Le May-Doan, a former speed staker, which, in a discrete way, left during the ceremony the studio to be one of the 4 flame-lighters.

[MaxQue]

acrobatic skiing

Freestyle skiing.

It's called Ski Acrobatique for both freestyle and acrobatic in French, hence the confusion.

[MaxQue]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19072677

Nice to see that the book has been thrown at the lot of them with a fairly significant degree of force.

I wish to add than many national badminton federations are unhappy about that, mainly because they think it is a cause of the flawed pool system used.

The system they use is used for the first time in that competition, and it is quite flawed, as ending second in a pool give a better draw than finishing first.

They used an untested system for the competition, which is a quite bad idea. Olympics isn't the place to test new competition formats.

[MaxQue]

Because of that event, the Canada, which finished last of its group and which was in the same group than 2 disqualified teams became 2nd and qualified for quarterfinals.

They won, in an upset, and are now in semis.
That is ridiculous.

[MaxQue]

Acceptable day for Australia, but I'm starting to get sick of hearing other nation   s anthems.

Well, at least, you won a gold medal yet.

[MaxQue]

I hate when people are overconfident and assume success, but that was a really disappointing night for Australia at the velodrome. Only good news is that the women's team pursuit qualified in the top 4 and have avoided drawing the Brits.

Indeed, it's Canada who drew the Brits.
Having UK, Canada, Australia and NZ in a top 4 is wierd. It looks more like the Commonwealth Games than the Olympics.

[MaxQue]

Points of interest: the US is ahead of China in both golds and total medals, 53 countries have medalled, and at this point of Vancouver 2010 we had more golds than we do at London.

Australia? In Winter Games? In which sports? Do you even have snow there?

[MaxQue]

Well, either we or us will win a bronze medal on track cycling (women team pursuit).

[MaxQue]

Kazakhstan and North Korea are doing pretty well with gold medals, though.

Well, Kazakhstan literally buy athletes which aren't properly funded in their home countries.

[MaxQue]

BTW, did you know that the French Judo gold winner is also a fellow student in my university ? He is 23, so I assume he is already in the master cycle, which might explain why I've never met him.

Which one?
Teddy Riner? Automne Pavia? Some other one I can't remember?

[MaxQue]

Hash, I didn't know you went to uOttawa! That was my second choice behind Queen's. Starting third year, and I'm still not sure if I made the right choice haha. The French immsersion coulda been useful.

Anyhow, is Canada still doing horrendously? I've been too demoralized to bother watching lately.

10 medals, which is quite unexpected at this point.

[MaxQue]

Hash, I didn't know you went to uOttawa! That was my second choice behind Queen's. Starting third year, and I'm still not sure if I made the right choice haha. The French immsersion coulda been useful.

Anyhow, is Canada still doing horrendously? I've been too demoralized to bother watching lately.

10 medals, which is quite unexpected at this point.

Eh, that's not actually too bad. Isn't our record something like 22 at a boycotted games?

It's excellent, considering than the majority of the hopes of medals is in the second half of the Games, which began today.

We did 22 in Atlanta, which is the best performance in normal Games. We got 44 in Los Angeles 1984 (boycott of the Eastern Bloc).

[MaxQue]

The British TV coverage is getting completely unbearable...

North America is hardly better:

CTV: Full coverage of the token Canadian guy in every race, excitement when a Canadian doesn't place last or next to last. But they do cover other nations, tbh.

NBC: America is the only country competing, so they only cover Americans. Though unlike Canadians, the Americans actually win something.

FOX should be the Olympic affiliate for the US, and CBC should be for Canada. I wonder why this hasn't happened?

CBC had all games, except Barcelona, Lillehammer, Vancouver and London.
It was announced last week than they will have Sotchi and Rio.

[MaxQue]

The USA/Canada football match last night was hilariously violent. The spirit of Don Revie-era Leeds United lives or something.

Does the Don Revie era was including biaised referees?

[MaxQue]

Canada apparently won a medal in High Jump, which has 5 medallists.

[MaxQue]

5 medals in two days! (silver and bronze in women wrestling, bronze in football, silver and bronze in kayak).

[MaxQue]

Montenegro is fifth new Olympic medalist country (making together 81 medalist countries). Israel had some good athletes in gymnastics too.  Bahama has a good chance to win medal in some relay, but in general additional medalist countries are very unlikely.

Bahamas won a relay medal as expected. "Bahrain" got their first medal of this edition too.
Given the qualification results in Rhytmic, I don't think Israel is going to win a medal there.

Too bad, Canada finished next-to-last in Rythmics, at their first Olympic participation. The federation hoped a good result and TV exposure to help to make the sport more known, to improve junior recruiting.

[MaxQue]

Another bronze! Even though the announcers were Canadian, they ignored us during the 4x100 race because Usain Bolt set a record. So, maybe they're not that biased.

And finally, no, the umpires decided to stole it to give it to some random useless island.

[MaxQue]

LOL:

What?
It was the canadian duet, whose theme was the circus.
It's clearly an imitation of a jack-in-the-box,