Olympics: Beijing 2008

[Wonchop]

This kicked off today, with the opening ceremony involving some weird flying rings and creepy singing children at time of writing.
So yeah, all Olympic talk here I guess.

[Harlequin374]

Oh for god sake. I made my thread 1 minute after yours. :mad:

[albie_123]

While the ceremony so far is amazing, I really, really want to see more North Korea-esque feats of military might.

I mean, come on, where the hell has the cult of government gone, China

[Nuclear Spoon]

I thought the opening ceremony was rather bloody impressive.

Was that a roll-up LCD screen? Because that was awesome.

[Erskien_Parkour]

It was very awesome.

nice one china for putting on a good show

[BlueIncaPilot]

The opening ceremony was fantastic, I loved it. Today I watched a bit of swimming and the men's artistic gymnastics (gymnastics my favourite event to watch), very impressive indeed. Hopefully it will be shown on TV in Tunisia so I can watch some more, it was alright for the last one because I was in Greece for those 2 weeks so obviously it was never off the TV.

[Smowy]

I felt bad for the (korean I think) gymnast who fell off the bar and the guy who went after since he was too scared to leave the bar and ended up screwing the landing.

[BlueIncaPilot]

I know what you mean I saw that. Our fellas didn't do too bad on the pommel horse. Watching the performances on the mat is the best part though, I wish I could do that :p Hope I get to see Beth Tweddle again, she's amazing.

[Roxit]

I find it funny how there is some sort of uproar when people found out some of the opening ceremony was fake. It seemed rather obvious to me.

[Nuclear Spoon]

It was only the fireworks that were fake though, surely?

Also, hurrah for Addlington.

[Dr_nwa]

Go Go Phelps

Although I honestly don't consider him the greatest olympian ever. Having said that, its impressive so far and I would love to see him win all 8, he's certainly got a good chance.

GB team performance is above par 5 days in. The Weekend is where its at, I think we could win anywhere between 4 and 7 golds between friday and sunday...

[Nuclear Spoon]

And Adlington wins a gold in the 800m and breaks a world record in the process.

BRAVO, M'LADY!

[Erskien_Parkour]

we need more golds :D

a good olympics so far though.

[Boyinabox]

Four gold medals, a silver and four bronze medals in one day! And thats not including the sailing events as they were postponed, absolutely increadible! :D

[Jay]

They cut the table tennis short for football. I was not pleased.

[ynnekkenny]

OH MY GOD!!!
100m mens final
Usain Bolt has blown the world record away! [/excitement]

[Urlosenged]

And he wasn't even trying for the last 5-10m. That is absolutely insane.

[Nuclear Spoon]

Jesus H Christ on a moped.

[jif-charge]

He would have been seen as invincible if he did try more towards the end may have whacked a second off from second place if he had.

[jonffm]

A second? I don't think so, it's note humanly possible to run it in under 9 seconds, now is it :p

But yeah, utterly destroyed the competition. To break a world record without even trying at the end is simply diabolical.

[jif-charge]

Well that time in that little effort didn't seem humanly possible. :rolleyes:

[mrsnuffles]

i dont get all this fuss about doping. athletics would be far more entertaining if they just dropped all restrictions. 100m sprint would be sweet. have to cage them all before the race started to stop them killing each other due to roid overload, but they'd halve the world record easy.

A second? I don't think so, it's note humanly possible to run it in under 9 seconds, now is it :p


says who

[Flava Dave]

I read somewhere that the pools in Beijing are much deeper than standard Olympic pools, thus there's less resistance from the water being pushed around. Which would explain all the world records being broken.


Also, dude from Belfast won this morning in the boxing. Woo.

[ZOIDBERG]

I read somewhere that the pools in Beijing are much deeper than standard Olympic pools, thus there's less resistance from the water being pushed around. Which would explain all the world records being broken.


Also, dude from Belfast won this morning in the boxing. Woo.
Yeah that's right, 3m deep so a lot of water goes downwards not to the sides, so it's not in the way of the other athletes. Or something.

Missed the 100m race and can't find a video anywhere :/

[jonffm]

says who

The fact no man has ever run even CLOSE to it. Perhaps after century's of athletic evolution, but in the here and now? No way. Theres a limit to how far the human body can be pushed, i'd be shocked if anyone in my lifetime made it in under 9.50.

Also, he didn't do it without effort, he just laxed a little bit at the very end. He was still running, and still running sodding fast.It's not like he got on all fours rolled the last 10m.

If he ran full out, he might JUST have got it down to around 9.6.

