London 2012 Olympics Thread

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm sad we lost.

Lost what? It hasn't started yet.

I think he's talking about the failed attempt of New York City to host this year's event.

Which was a good thing.  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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And the USA crushes at the 200m freestyle relay to give Phelps his 19th medal.

Which is proof that swimming has too many events.  If Athletics did things the way Swimming does, there would be separate 400 m races, one going clockwise and one going counter-clockwise.

They ought to ditch the the three B's (backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly) and the medley events and add the 800 m men's and 1500 m women's freestyle to the Olympics.  Maybe even add a 3000 m freestyle and a 5 km open water event to the mix.

Phelps has gotten so many medals by mastering a bunch of slow swimming styles.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Athletics actually has 12 more events, and have hurdles and steeplechase as slow running styles, and anyway I think it adds to the tournament.

If you're going to count the field events, for this comparison, then you ought to add the other FINA sanctioned sports of synchronized swimming, diving, and water polo.

But also, you don't regularly get people competing in large quantities of medal events in athletics.  The two Olympic sports that overdo the medals are swimming and to a lesser extent, gymnastics. There are three swimmers, five gymnasts, and two shooters who have won seven or more medals in a single games.  The shooters wouldn't get that chance today since the shooting program has been trimmed considerably since 1920, tho I wouldn't mind seeing the return of such events as the 100 m running deer. (Shooting at a moving target 100 m from the shooter.  The 50 m event that later replaced it was called the running boar.  No actual deer or boar were used.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What's interesting is that in the women's doubles of the badminton, the four teams that advanced because of the DQs were guaranteed to win at least the bronze medal between them, and indeed, that's all they will get.  (The four faced off against each other in the quarters with two guaranteed to advance to the semis.  They both lost in the semis to end up in the bronze medal match Saturday evening.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Switzerland vs. USA women's beach volleyball game was...entertaining.

Was there a wardrobe malfunction that NBC won't show?

(Not because NBC is a bunch of prudes, but because they are lousy at producing the Olympics.  Their game plan seems to be make the games seem so lousy no other network would want the rights.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I see that British soccer has followed the unfortunate English tradition where penalty shootouts are concerned.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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

$$$$$

More seriously, NBC has chosen to market itself as the network of the Olympics and spend the bucks to do it.  FOX hasn't, nor does it have ready access to enough additional national channels to put comparable Olympics coverage on.  ABC/ESPN/Disney is a possibility.  Imagine an Olympic logo in which the lop left and top right rings morph into Mickey's ears.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Australia take Gold, kiwis silver, Danes bronze in the sailing. Kiwis carrying the flag of NZ and the silver fern unity flag, nice. I'm really looking forward to them changing their flag, might convince us to do the same at last.

Which silver fern flag was it?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Another bronze medal.

Canada, the third greatest country in the world.

I can feel the Conservative ads already.

Well, it's better than all the non medallic 4th place finishes we got in 2010 and 2008. I dont even think we got any 4th place finishes this time.

Thanks to the DQs in badminton women's doubles, Canada managed to get a fourth place in that event.  (Without the DQs, they wouldn't have advanced to the quarter finals.)

Canada also has a true 4ths in the women's omnium cycling, the 4 x 200 m women's freestyle swimming, and both the duet and team synchronized swimming.

So that's five fourths, and Canada has the opportunity to win some more of the fourths it deserves.