2010 Olympics

Well, I'd managed to avoid getting excited about my Province hosting the Olympics all week (things have been a bit busy with my studies), but that finally changed with the broadcast of the openning ceremonies. We had a pretty rough start to things with one of the Georgian athletes getting killed in a training accident earlier in the day and a major technical malfunction during the lighting of the cauldron. On the other hand, I was pretty darn impressed with the show we managed to put on (though I might have preferred a more traditional rendition of the national anthem). I though we'd look pretty lame after what the Chinese did for their openning two years ago, but I was actually pretty impressed. I also really liked what they did with the second stage of the cauldron lighting (we had two cauldrons -one within the stadium where the ceremony was held and another one located outdoors. The indoor one was the one that had problems). Letting the torch take a trip through busy parts of downtown Vancouver with minimal police protection was a pretty risky move, but I think it did wonders as far as the spirit of the event was concerned.

Olympics? Two words... F--K YEAH!!

Well it certainly wasn't Beijing, but then, can anything be?

Of course, I remember saying "Can anything beat Sydney?" as I walked out of Stadium Australia after attending that Opening Ceremony, and yet eight years later as I left Bird's Nest I was saying to myself "yeah, that was better".

First off, Nikki Yanofsky should be required to sing every instance of "O Canada" going forward.

I found the Cultural Section to be really good. The video projection work was really solid and Donald Sutherland was an inspired choice as the narrator. The Hymns of the North segment was really great - the whales were I also liked the Rhythms of the Fall segment with the fiddler. And the wire-work and choreography of Peaks of Endeavour really impressed.

Describing Canada through a poetry slam. Brilliant.

And Bryan Adams still has it, even if his choice of song better fit 1980.

Too bad Her Majesty the Queen could not make it, but she didn't do it for Sydney (which I remember at the time was a bit controversial since the Monarch or a member of the Royal Family had always opened a Summer Olympics held in a Commonwealth nation [with the exception of Melbourne in 1956], but then at the time Prime Minister John Howard was trying to toss her as Head of State and didn't want her to attend, period.).

The cauldron-lighting ceremony suffered from the malfunction of LeMay Doan's arm, but then the same thing happened at Sydney. I still think the best flame lighting ceremony in history remains Barcelona 1992 with Antonio Rebollo using a flaming arrow (even if he actually deliberately overshot the cauldron for safety reasons and it was remote lit).

All-in-all, a solid and entertaining effort by David Atkins (who directed the Sydney OC) that represented Canada well. Better than Torino ( bullets from the cyborgs), though I believe Nagano 1998 remains the best Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Piero wrote:I thought we'd look pretty lame after what the Chinese did for their opening two years ago, but I was actually pretty impressed.

You don't have to me ashamed of anything - unlike China, Canada has its financial priorities straight. The amount of money that went into that flashy Olympics thingus could have been channeled into a shitload of far more important things, but nooooo.

Kiskaloo wrote:I believe Nagano 1998 remains the best Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Amen.

and i bet no one working in Canada was forcibly evicted to build the venues,and everyone who worked to prepare the sites were paid more than slave labour rates !

Well when you consider Canada spent one tenth as much on their OC as China did, yeah, one can expect it to be not as ostentatious.

Then again, this is Canada's second Winter Games (and third overall), where China was celebrating their first. And Canada is already established on the world stage, where China is still trying to get out from under the shadow cast by the Western democratic industrialized powers and the Olympics were first and foremost a way for China to say "We have arrived", so they needed to be over the top.

First gold medal for France

Biathlon is a sport I've always enjoyed watching.


A thing I like about the olympics is that most of the time the athletes are not multi millionaire prima donas but just everyday people.

Miracle of miracles! is falling!

You mean like the real stuff and not delivered?

It actually was falling from the sky!

SWEEET!!!

So now they have had to postpone some of the outdoor events because it's snowing too much.

Kiskaloo wrote:So now they have had to postpone some of the outdoor events because it's snowing too much.

As the Chinese would say, "Beware what you wish for. But still...

Well I certainly can't watch the coverage live, since NBC is downright exploitive in how they just relentlessly focus on the "human drama" side of every fricken event. I so frackin don't care! If I wanted their life stories, I'd watch The Biography Channel (or even The History Channel considering some of the ancient stuff they are resurrecting).

