Excited yet? Nah, me neither. Feel very sorry for all of the athletes involved though, what a weird situation to have trained years for. Hopefully as it gets going the enthusiasm will build.
I'm sure when a few golds come our way there'll be a bit more interest but you get the feeling many of the competitors would rather not be there...
How do they wear a mask under water whilst swimming? Are more points awarded in high diving to a diver whose mask barely moves and stays the straightest? If a boxer gets his mask knocked of, is he disqualified? Do you get gold for knocking off a mask with a Siberian side kick to the head in karate? So many questions remain unanswered.
GB Women’s football team kicks off with a 2-0 win over Chile. Both teams took the knee. US, usually nailed on for a medal, hammered 3-0 by Sweden.
Never been one for the Olympics personally. Just a bunch of sports that aren't good enough to build a proper following in the main, with some odd exceptions like boxing or football where the Olympics aren't really the main event. Very grumpy old man view that normally gets me ridiculed, but there we go.
Well I agree. Too many non sports involved that require adjudication, diving, gymnastics, horse dancing. A sport is when somebody runs the fastest, scores the most points or does something quicker. If synchronised swimming is a sport then why not include ballet, portrait painting, cake baking, pulling faces and farting. Too many sports that do not need the olympics (as mentioned) football, plus tennis, golf, I’d keep boxing as it’s a good platform for amateurs. Far too much swimming, ffs 100m, 200m 400m and relay. In four different ways of swimming. Why swim backwards, butterfly is just wrong, just have one freestyle race to determine who is fastest. All those races normally one American wins them all anyway. Too much cycling, why go around the track 5 times following a cartoon character on a moped just to sprint the last lap, pure madness. Then you get all the nobs going if Yorkshire was a country we’d have come 10th, if Scotland was independent we’d have come 6th. You wouldn’t have because you wouldn’t have the backing of a larger sponsor. Why have all the cheating countries athletes competing under a neutral flag, if Russia has state sponsored doping then ban the lot so any “clean” athletes can chose to stay in that country or move on. Then they have sports only a few countries play, baseball softball, this year, why wasn’t cricket included in 2012 along with darts or cheese rolling. Not an Olympic fan, though will support team GB
….I quite like it. Although due to the time difference I won’t be watching much of it. I was a big cynic about the London Olympics, siding with our old friend Brixton who pointed out the massive disruption that it caused, especially in his industry (taxi), but once it got underway I was hooked. Enjoyed the Rio one as well. Earlier incarnations I think I watched highlights of occasionally, not so fussed. But not too excited about this one yet.
here you go @Wherever Between 1912 and 1948 the arts were part of the Olympic Games. Photo: VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images. The Venice Biennale is colloquially known as “the Olympics of art,” but did you know that between 1912 and 1948, painters, sculptors, architects, writers, and musicians participated at the real Olympic Games? Painting for Gold Medals: When Art Was an Olympic ... news.artnet.com/art-world/early-olympics-art-events-594437 Painting for Gold Medals: When Art Was an Olympic Discipline Painters, sculptors, and poets competed alongside athletes. Henri Neuendorf, August 5, 2016 please log in to view this image Between 1912 and 1948 the arts were part of the Olympic Games. Photo: VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images. The Venice Biennale is colloquially known as “the Olympics of art,” but did you know that between 1912 and 1948, painters, sculptors, architects, writers, and musicians participated at the real Olympic Games? According to the New York Times, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the IOC, from which the modern Olympics emerged in 1896, believed that sports and the arts were inextricably linked. please log in to view this image Jean Jacoby’s Corner, left, and Rugby. At the 1928 Olympic Art Competitions in Amsterdam, Jacoby won a gold medal for Rugby. Courtesy of the Olympic Museum Lausanne. “He was raised and educated classically, and he was particularly impressed with the idea of what it meant to be a true Olympian—someone who was not only athletic, but skilled in music and literature,” Richard Stanton, author of The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, told Smithsonian Magazine. “He felt that in order to recreate the events in modern times, it would be incomplete to not include some aspect of the arts.” However, the idea faced opposition from the get-go, and it wasn’t until the Stockholm games in 1912 that medals were awarded in artistic disciplines. The resistance was understandable, as sporting achievements can be measured in easily-understood metrics such as time and distance, but judging the arts is undeniably subjective. The arts competition also suffered from the guiding parameter that the works created had to be associated with sport, limiting the entries to tiresome imagery of athletes and odes to sporting achievement. please log in to view this image In 1912 Walter Winans became the only Olympian to win medals in both arts and sport. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Additionally, the requirement of amateur status in the early iterations of the games barred professional artists from entering the competition. Consequently, the artistic greats such as Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo couldn’t compete. The resulting works were inevitably, well, amateurish. According to the Huffington Post, the Olympic art events were finally struck from the competition in 1948 amid dwindling interest. Arts medals were removed from the official Olympic records and the events were demoted to a non-competitive exhibition running for the duration of the games. please log in to view this image Walter Winans’s An American Trotter won a gold medal for sculpture at the first Olympic Art Competitions, held in Stockholm in 1912. Courtesy of the Idrottmuseet i Malmö. If nothing else, the art Olympics makes for some fascinating trivia. Did you know, for instance, that Walter Winans, a Russian aristocrat with American citizenship, was the only Olympian to win medals in both the sporting and arts competition? In 1912, he won silver for team USA in the shooting event “Team Running Deer—Single Shot” and gold in sculpture for his work An American Trotter. At least we still have the Venice Biannale.
Well why not if they have spinning ribbons as a sport, this has more meaning, well found. I guess we have the Eurovision Song Contest, if Jedward can compete then some on here can be Olympians, there you go IwastheotherwatfordR
Arts medals were removed from the official Olympic record we could start a campaign to have the medals reinstated into the official record or not
I’m inspired. Gonna crack open a beer and have a couple of pickled eggs to begin my training regime. Mrs Iwas in for a treat.
I was going. Trip of a lifetime... See the end of the athletics and sports climbing ( my daughters sport) followed by 2 week holiday round Japan. Obviously not now. So really sad...