Beijing 2008 Olympics

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I didn't see a thread already, so here goes. The 2008 Summer Olympics open on Friday, 8/8. Group play for football (soccer) started this morning. Below are some links to the games schedule and coverage.

Official games schedule

NBC TV Coverage (US)

This morning saw group play for women's football. USA lost to Norway 2-0. Norway went up really early, with 2 goals in the 1st four minutes of play. Other matches this morning: Canada v. Argentina (1-2 Canada), Germany v. Brazil (tie 0-0), Japan v. New Zealand (tie 2-2), China v. Sweden (2-1 China), DPR Korea v. Nigeria (1-0 Korea).

I'm considering getting up early tomorrow (4 am) to watch the USA (men) v. Japan soccer match.

At this point I almost just want the Olympics to be over so that NBC will quit running the commercials in every block. Besides that, TV coverage will focus on the sports like ribbon twirling and synchronized ______ while pretty much skipping sports like Judo, boxing, and wrestling. It seems like the coverage is always focused on "the next Mary Lou" while they ignore great athletes with good personalities (like Ronda Rousey).

My Olympic dreams involve a king-sized bed, Amanda Beard, and Dara Torres.

IMAGE(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/18/sports/18torres.3.190.jpg)

Thanks to DVR, this Olympics might actually be bearable - plus ExpressVu added around 8 HD Olympic channels over the last week or so. Who knows, I might actually see more of the actual events then I do inane commentary, cheese ball reports on Chinese culture/history/etc repeated ad naseum and commercials. Not that I have a low opinion of NBC's and the CBC's coverage capabilities... oh no, not at all.

CannibalCrowley wrote:

At this point I almost just want the Olympics to be over so that NBC will quit running the commercials in every block. Besides that, TV coverage will focus on the sports like ribbon twirling and synchronized ______ while pretty much skipping sports like Judo, boxing, and wrestling. It seems like the coverage is always focused on "the next Mary Lou" while they ignore great athletes with good personalities (like Ronda Rousey).

Actually, it seems like they are going to do a pretty good job of covering at least boxing. CNBC is primarily airing boxing this weekend. Check out bennard's NBC coverage link in the original post. Though, you may be right about judo and wrestling, especially judo. I haven't looked at all of the coverage listings, but wrestling coverage seems sparse and judo seems non-existent.

I feel sorry for all the runners. I tried running during the spate of fires across California a month ago and could barely breathe from all the smoke.

*Legion* wrote:

My Olympic dreams involve a king-sized bed, Amanda Beard, and Dara Torres.

IMAGE(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/18/sports/18torres.3.190.jpg)

A shame they make the swimmers wear those damn body suits now, for I'm sure NBC's ratings would be through the roof if we could see this (NSFW, kind of). Makes me want to shoot a couple fur-wearing motherf*ckers.

I miss Summer Games for C64.

For anyone taping the opening ceremony or watching it on delay later its was damn impressive especially in HD.

I'm without television until next week. Anyone have any suggestions for how to watch the opening ceremonies online tonight as it's being shown on NBC?

Elysium wrote:

I'm without television until next week. Anyone have any suggestions for how to watch the opening ceremonies online tonight as it's being shown on NBC?

You could just run around your house with a bunch of flags, dance like someone from Cirque de Whatever, and then light a candle to get the same effect.

Rat Boy wrote:
Elysium wrote:

I'm without television until next week. Anyone have any suggestions for how to watch the opening ceremonies online tonight as it's being shown on NBC?

You could just run around your house with a bunch of flags, dance like someone from Cirque de Whatever, and then light a candle to get the same effect.

while on acid.

Not seeing a lot of excitement for the Olympics around here. Is it because it's halfway around the world like with Sydney? Or is that we're all just so used to the over-produced, totally truncated, endlessly Bob Costasized sh*tty NBC coverage that's the problem?

Even with all the flaws of the coverage, I will still watch me some Olympics. While I drink a beer and eat a bratwurst to give it a more American flavor, naturally.

Elysium wrote:

I'm without television until next week. Anyone have any suggestions for how to watch the opening ceremonies online tonight as it's being shown on NBC?

