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Double Bass Olympics - who's watching?

Bruce Lindfield

Bruce Lindfield

Unprofessional TalkBass Contributor
Gold Supporting Member
In Memoriam
Dec 13, 1999
32,313
197
Brighton, England, UK, Europe
#1
It feels strange that all the world is watching us now - well they tell us 1 Billion viewers tonight! :eek:

So who is watching the Olympics and what are you looking forward to - any particular events? Or will you be cheering your own country's team?

Hopefully the BBC will do a good job for all of you! :)
 
#2
Not sure what the world the world made of the opening ceremony. The British press seems reasonably positive, praising the bucolic laid-back and humorous contrast to the martial inyerface stuff coming out of Bejing. It was characterised as being on the right side of the irony curtain. Considering the worldwide TV audience it went out to I don't think the spectacle in the stadium was completely well picked up by the cameras. But some of the cutaways, for instance the Queen and James Bond, were quite amusing. And yes, she really did jump out of the helicopter.

And who was that old dear singing right at the end?
 
#4
I watched the opening. I thought it was artistic like "avant garde". Very good and entertaining. The only thing I wish they did was, during the Olympian's march, I wish they chose music that did not contain vocals because the commentaries were very hard to understand while U2's "Streets with noname" was blasting.

I cheer it up for my Brit buddies across the pond too.
 
#7
Watching Women's Volleyball and practicing Eccles at the same time.

:hyper:

EDIT: Hey Don, they used to have Tug-of-War, Ropeclimbing, live pigeon-shooting, and solo synchronized swimming as well. They're bringing back golfing in 2016, too.

I think beach volleyball is a pretty legitimate sport, though. Being a bowler and a bassist, I really can't claim that my Olympic prospects are very good!
 
#8
I'm digging it. I'm watching swimming and to my surprise even some gymnastics this year, but I love the things that I never see except in Olympics. Equestrian this morning in Greenwich park, Judo, Archery and my favorite by far to this point women's fencing.

Looking forward to the field events.
 
#9
I've been away a for a week and the Olympics have really taken off here in the UK! There is now huge interest as Team GB have got a lot more Gold medals than anybody expected. :eek:

It is now the only topic of conversation and there are big screens out in every town, with massive crowds watching - even the rain hasn't stopped massive numbers of people turning out for things like the Women's Marathon on Sunday morning. At the beginning of last week there was a lot of doubt that we could pull it off - but now everybody is overwhelmingly positive about the whole thing!
 
#13
I've been flipping on the TV whenever I have some spare time to cheer on Canada.

I really enjoyed both men and women's tennis this year; it was intruiging to see the two favourites in the Gold matches (Federer and Sharapova respectively) outmatched by their opponents. Murray played beautifully and home-field advantage and Nadal not competing probably didn't hurt him either!

I don't if any of my Canadian neighbours will attest to this, but I can't stand watching the Olympics on NBC. I understand that it's an American channel so they'll cover athletes as such, but I find that you can barely get a feel for the other competitors in the given event. I'm aware that Canadian channels will do the same with our athletes, as would other national channels, but it seems to me that NBC never lets up :hiding:

NBC rant = over
 
#19
bejoyous said:
Ach! I can't believe Canada lost a medal over two toes being on the line in a relay race.
Click to expand...

It's the rule. The race distance for each lane is measured 10 cm into the lane from the line. So running along the line say 1 cm away, the athletes are not running a full 400m ; they all have the same advantage. The rule is no toes on the line. Period. Donavan Bailey said "it does often happen in the heat of racing". I am disappointed for the athletes, but not going to lose sleep. It can be said that they came in third, but just didn't get the medal.
 

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