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Wanna talk Olympics?

mrpackerguy

mrpackerguy

Gold Supporting Member
Jul 3, 2004
4,694
3,185
Madison, Wisconsin
www.whozplaying.com
#1
We're having more fun watching than anticipated. The swimming is always exciting. Basketball is kinda meh. Gymnastics is interesting because of the athletic level and you don't get to see it that often. Seeing fencing was cool but I'd like to understand it better. NBC doing a decent job. Featuring Snoop Dog not a bad idea and he's been sorta entertaining. Seeing the cavalcade of celebs at gymnastics was interesting. There's one gal on the women's rugby team built like a linebacker and a neat story.
 
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#2
Love love love the ‘lympics. Always have. I was a track cyclist and made the national team but not the Olympic team. Had some friends make it.

Women’s rugby squad is next level. Was unsure how the women’s soccer team would end up but they look dominant.
US men’s soccer is shameful.

Swimming is cool. Can’t wait to see track and field.

Adult team handball is the dumbest activity of all and I am fully certain you could assemble a bunch of middle school boys from your hometown and they’d win gold. It’s ridiculous and I feel sad for the competitors.

Men’s and women’s hoops are rocking.

Not sure how to feel about some of the non-sport activities in the games but I’d rather see breakdancing or ping pong or speed walking than adult team handball.

So far the gymnastics are fun.
 
#7
furym said:
I grew up thinking that the Olympics were only for amateur athletes. If you had ever competed for pay/professionally then you weren’t eligible for the Olympics. This is the main reason I don’t care to watch the basketball competitions.
Click to expand...

It was that way at one time. Then the West threw out those rules so they could compete with the old Soviet Bloc teams which were basically full time professional athletes, if I remember correctly
 
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#8
I signed up for Peacock app because it has a choice to watch multiple live events in split screen, hosted by the same guy who does the NFL Red Zone, but being in Los Angeles, I have limited time to see that. Might just cancel and record on my DVR from NBC and USA Network so I can zip through the tedious parts and commercials.

I'm not a soccer/football fan at all, so I skip that, will watch parts of all the other sports. I've let go of armature, it doesn't apply anymore so I don't fight it. In my younger days, I was a volleyball player (along with most other sports), so I watch that more diligently. But I'm looking forward to the Paralympics in August, love the triumph over adversity. In the mid 1970s, I was the co-producer of the Los Angeles Easter Seals Telethon for three years. Met and interacted with a number of disabled people, especially children and was very impressed and inspired by their stories, which serves me well now being partially disabled.

I recorded the opening ceremonies and glad for that because it got tedious, so I zipped through many parts. There's been a question by members of my uke group that Lady Gaga and Celine Dion were not singing live, but from everything I read, they did sing live. I liked the idea of the athletes riding boats on the Seine, but they could have travelled faster.

Will carry on the next couple of weeks.
 
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#10
furym said:
I grew up thinking that the Olympics were only for amateur athletes. If you had ever competed for pay/professionally then you weren’t eligible for the Olympics. This is the main reason I don’t care to watch the basketball competitions.
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NBA and WNBA players are far from being the only pros in the Olympics. Top track and field athletes, to give just one example, have been making a lot of money for a long time. And the top athletes on the east side of the Iron Curtain were basically pros all along.
 
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#15
buldog5151bass said:
The bigger the money becomes, the bigger the names.
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Once big money invades any sport, it's all over for the little guy. I saw this first hand in the Fast Streetcar Racing series...... we were a competitive on the grass roots level, and then the big money/big name guys got into the game and we were finished.

It's no wonder that many of the local tracks have a "claimer" rule for their races...... they're trying to discourage the John Force and Tony Stewart types from ruining it for the hometown hero.
 
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#18
MJ5150 said:
Snoop Dogg isn't anyone I enjoy watching. Take that along with break dancing and skateboarding in the Olympics, I'm not interested.
NBA players in the Olympics is just a joke all around.

-Mike
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Oh my was skateboarding hard to watch in Tokyo. 0% chance I do that this year. Check out the X Games soundtrack. First one had like RHCP, Sepultura, Primus, Gravity Kills, Faith No More, Ministry, Korn, Megadeth... So good.
 
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#19
FilterFunk said:
NBA and WNBA players are far from being the only pros in the Olympics. Top track and field athletes, to give just one example, have been making a lot of money for a long time. And the top athletes on the east side of the Iron Curtain were basically pros all along.
Click to expand...
Soccer is different for the men and women. The men's tournament if for 23 and under players (except they allow three over-age players per team), so these are not superteams made up of top pros, like the regular national teams that compete in World Cup. The women's is wide open, so the national teams of the very best players are competing.

As for team handball, they should drop it and put in full contact dodgeball.

I tend to seek out the obscure sports like shooting, archery, fencing, weight lifting and equestrian. These folks work their butts off and they deserve some recognition.
 
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