Don't mean to be a bubble-burster, but lets not get carried away with it :p He's the fastest man in the world, by some margin.

[waggit]

Missed the 100m race and can't find a video anywhere :/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/athletics/7565203.stm

[captain canuck]

As of yesterday I could finally say Canada hasn't completely failed at the Games. The Gold and Bronze from two weight classes of women's freestyle wrestling were rather a surprise, though.

We've already moved up to just short of the goal I had heard going into the games: 16th overall. We just have to get a few more medals in the remaining weeks to maintain it. Sure, that seems like a rather low goal but it makes perfect sense to me: Canada tends to do far better at Winter Olympics. Even though that's practically walking headlong into a massive stereotype...

[ynnekkenny]

nah in our lifetime we will be properly lucky if we see 9.50. i cannot see it being even close to that time for at least 25 years. today was quite simply the best sporting event i have ever seen

[Boyinabox]

Britain third place in the medal table!

Wow.

[captain canuck]

Canada has basically maintained its place in the overall rankings as consequence of several more medals, again only some of which were expected.

The bronze for a 19 year old swimmer from Victoria was pretty awesome given that the last Canadian to medal in his particular race (1500 meter freestyle) was in 1920. I didn't know the guy, but he did go to the same high school as a family member of mine who is exactly that age.

I fail at remembering the proper terminology, but my cousin's cousin.

[Nuclear Spoon]

I fail at remembering the proper terminology, but my cousin's cousin.

You? :p


And also DAYUM we are good at cycling.

[Urlosenged]

4 more golds tomorrow (hopefully!). I really do hope we beat the Aussies. Or just beat our all-time record of 14 golds. That would be immense.

On a side note I went to school (in Australia) with Andrew Lauterstein who got the bronze in the 100m butterfly. He was in my year too! And it bugged me how the commentators pronounced his name wrong but at the same time I thought it was cool that I was most likely the only person in the country who knew that it was pronounced wrong.

[Boyinabox]

4 more golds tomorrow (hopefully!). I really do hope we beat the Aussies. Or just beat our all-time record of 14 golds. That would be immense.

Technically our highest is 56, but that was in the 1908 olympics, and some of the events there only had British competitors. :D
So basically you have to ignore pretty much all the early Olympic games as they were utter jokes compared to today (or heck even by the 1936 games)

[Nuclear Spoon]

I find this David Price chap quite amusing.

Christine Awooga

gold medal in the 400m

YEAH

[Roxit]

Why in events like boxing only amatures can take part and elite can't. While in tennis the best of the best can play.

[ZOIDBERG]

Why in events like boxing only amatures can take part and elite can't. While in tennis the best of the best can play.
I think it's just boxing but I've got no idea why. Maybe pro VS amateur could be dangerous for some reason.

[Flava Dave]

Why in events like boxing only amatures can take part and elite can't. While in tennis the best of the best can play.

There's a huge difference between amateur and pro boxing. See the example of Amir Khan, he wins a silver medal but won't fight for a title until he has around 25 pro contests.



Also, three Irish dudes in the boxing semis! Fuck yeah!

[Roxit]

Cheers

[malcolio]

Huzzah for transforming double-decker bus and Boris Johnson not screwing up by dropping the Olympic flag! Closing ceremony was pretty spectacular, we can't really follow it other than it to be more fun and slightly less regimental.

Woo for GB being fourth on the medal table. We were expected to get to 8th!

[Ringodadog]

Awww I wanted it to turn into Optimus Prime....
Anyway, overall it was a fantastic olympics. GB did amazing and the events were overall fantastic. Well done China! You succeded in making me forget your awful human rights record :D

[jif-charge]

I just hope that <insert pop stars name here> will do a better job miming at the cermony that what they did at the closing ceremony.

[Mr stabby]

anyone see boris' ping pong speech?
fucking looney is running our capital, it just hit me :eek:

[Erskien_Parkour]

I found it pretty funny that he kept putting his hands in his pockets

[captain canuck]

Technically our highest is 56, but that was in the 1908 olympics, and some of the events there only had British competitors. :D
So basically you have to ignore pretty much all the early Olympic games as they were utter jokes compared to today (or heck even by the 1936 games) Reminds me a bit of the constant reference by armchair athletes on CBC's Olympic boards to the all-time high 44 medals Canada got in 1984. Mind you in those Olympics the Soviets all boycotted because it was in LA and we sent many more athletes than we have in any other event before or since.

But not even Olympic fans should be expected to have any recollection of recent Olympic history, should they? :p