London Olympics 2012

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Surprised this topic isn't already created. Granted, the games don't officially start until Friday. Yet, early round soccer started today, about an hour ago, with USA-France women. (USA, USA, USA... )

Anyway. Talk about your favorite sport. Your country. Great games or performances. Whatever. Let's keep this topic about the actual sports of the games. There's another topic for some advertising issues and stuff, but maybe this one can just be about the competition.

Also, for those of us in the US, it appears NBC Olympics will have live streaming of all events. The soccer match is on right now.

If anyone has web-viewing links for our goodjers in other countries, drop them in the thread and I will add them to the OP.

Game on!

Now let's talk about that soccer match. US gave up two goals in the first 14 minutes. Not a strong start for the defending gold medalists. Thankfully they have answered and it's tied at 2 at the half.

EDIT: Goal! Just 11 minutes into the 2nd half US now has a 3-2 lead. Whew.

Goal! USA!

Go USA!

IMAGE(http://farm1.staticflickr.com/42/86524105_73ff7c2219.jpg)

Congratulations to the Great Britain women for their first ever Olympic win today.

Wow, Japan up 1-0 on Spain after a nice corner.

EDIT: And now a red card on Spain, down a man.

Anyone else looking forward to boxing on Saturday morning? Who are the favorites this time around?

Edit: found the answer on yahoo sports. Looks like the Ukraine and Cuba are the favorites in just about every men's weight class. Ireland and Britain for the women's side.

Boxing? Well it's better than "pro" boxing.

I think my order of interest is Basketball, Soccer, Beach Volleyball, Volleyball, Track & Field, Table Tennis, and Swimming... after that it kinda all gets jumbled. I do enjoy almost any type of "race" so I'll watch Rowing and team sports, so if Water Polo or Field Hockey is on I'll watch it.

I'll never enjoy the judged sports like gymnastics, or understand why things like Equestrian is in (the horse is doing all the work) and things like Baseball, Golf, and even Softball are left out.

Baseball was in and got kicked out, I think partially because of the anti-doping compliance. Golf is in for 2016. I have little interest in soccer and volleyball but I will probably watch the other stuff you mentioned plus Olympic boxing is fun if you find a good fight, not guys just dancing around avoiding each other.

Unfortunately baseball doesn't generate much interest outside of the US, parts of the Caribbean and South America and Japan/China/Korea. Africa/India/Middle East has cricket. Australia/Canada can't put together a full roster. The Italian squad is mostly Americans not good enough to make the US team. Most of the Dutch roster was born in Curacao/Aruba. Thats about it for Europe. Have to wait till 2013 for a world tournament, which Japan is ready to boycott altogether.

That leaves boxing, basketball, rowing, track & field and a few others for me. Are rugby and cricket olympic sports? I could watch those

There's not much I won't watch. But, boxing is one of them. I just have no interest in it. Judo and Taekwondo don't do anything for me either. Oddly, I like wrestling which I also watch at the college level. I also avoid the "dance-y garbage" which is basically just rhythmic gymnastics, part of normal gymnastics (I don't like the floor stuff for either men or women and the beam stuff for women but everything else is pretty damn impressive), synchronized swimming and equestrian which is just plain stupid. Weightlifting is the only other event I don't like to watch but that's mainly because I keep expecting a horrific injury to happen.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Baseball was in and got kicked out, I think partially because of the anti-doping compliance.

The reason I most commonly heard for baseball and softball being voted out was lack of popularity. There just aren't enough countries that can provide a high enough level team for it to be a viable olympic sport right now. It didn't help that MLB players couldn't participate.

mindset.threat wrote:

Are rugby and cricket olympic sports?

Rugby is coming in with golf for 2016. I think cricket might be in the same boat as baseball. It's huge in old British colonies but not really anywhere else. And, don't the games take forever?

I remember when rugby (or Australian football) used to be on tv here in the US all the time, but that was years ago.

How is this not up yet?

Well, in any case, that´s Michelle Jenneke, an Australian Hurdler, 19yrs old, and already a viral video sensation circling the interwebs, just because of the way she warms up.

I think she´s hot, but really? viral video proportions already? Girl´s gonna be what people follow this year´s Olympics...She´s the new Michael Phelps.

Oh yeah I saw a .gif-bomb of her the other day.

Well, it's not track & field time yet... so...

kexx wrote:

How is this not up yet?

Well, in any case, that´s Michelle Jenneke, an Australian Hurdler, 19yrs old, and already a viral video sensation circling the interwebs, just because of the way she warms up.

I think she´s hot, but really? viral video proportions already? Girl´s gonna be what people follow this year´s Olympics...She´s the new Michael Phelps.

