2016 Rio Olympics

There wasn't a thread to discuss the Olympics, so here it is. I assume it should include both on- and off-the-court discussions, whether it is Zika/doping/Brazil's lack of preparations, or Bolt/Neymar/your country's flagbearer.

Speaking of flagbearers, here is the list of the names that have been announced so far.

Among the big countries that remain indecisive are the USA (although Michael Phelps looks like the bookmaker's favourite despite his small issues in the recent years), Great Britain (I assume that Farah, Ennis-Hill, Wiggins and Murray are at the top of the list - although I wonder if Murray the Scot will be that motivated to carry the UK flag after the Brexit vote), Germany (no clue whatsoever, and my German is far from good enough to read forum debates on the matter), China (ditto) and France (this one will be between basketball player Tony Parker and judoka Teddy Riner - Riner is the most likely to win the Gold, but he is "only" 27 and flag-bearers usually are a bit older than that).

edited 22nd Jul '16 9:33:47 AM by Julep

Update: for France, Riner will be flag-bearer.

The IOC doesn't want for the world to think that FIFA is the only utterly stupid and corrupt organization there is, and as such, they decided to deny Ioulia Stepanova from participating in the Rio olympics. Stepanova is the athlete who revealed the extent of Russia's doping system. She was part of it, obviously, but considering the risks she took and the fact that she would basically have to compete as a refugee, this move is utterly dickish.

Especially since other Russian athletes might be authorized. Including some that got suspended earlier in their careers.

IOC will not impose blanket ban on Russia for Rio Olympics.

Cowards.

No Russian athlete should be at this Olympics, nor at the next Winter Olympics either. The impetus for the cheating at Sochi came from the very top echelon of Russian politics, probably at the behest of that Chekist that disgraces the office of the Presidency.

Their presence at the games taints all other athletes and will no doubt lead to the questioning of their "clean" status.

Not even Darya Klishina, who will be competing under the IOA banner?

No exceptions. The Russian Olympic Committee messed up the bed for every Russian athlete with what they either connived or actively participated in at Sochi. I honestly don't care if the athlete you referred to is innocent or guilty, it's the principle that should matter.

The IOC ignoring the strong recommendation of the report to ban them all is a travesty and is only being done to appease that Chekist in the Kremlin.

Shouldn't the principle dictate that the Russian Sports Federation (or is it Committee?) be suspended, the guilty players banned and the cleared/innocent ones allowed to compete under the IOA banner (or for Russia, but on their own and under the monitoring of Olympic control/testing groups)? I suppose we have different principles.

Besides, there are a few sports in these Olympics that no doping could ever benefit any athletes in any way (so they don't bother taking it), such as Shooting. What about them? Shouldn't they be considered to be a plausible exception?

edited 24th Jul '16 3:12:15 PM by Quag15

Taking tranquilizers really does make you a better shooter - that's one of the few things got right by Kojima in his MGS games, so yeah - doping can work in shooting sports if you do it right.

Besides that, if one athlete who was tested clean by the authorities now, yet those results were found to be faulty in the future, it would come back and haunt the memories of these games.

If it was an entire COUNTRY'S athletes, like what seems to have happened in Sochi, it pisses on the entire Olympic movement. And this kind of thing has only one punishment - ban them all.

Putting a hashtag with a three-letter abbreviation for a country on Twitter displays the country's flag.

Which makes it pretty amusing given the University of Georgia's abbreviation shares the same lettering as Uganda.

edited 2nd Aug '16 12:29:11 PM by GrafVonTirol

Apparently the U.S. Team advised its athletes to be careful about their complaints to avoid PR nightmares.

Edit:

I thought it would be nice to get links to videos of spectacular athletes people might not know because of a combination of patriotism (aka "I only know the people from my country") and lack of exposure of their sport, and who are likely to shine in Rio.

So here, it is only because of the sport, since she's American: Simone Biles, gymnast.

edited 3rd Aug '16 8:51:32 AM by Julep

It's as if the US Olympic Committee has taken the lessons of Orwell to heart. Not so much that we've always been at peace with East Asia as that there's no shit in that hideously polluted cesspool where the open water events are being held.

What a bunch of wankers.

Murray's been confirmed as GB's flag bearer.

In competitive news, the first match of the Olympics is in the books: Sweden 1-0 over South Africa in the women's football tournament.

Canada’s goal by Janine Beckie at the 20 second mark is the fastest goal scored at the women’s Olympic football tournament. Before this goal the record was held by Heather O’Reilly of the United States with a goal scored at the 45 second mark

The Norwegian flagbearer will be Ole-Kristian Bryhn, a sport-shooter with several world championship and world cup medals and who placed seventh in the 50 m rifle 3 positions final and eight in the 10 m air rifle final in the 2012 Olympics.

As usual, we Norwegians are counting on our Women's Handball team, the defending Olympic champions, to make us proud. Any other medal is a welcome surprise, though it might be worth looking out for golfer Suzann Pettersen (ranked nr. 18 in the world) and the queen of Norwegian mountain-bike racing Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå, gold-winner of the 2004 Olympics.

edited 4th Aug '16 3:23:31 AM by Lemurian

Michael Phelps will carry the American flag, and Andy Murray the Great Britain one (well, it's not the United Kingdom, so I guess he doesn't mind).

Everyone's favorite company Goldman Sachs also gave its medal predictions for the Olympics. I was surprised to see South Korea in fifth, but apparently they are the emperors of the bow.

France's 11 gold is a bit below the team's expectations - they want 12 to 15 but I think it's a bit high. We only have 3 "big favorites" - Florent Manaudou for 50m freestyle swimming, Renaud Lavillenie in pole jumping (which might be the most random discipline in athletics) and Teddy Riner in heavyweight judo. I could add the men's handball team as they are twice reigning champions (and reigning World champions) and arrive with the big team and only one significant injury. It's just that they are getting old, and at some point, age will catch up, you never know which tournament it will be.

edited 4th Aug '16 4:38:03 AM by Julep

Wrestling is here to stay. You can't have Olympics without track&field or wrestling.

But if you need to shoot people, even if it's with tear gas and rubber bullets, maybe we shouldn't have this Olympics thing at all. The point of the games was to suspend conflict, not initiate it.

In men's individual (ranking round only) archery today, Kim Woojin (South Korea) set a new World and Olympic Records: 700 (he shot 10 at least 52 times, which means an impressive 72% of scoring 10 minimum).

The Olympics start before the opening ceremony?

Anyone else watching the opening ceremony?

Women's football and men's football started 2 days and 1 day ago, respectively, and the ranking rounds of archery were today. It's in order for players to both rest the necessary amount of days and to finish the events on time.

I am. I can provide explanation, since right now it's about Brazil's history (and its early phase involving us the Portuguese) and multiculturalism.

edited 5th Aug '16 4:22:25 PM by Quag15

Watching it on CBC. Giselle's legs, dayum. The music is good too.

Too many commercials on CBC though.

edited 5th Aug '16 4:35:24 PM by nightwyrm_zero

I've only been paying attention to what's going wrong, lol. What a shit show,

Watching it on NBC. Which naturally means I'll miss everything.

How so? There's been nothing out of the ordinary.