Olympics!

[goldenvalley]

Anyone watching?  

I saw the equestrian cross country event yesterday.  I know little about the sport but the course was on the grounds of Versailles and the day was sunny. There were a lot of people standing around at each gate...cheering. I would have thought this was like golf...no clapping or ever talking above a whisper. The horses didn't seem phased by the noise though.

My former wrestler son is glad that wrestling continues to be an Olympic sport.  It was almost cut while he was in high school. He said how can it be called Olympics if one of the original sports is not in it.

[AnBr]

I almost never watch much of the Olympics, but was captured by the opening ceremonies. After years of the reich-wing nonsense and the normalization of that extremism, we were reminded what the world was like before the petty divisive hate and vitriol of "us vs everybody else that is not the same" took root so deeply in this country. It nearly made me feel like weeping for what we have lost. F*ck faux "news" and f*ck Putin.

I do note that predictably the MAGAts took offense at what they misunderstood, like not knowing the difference between da Vinci's Last Supper and a portrayal of the Festival of Dionysus (being both the Festival and the Olympics are Greek). And the irony of being upset at the multicultural aspect of the ceremonies at a worldwide event.

[indy]

I'm pretty sure it would not occur to most of these people that quite a bit of christian iconography was appropriated. These are also the same people who would argue that it's ok to use swastikas because the nazis appropriated it.

[Rue Bella]

I had intended to watch more, but other than some of the tennis, I haven't seen much.

[andydp]

Jul 30, 2024 0:09:53 GMT indy said:

I'm pretty sure it would not occur to most of these people that quite a bit of christian iconography was appropriated. These are also the same people who would argue that it's ok to use swastikas because the nazis appropriated it.

[andydp]

Funny how no one was screaming about this...

[Bact PhD]

Completely missed the Opening Ceremonies, as we were en route from the NC mountains to the Golden Isles of GA. By the time we had had dinner and returned to our rental, even the tape-delayed telecast was over.

We’ve caught a little bit of this (equestrian cross country) and a little bit of that (Men’s basketball pool play round). Now that we’re home, I’ll take a closer look at just what is on when.

[goldenvalley]

Jul 29, 2024 21:11:36 GMT AnBr said:

I almost never watch much of the Olympics, but was captured by the opening ceremonies. After years of the reich-wing nonsense and the normalization of that extremism, we were reminded what the world was like before the petty divisive hate and vitriol of "us vs everybody else that is not the same" took root so deeply in this country. It nearly made me feel like weeping for what we have lost. F*ck faux "news" and f*ck Putin.

I do note that predictably the MAGAts took offense at what they misunderstood, like not knowing the difference between da Vinci's Last Supper and a portrayal of the Festival of Dionysus (being both the Festival and the Olympics are Greek). And the irony of being upset at the multicultural aspect of the ceremonies at a worldwide event.

x.com/Olympics/status/1816929100532945380?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1816929100532945380%7Ctwgr%5Ea986d670184292af8ee46f6174062b4b00564540%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fiframe.nbcnews.com%2FdLWYqys%3F_showcaption%3Dtrueapp%3D1

The real problem was that drag queens were at the table.  Even if they recognized it was the Festival of Dionysus being invoked they'd be objecting because of the drag queens.  

[goldenvalley]

The US gymnastics teams were awesome. Last night was the women's all around team competition. As usual, I wanted to see more than the Americans competing.  The coverage only mentions one or two other teams and shows maybe two athletes from each.  Last night the Italian team won silver and yet they only showed 2 athletes from that team.  There was a bit more of the Brazilian team but apparently NBC was expecting them to be the silver medalists. Instead they won bronze.

That being said, Simone Barnes is a force of nature.  The other Americans were spectacular too.

[AnBr]

Jul 31, 2024 15:32:10 GMT goldenvalley said:

The real problem was that drag queens were at the table.  Even if they recognized it was the Festival of Dionysus being invoked they'd be objecting because of the drag queens.  

Perhaps, but they still tried to make hay out of the Last Supper comparison. Granted that that source was probably the outrage machine to gin up a talking point, still the MAGAts used it to whine, even if they knew the difference between da Vinci's Last Supper and van Bijlert's Feast of the Gods.

[andydp]

There's a whole set of these on that "artist's" page.

[goldenvalley]

What I like about the Olympics is seeing sports you don't otherwise see on American tv.  I miss the old ABC Wide World of Sports. This weekend it's been bike road racing through the streets of Paris, won by an American woman who did a final sprint that left the 3 nearest bikes behind.  And men's singles table tennis...gold won by a Chinese guy who was in the Tokyo Olympics and silver won by a Swedish kid.  I don't recall the tables being so small in the past. A really fast game...even faster than I remembered. Good fun which led me to this article "No, you can't beat an Olympic table tennis player":

Lily Zhang and three teammates from the United States table tennis team were hanging out on a large boat last Friday, making small talk with the N.B.A. star Stephen Curry — as one does at an Olympic opening ceremony — when he asked what sport they played.

They told him, and his eyes lit up.

“Can I borrow you for a second?” Curry asked.

Moments later, the four table tennis players found themselves engaged in a brief but spirited debate with Curry and his teammate Anthony Edwards about whether Edwards, one of basketball’s brightest young talents, could notch a point against them on the table. The friendly trash talk was captured on camera and eventually watched by more than 15 million people online.

Everywhere they go, the world’s best table tennis players meet strangers who believe they can hold their own against them. They tell them that they play “Ping-Pong,” too. They wonder aloud what the score would be, or even who would win. They suggest that they should play sometime.

This, alas, is the table tennis players’ cross to bear.

“You’ll meet someone, and their first reaction is, “I bet I can beat you, let’s play,’” Zhang said, laughing. “I don’t think you’d really say that to anyone in another sport. If you saw Michael Phelps, I don’t think you’d say, ‘I bet I can beat you in a race.’”

Zhang, 28, and her fellow players are good sports about it. They have to be. They know their game doesn’t have a huge following. They know many people think of it only as an idle pastime — and that amateurs tend to overrate their ability in it.

Zhang said that she believed this was an American thing, a bravado rooted in the prevalence of tables in suburban basements and community center rec rooms. But players from other countries insisted that none of them were spared..

[indy]

Did you see the snake shot the Swedish kid did? Even got a smile out of his competitor.

x.com/jackkenmare_/status/1820124466112078251

[goldenvalley]

This is not the Olympics...it's a short documentary of people deciding whether or not to jump off a 10 meter diving platform (for money).  Some of them narrate their thought process as they stand on the precipice.  Quite suspenseful...

Would you do it?  For the record, I hate heights and once turned away from the launching point of a zip line after getting all geared up.  So, no...just no.

[goldenvalley]

Steph Curry drains 4 3 pointers to win the basketball gold for USA.  He's truly amazing.

It's becoming clear that the US is no longer the big dog in world basketball.  The Serbs gave them a run for their money a couple of days ago.  The French forced turnovers today and almost caught up.

ETA: The French tv announcer's version of the end of the game