The Olympics: London 2012

[Animeniax]

There's no thread for this summer's olympics, which might just be an echo of the state of gotwoot forums, or just people don't care that much for this summer's games.

The US women won the gold in soccer, though with asterisks because the refs and officials apparently had some stake in the US's success. Besides the obviously corrupt calls in the semi-final game against Canada, they missed calls against the US in the final against Japan, basically giving the Americans the game. As much as I support the US teams, it's sad that they need help from officiating to win games.

[Death BOO Z]

I really don't see the point in having soccer during the Olympics. we just had the world cup two years ago, and the euroleauge, and the African cup... having another soccer tournament is kinda redundant. (except for women, who have no big soccer event).

Israel is doing crap this time, zero medals. a lot of mess and accusations in the media.

[Buffalobiian]

Apparently Australians were being really arrogant about how many gold medals they were going to get - then fell short and looked disappointed (without any sympathy).

I'm not watching it though, so it matters little..

[Death BOO Z]

I've read that Australian TV didn't show NZ being in the top 10 a few days ago, and only showed the top9...

[Buffalobiian]

I've read that Australian TV didn't show NZ being in the top 10 a few days ago, and only showed the top9...

Hah, no idea. I haven't bothered to fix my aerial for who knows how many years now.

[Animeniax]

I really don't see the point in having soccer during the Olympics. we just had the world cup two years ago, and the euroleauge, and the African cup... having another soccer tournament is kinda redundant. (except for women, who have no big soccer event).

Israel is doing crap this time, zero medals. a lot of mess and accusations in the media.
Women's soccer at least is still very competitive, and getting more so as other teams catch up to the US each year (hence the world cup results). But some sports are dominated too much by certain countries and under-represented so they are removed from the Olympics (like women's softball).

I'm conflicted about supporting the US teams and athletes. They have all the money, the training facilities, and corporate sponsorships, so it feels better to root for the underdog athletes who can get more in life from a win that could also be seen as more deserved.

[Dark Dragon]

This story really didn't get enough coverage. (http://current.com/shows/upstream/93863576_the-saddest-story-of-the-olympics-that-american-tv-neglected.htm)

My friend is a coach for the US Taekwondo team and he was there when it happened. He said she was crying for 30 minutes straight and everyone who saw it was very depressed afterward.

[Death BOO Z]

I've heard a bit about that, didn't know about the participation award, though.

it's a sad story indeed. so is the referring in the women soccer match, and the obvious Russian favoritism in the artistic gymnastic parts,

[Animeniax]

Wow that's fucking terrible, and it's the first I've heard of it because NBC's shitty coverage. Andrea Kramer really is a terribly juvenile reporter. She sounds like a high school pep squad member doing interviews of the football team. Some of the comments on that thread piss me off almost as much. The one lardass calling her a crybaby needs to be beaten severely and left in a ditch to die.

[Dark Dragon]

Not that i'm defending NBC, because their coverage of the event was almost non-existent.

I think that most of the fault lies with the IOC and the Olympic event as a whole. There are simply too many activities (i hesitate to call all of them sports) that qualifies for the Olympic, pretty much anything under the sun will do. It's getting to the point where they are even consider adding arts. It's natural that with so many events and diverging interest that some events will get left out. It's clear that they don't give a shit when something as important as time-keeping is left to a 15 year old volunteer. It's the same with many other events, Taekwondo for example had almost no coverage except maybe from a few articles.

It they're really going to the effort of naming something an Olympic sport, there should at least be a real effort to support those events and all the athletes competing. It just feel like the Olympic games is getting bigger and bigger just for the sole sake of advertisement and publicity.

[Animeniax]

It'd be hard to defend NBC's shoddy coverage of these Olympics, considering they broadcast on as many as 5 channels.

But you may have a point, there may be too many sports that just don't have an audience, particularly with the US audience which is NBC's primary concern. When they cut out part of the opening ceremony to air more Phelps interviews, they defended their action by saying they were catering to the US market. I imagine if the US had more dominant athletes in sports like TKD and fencing, then the sport would get more coverage by the broadcast network.

Another issue is that some sports are just part of the Olympics, whether fans care about them or not. I don't know about fencing/epee/saber, but who really cares about sports like the shotput and hammer throw? Probably not many people, but those sports have been a part of the Greek sports since ancient times, so they will probably always be a part of the modern Olympics. FYI, fencing and shotput have been in the Olympics since 1896 and hammerthrow since 1900.

[Y]

The IOC is trash in a lot of ways.

I laughed at the badminton controversy because the blame lies entirely with the IOC for developing a system that encourages such. You play to win, and if the system encourages losing a match you absolutely, positively have to do so. To disqualify them for taking advantage of a system they didn't have anything to do with is ludicrous.