I love how that little clip immediately went from "cute video of girl having a good time being good at what she does" to "increasingly creepy internet wank-fest".

iaintgotnopants wrote:
mindset.threat wrote:

Are rugby and cricket olympic sports?

Rugby is coming in with golf for 2016. I think cricket might be in the same boat as baseball. It's huge in old British colonies but not really anywhere else. And, don't the games take forever?

You'd play limited overs matches for the Olympic format, not Test cricket.

Still, there's only maybe 18-20 international standard cricket teams and only 8 of those are worth any kind of consideration.

mindset.threat wrote:

That leaves boxing, basketball, rowing, track & field and a few others for me. Are rugby and cricket olympic sports? I could watch those

This year's competitions (shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia):

Archery, Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Boxing, Canoeing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Fencing, Field hockey, Football (Soccer), Gymnastics, Handball, Judo, Modern pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Swimming, Synchronized swimming, Table tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Water polo, Weightlifting, Wrestling

Baseball and softball were dropped.

Blargh. No events today. Just ceremony. Tape-delayed ceremony at that.

Some of the preliminary soccer games were played today. But NBC is only showing them on a soccer-specific channel that you may not get with your cable package. Highlights here: http://www.nbcolympics.com/soccer/re...

Katy wrote:

Some of the preliminary soccer games were played today. But NBC is only showing them on a soccer-specific channel that you may not get with your cable package. Highlights here: http://www.nbcolympics.com/soccer/re...

No, those are rebroadcasts from Wed & Thurs. Watched and commented on several in this thread already. Look at that page you linked, there are no events on Fri Jul 27.

Thankfully I do have NBC Sports and MSNBC both in HD.

Stele wrote:

Blargh. No events today. Just ceremony. Tape-delayed ceremony at that.

Ceremony is worth watching - hey, I had to sit through the whole thing, at least you might be able to fast-forward it.

No seriously it was pretty good as these things go - apart from the American team looking like a cross between low-rent Guardian Angels and a bumbling idiot 1970's British comedy character called Frank Spencer

IMAGE(http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/gallery/files/1/0/6/8/7/frank_spencer.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/7-13-12-ralph-lauren-uniforms/13133556-1-eng-US/7-13-12-Ralph-Lauren-uniforms_full_600.jpg)

Of course, it might have helped if someone had told them which way round a beret is worn. Someone on Twitter described it as "France's revenge for 'freedom fries'"

Yeah, I'm not super excited about the Olympics and the ceremony was cool. Definitely worth watching, but then its Danny Boyle.

Stele wrote:

Thankfully I do have NBC Sports and MSNBC both in HD.

There are also specific Olympic Soccer and Olympic Basketball channels. I know Comcast has them. Not sure about elsewhere.

I find it annoying that they couldn't broadcast the Opening Ceremonies when it actually happened. They're streaming everything. I assume they did it because they need to boost their ratings.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

I find it annoying that they couldn't broadcast the Opening Ceremonies when it actually happened. They're streaming everything. I assume they did it because they need to boost their ratings.

Yeah considering they take a commercial break every time there's a scene change, it's pretty obvious why they delayed showing it live.

NBC always drops the ball when it comes to the Olympics. They manage to get few things right, whether it's their broadcasters commentating too much, or not streaming when they obviously can.

Mostly, this all stems from the Winter Olympics being held in my present timezone, and I still had to wait three hours to watch the events that I should have been able to watch when they were actually happening. Too often the news spoiled who won on the event I was anticipating. /rant

iaintgotnopants wrote:

There are also specific Olympic Soccer and Olympic Basketball channels. I know Comcast has them. Not sure about elsewhere.

Right you are!

367 and 368 for me.

I had heard something on the commercials lately about Olympics on Xfinity, but honestly I tune out or skip them most of the time and I didn't pay attention.

A pure basketball channel... that's got to be the greatest thing ever.

Opening ceremony is pretty bad. The whole thing should be the Beatles and Mr. Bean.

How many times is a "former British colony" going to enter the stadium? This is like a parade of places they used to own.

This marching business is always weird when a country has like 2 athletes.

davet010 wrote:

Ceremony is worth watching - hey, I had to sit through the whole thing, at least you might be able to fast-forward it.

IMAGE(http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/7-13-12-ralph-lauren-uniforms/13133556-1-eng-US/7-13-12-Ralph-Lauren-uniforms_full_600.jpg)

Of course, it might have helped if someone had told them which way round a beret is worn. Someone on Twitter described it as "France's revenge for 'freedom fries'"

Nice giant logo on the pocket, too. Are our athletes representing the u.s. or the nation of Ralph Lauren?

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