Tokyo Olympics

boogieman

Watching the cycling this morning. Wow, the Danish guy in the four man pursuit. Oops. 

guitars4you

I still recall the days when 1 or 2 gold medals was about the best we did in the whole games - Atlanta 1 gold medal only and LA was only 5 gold medals

Nice to see so many medals from different sources as well - Recent years and rowing was great for us and swimming barely nothing - So good to see other events can take over when we have a low elsewhere 

EricTheWeary

thumpingrug said:

EricTheWeary said:

Spent yesterday evening watching the women’s weightlifting. There’s quite a lot of technical stuff about how the groups work, the timings, what makes a non lift most of which was given no explanation by the commentators at all. I wanted an idiot’s guide. 

To some extent had it watching the BMX freestyle the previous evening; I think the commentators should assume there are newbies in the audience. 

But both very exciting, surprisingly so. 

I agree.  A lot of these are minority sports getting a global audience once every 4 years and some explanation of whats happening and the basic rules would be helpful.   Racing is easy, its the first past the post, but for the individual events and the artistic judging it would be helpful to know what they are looking for.

Im currently watching the diving and whilst it all looks great, I have no idea why one dive is considered more difficult than another.  They all look very hard.

The weightlifting was an hour of watching people struggle then for two minutes at the end the Chinese woman ( whom we hadn't seen at all up to this point) walks on, lifts her weights like Superman lifting a bag of feathers and wins gold. I'm guessing there is a seeding process but there was no attempt to explain. There was also a clock running that seemed to stop at random intervals. 
Unless there were unexpected disqualified lifts ( the Korean had all her lifts disqualified) it seemed like the results were known before the competition started. I'm sure it makes sense but two minutes worth ( and I watched 90 minutes of coverage) explaining some of this would have helped. 

musteatbrain

Generally with weightlifting, if there’s a Chinese person competing at the olympics they stroll on last and win it with their first lift.

4 women, 4 men. 8 golds.

They have the best methods for avoiding drug tests as any officials coming in to the country for testing have to have permission and advance warning and the state wants gold for China so they make appropriate arrangements.

The countries that can compete with the Chinese have mostly been banned as they aren’t as good at cheating internationally. This is written as a fan of Chinese weightlifting.

It’s worse than cycling ever was.

It’s a shame as when there is a level field it can get really interesting.

Most of the drama unfolds around the bronze and silver medal places,

the 67kg men’s event this year appeared to be the closest session.

If you want a level playing field the Asian games is very close as all the best lifters are competing for the olympic places. China could easily have sent 8 other people who would also win gold.

tomorrow will be the super heavy weights. The biggest person with the most drugs wins. There’s only one person that will win it but he’s likely to put over 40stone over his head, so if you want to see something never done before it’s worth a watch from about noon

boogieman

The coverage has been really odd at times, I mean in the technicalities of what we’re seeing onscreen. I was watching the trap shooting the other day (the one where the GB bloke got a bronze). Halfway through the event the scores just disappeared off the screen, so it was hard to follow who was winning it or being eliminated. There didn’t seem to be any indication of whether they’d made a hit or not either: most times you could tell from the puff of pink smoke but it wasn’t always obvious, sometimes you’d see an official raise a hand for a miss but they didn’t always show it either. The bbc commentators seemed totally oblivious to all this and carried on as normal. Surprised nobody at the production end told them. 

EricTheWeary

During the women’s weightlifting one contestant was skipped in favour of shots of roof tops of Tokyo. Presumably a technical glitch but a quick ‘we understand viewers at home will have missed the images of the Ukrainian competitor’s lovely snatch’ would have helped. 

tony99

anyone bothered with the olympics youtube channel?

guitars4you

Looks like the BBC accepted a less coverage package, compared to Rio, to keep it an exclusive package for Paris in 2024 and therefore keep ITV/ CH4/CH5 away 

boogieman

guitars4you said:

Looks like the BBC accepted a less coverage package, compared to Rio, to keep it an exclusive package for Paris in 2024 and therefore keep ITV/ CH4/CH5 away 

Good to hear. For all the Beeb’s failings this time round I’m still glad that lot ^ haven’t got the coverage. Memories of “you won’t miss a thing “ when ITV got F1 coverage spring to mind, when the exciting stuff always seemed to happen during the ad breaks. 

fretmeister

I bought the eurospot pass.