Aren't the Olympics being streamed somewhere? I though Hulu technology was going to be used somehow.

sheared wrote:
Elysium wrote:

I'm without television until next week. Anyone have any suggestions for how to watch the opening ceremonies online tonight as it's being shown on NBC?

Aren't the Olympics being streamed somewhere? I though Hulu technology was going to be used somehow.

NBC is posting most of the events online. Check out the TV schedule linked above, and look for "Online Listings" on the left. You'll be asked for your zip code, but it should then display the online offerings. Most of the events will be covered online, but you'll only be able to watch live from what I can tell.

I know YouTube is hosting a number of events, but the YouTube coverage is blocked in countries where a TV station has bought rights to the games. There might be some sort of workaround to that.

USA Men's Soccer beat Japan yesterday. U S A! U S A!

Sigsbee wanted to watch the opening ceremonies tonight, so I gave up my plans of studying in order to do so (wasn't that hard a sell). She said a co-worker has a tradition of watching the opening with her husband and eating food from the host country. That was pretty easy to pull off in this case.

My mom and I got up at 4AM this morning to watch the opening ceremony live. Hahahaha, I am so tired. The opening ceremony is cool, which is mainly what I watch. The opener and closer. Occasionally I'll try to catch a few events when I can, but I'll just catch the highlight reel later.

The opening drum movement though is so amazing and yet intimidating/scary. It's nice to see a lot of kids in the ceremony though.

You gotta watch some of the events along the way! There are so many that are particularly dramatic. I'm getting psyched up now.

I don't know. As I said before, women's swimming's hard to watch because of those new bodysuits and watching women's gymnastics at my age makes me feel like a pedophile just asking to be ambushed by Chris Hansen.

To all the Canadian Goodjers out there (including Certis and Gaald).

What. Were. You. Thinking? Those outfits were terrible!

On a serious note, that was the best god-damned opening ceremony I have ever seen. It's like some Ghost in the Shell future-world.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

USA Men's Soccer beat Japan yesterday. U S A! U S A!

Are soccer games streamed somewhere? I'd like to see how Argentina and Brazil do.

UCRC wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

USA Men's Soccer beat Japan yesterday. U S A! U S A!

Are soccer games streamed somewhere? I'd like to see how Argentina and Brazil do.

NBC is streaming the games here in the US. Don't know if you can get to them if you're out of the country. Check out the link for TV coverage in the first post, then go to online listings.

I swear, the International HD feeds look so much better than what we normally get here when watching football/baseball. I first noticed the stark difference during the Euro Cup games and the Olympics are just hammering it home.

Random Sidenote: Women's fencing is on right now . . . no clue what's going on
Random Sidenote2: What HD stations are people getting? Here in NYC it's just NBCHD and UniversalHD which seems to just be mirroring MSNBC

The father of one US Olympian and father-in-law of a coach was stabbed to death in Beijing. So much for the extra security.

And for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, amazing USA Basketball ad from Nike

http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2008/08/nike-uses-marvin-gaye-clip-for-new-team.html

DeeVoc wrote:

And for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, amazing USA Basketball ad from Nike

http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2008/08/nike-uses-marvin-gaye-clip-for-new-team.html

All right, now they have to win.

Well, this morning they were showing men'sbadminton.

Then later they were showing women's beach volleyball.

Apparently some of the boxing judges are wearing blindfolds.

DeeVoc wrote:

Random Sidenote2: What HD stations are people getting? Here in NYC it's just NBCHD and UniversalHD which seems to just be mirroring MSNBC

Getting the same here on Comcast Digital Cable. I don't think we're getting any more if we go to SD, either.

Pretty awesome pommel horse routine by one of the US men, forgot his name.

Here comes swimming!

Pretty awesome to watch Michael Phelps win his first gold medal of this olympics. Also really cool for my wife and I to see Park Tae Hwan win the first swimming medal ever for South Korea, and a gold at that. We've been interested in South Korea for a long time because she was born there, but we also just visited it in June. It's cool how you find yourself cheering more for countries that you have different ties or interests in. Like, I studied Italian in college, so I'm always particularly interested in seeing the Italian athletes do well.

In a way, the Olympics is a fabulous geography lesson.

8 medals already? U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

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