XXXth Olympiad - London

Yes, but Colorado has the lovely Rockies. Oklahoma is sorely lacking in anywhere to ski.

 

At least you save us from having to border Texas.

 

We'll be expecting the check for that, soon.

Seriously, guys, there's a girl sure to make the US womens gymnastics team who could play beach volleyball and fit right in. Her name's Aly Raismann. She'll be legal by the time London rolls around, so nothing pervy about admiring her talents.

 

Just read on my USA Today App for the phone that Shawn Johnson is retiring and giving up the olympic bid. She was very young when she competed in Beijing so this is a little surprising.

 

Shawn Johnson hurt her knee between the last Olympics and now. She had to have reconstruction and there is unusually heavy competition this time around. The US women are very, very deep and the Olympic committee has changed the rules.

The mens and womens teams only have 5 spots available. It used to be 7 (a la the magnificent 7 of 1996), then 6 and now the IOC has reduced it to 5. Shawn saw the writing on the wall. Barring injury, Jordyn Wieber (current US and world champion) Aly Raisman (world bronze medalist on floor exercise) and McKayla Maroney (current world champion on the vault apparatus) are all going to make the team. The US is in desperate need of gymnasts who are excellent on uneven bars; that's why Anastasia Liukin made a comeback. If Liukin makes it, that leaves one spot left. From the looks of her work at the last competition, she's going to make it. That leaves one spot.

There are 3 outstanding uneven bars workers vying for the last spot, which is considered the weakness of the US squad and a big need for the team. Uneven bars was Shawn's weakest event, unfortunately. If the US was in need of balance beam workers, she might have stuck around.

 

Aaaaand the five ladies going to London to represent the US are Jordyn Wieber, Gabrielle Douglas, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and Kyla Ross.

The outstanding gymnast who got left out because the olympic committee reduced the number of team members from six to five is Elizabeth Price.. She actually finished fourth at trials tonight and fifth at the US championships two weeks ago....but her one "weak" event is the event where the US needed help--uneven bars. So a girl who scored lower in the AA is going instead of Elizabeth. That's how it goes. It can't be just about the highest scores. It has to be having enough girls that are equally as good on all 4 events or really outstanding on an event in which the US is a bit lacking. Price has outstanding vaults, floor, and very nice balance beam. Unfortunately, the US was already deep on those three and was lacking on uneven bars, the one event Price is a bit weaker on.

Tough luck, Elizabeth. Had they not lowered from 6 to 5, you'd be going. What's killer is that olympic committe will raise it back to 6 members in 2016. They lowered the number so that countries who are struggling to build programs who aren't as deep could bridge the gap. Tough luck for Elizabeth.

 

Would it be all right if the Mods could move my Olympics thread in GTVM and possibly merge it with this one?

Yeah, I love watching the Olympics, especially the swimming and gymnastics competitions.

 

And pleeease, correct the spelling in the title.

 

You can watch all of the Olympics online live instead of the NBC telecast.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/liveextra/

RAMA

 

No need, there are plenty of excellent Olympic apps that include schedules out there, I use this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/...?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5sb25kb24uZ2FtZXMiXQ..

 

Thanks! I love to watch some of the lesser known events like the boating and equestrian.

I just wish the games were behind held in a time zone behind mine, it's hard to ignore the results and it spoils the event.

 

I didn't realize until I was a young adult how American-centric the Olympics coverage had been and continues to be to this day. In fact, when I was growing up watching the Olympics, I thought the network itself was involved in the planning of the games. I'm sure there are other networks besides NBC that provide coverage of the games, but they're harder to follow especially if one doesn't know the schedule of events. It would be nice to have a glimpse of, say, soccer matches between non-U.S. players, e.g., Mexico vs. Italy, etc.

 

If it isn't women's gymnastics or the men's sprinting events, NBC won't show it. I understand ratings and all that, but I wouldn't mind seeing a Belgian archer or a Swedish wrestler from time to time.

 

You can watch the entire Olympics online (And live for the most part) this year so you can see everything you want to see. They do Americans because that's what the people watching want and that's where the ratings are.

 

Looking forward to the Olympics. I find the Australian coverage pretty good. It will be interesting to see how it looks on channel 9 this time around.

 

Here's a nice photo of Sir Patrick Stewart with the Olympic flame:

 

And we're off to a flier already;

The North Korean women's football team is due to play tonight - guess which flag got displayed - yep, the South Korean one!

Que lots of furious North Koreans storming off in a strop.

 

Less than 48hrs until the opening ceremony starts.

 

Fuck them.