£7 for a month. Bargain.

tony99

fretmeister said:

I bought the eurospot pass.

£7 for a month. Bargain.

Is it? We used to get olympics coverage for free.

EricTheWeary

Oh I did watch five minutes of the show jumping. Doesn't hold my interest as a sport but loved the Japanese themed jumps. Very quirky. 

guitars4you

Great result in the 800M Women for our 19 year old - Good to see we can compete and a good future a head, hopefully - Albeit against the 19 year old USA supa kid - Hu - Sounds like Abbot and Costello 'Hu's on first base'

And fancy the greatest 400M hurdler today is from Norway - In a nice way, it has to be a freak as you don't see a 'Jamaican conveyor belt style' of producing sprinters - But good that such national hero's come from unlikely sources 

Just found out that Beach Volley Ball looks far better on a slow replay - far better to watch this way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Try it and I guarantee you won't be disappointed 

EricTheWeary

EricTheWeary said:

Oh I did watch five minutes of the show jumping. Doesn't hold my interest as a sport but loved the Japanese themed jumps. Very quirky. 

Jessica Rae Springsteen. Riding on a  horse that was Born to Run…

guitars4you

EricTheWeary said:

EricTheWeary said:

Oh I did watch five minutes of the show jumping. Doesn't hold my interest as a sport but loved the Japanese themed jumps. Very quirky. 

Jessica Rae Springsteen. Riding on a  horse that was Born to Run…

I knew the Boss's daughter was competing for the USA - did not know the name of the horse

fob

tony99 said:

fretmeister said:

I bought the eurospot pass.

£7 for a month. Bargain.

Is it? We used to get olympics coverage for free.

Unless you're over 75 then you didn't - your annual subscription fee is £160.

EricTheWeary

guitars4you said:

EricTheWeary said:

EricTheWeary said:

Oh I did watch five minutes of the show jumping. Doesn't hold my interest as a sport but loved the Japanese themed jumps. Very quirky. 

Jessica Rae Springsteen. Riding on a  horse that was Born to Run…

I knew the Boss's daughter was competing for the USA - did not know the name of the horse

Just one of the many terrible puns I could have attempted. The horse seems to be called Don Juan van de Donkhoeve. I think Jessica lives and trains in Belgium ( even though she was Born in the USA). If she does well these will be her Glory Days.

exocet

guitars4you said:

Looks like the BBC accepted a less coverage package, compared to Rio, to keep it an exclusive package for Paris in 2024 and therefore keep ITV/ CH4/CH5 away 

I very much doubt that this was the strategy. Any change is far more likely to be down to either EBU action (members agreeing to pay more including the BBC) or the IOC deciding that minority sports are better served by free to air broadcasters who generally still get better audiences than paywall type providers (providing of course that there’s still a decent wedge paid).

tony99

fob said:

tony99 said:

fretmeister said:

I bought the eurospot pass.

£7 for a month. Bargain.

Is it? We used to get olympics coverage for free.

Unless you're over 75 then you didn't - your annual subscription fee is £160.

yeah that's a fair point.

TV license is required to watch live eurosport too though so still not convinced the £7 pass is a bargain

guitars4you

exocet said:

guitars4you said:

Looks like the BBC accepted a less coverage package, compared to Rio, to keep it an exclusive package for Paris in 2024 and therefore keep ITV/ CH4/CH5 away 

I very much doubt that this was the strategy. Any change is far more likely to be down to either EBU action (members agreeing to pay more including the BBC) or the IOC deciding that minority sports are better served by free to air broadcasters who generally still get better audiences than paywall type providers (providing of course that there’s still a decent wedge paid).

I found it via an article in the Times - Not looked for any web links