So it's "Tivo Time" so I can skip past the crap - the plus side means I can watch 8 hours of coverage in about 1 hour.

Man I miss CBC...

So I caught some "epic" curling highlights and I have to ask: Can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on? The scoreboard looks like baseball, the start looks like bowling, and the rest looks like cleaning the kitchen floors.

In all seriousness, the closest thing I can relate it to is shuffleboard. Is it close to shuffleboard on ice?

rusty-spring wrote:The scoreboard looks like baseball, the start looks like bowling, and the rest looks like cleaning the kitchen floors.

I... I'm putting that in my signature. That is a legendary quote right there.

Kiskaloo wrote: NBC is downright exploitive in how they just relentlessly focus on the "human drama" side of every fricken event. I so frackin don't care! If I wanted their life stories, I'd watch The Biography Channel (or even The History Channel considering some of the ancient stuff they are resurrecting).

Television has done that to nearly every sport (another reson I stopped watching NASCAR), even fight sports (i.e. boxing, MMA). How can you take fighting and make it into something sissy!?

Professor Voodoo wrote:Television has done that to nearly every sport (another reson I stopped watching NASCAR), even fight sports (i.e. boxing, MMA). How can you take fighting and make it into something sissy!?

Well it's just so bloody annoying. Take American female snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis. She fell at Torino, but to listen to NBC's commentary, you'd think she spent her life ethnically cleansing Croats in Bosnia or some other Crime Against Humanity and winning Gold in Vancouver is the only way she can get into heaven and not burn in the Flames of Perdition for all eternity.

Every time she is on the screen they go on and on about how she "needs to win Gold redeem herself in the eyes of her fans" and how she "has to put the pressure behind her, buckle down, and get it done." Except the only "pressure" is the bullshit you morons at NBC keep blathering on about!

Alas, she lost in the second round so I guess The Reaper will be claiming her soul any moment...

Kiskaloo wrote:She fell at Torino

I loved that moment,she got what she deserved for trying to show off.

Half Pipe was fun,though I wonder if Sean White is an actual human being.

Kiskaloo wrote:Every time she is on the screen they go on and on about how she "needs to win Gold redeem herself in the eyes of her fans" and how she "has to put the pressure behind her, buckle down, and get it done." Except the only "pressure" is the bullshit you morons at NBC keep blathering on about!

That's the same way the "economic crisis" started too. That coupled with the fact that NBC refuses to cover more than a few different types of event (which they show rounds of over and over again) has driven me away from watching the Olympics entirely. I think I'll try to find some coverage from a Canadian channel on the internet sometime...

The curling i could have done without it was like watching the grass grow considering i had no idea what the heck was going on but the snow boarding half pipe was awsome. Shawn whites run after cinching the gold was awsome. I have to say i agree with the earlier post more of the events and less of the human drama. if I wanted that i'd watch lifetime or something.

KodokuRyuu wrote:I think I'll try to find some coverage from a Canadian channel on the internet sometime...

We've been spoiled in the past here in Seattle because we get CBC (CBUT Vancouver) which had excellent Olympic coverage. Alas, CBC lost this one so now we have to wait a day for the feed from NBC even though we're less than 200km away from The Games.

crazyidiot78 wrote:The curling i could have done without it was like watching the grass grow considering i had no idea what the heck was going on...

Yeah, but what about those pants the Norwegian Men's team were wearing?

To (mis)quote the late Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack - "I bet with those pair of pants you get a free bowl of soup!"

There's something wrong with the iceskating rating system if you can get gold without doing a quadriple jump (that hasn't happened since 1994)

Might as well just stick to the old system.

Evgeni Plushenko's program is the only one that actually entertained me.But he's already gotten gold so I'm not going to lose sleep over it

Totoum wrote:There's something wrong with the iceskating rating system if you can get gold without doing a quadriple jump (that hasn't happened since 1994)

Might as well just stick to the old system.

Evgeni Plushenko's program is the only one that actually entertained me. But he's already gotten gold so I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

On the flip side, the...requirements...of competition are now so high that it is not surprising when people like Lindsey Vonn admit "they focused their entire life training for this moment" (winning the Gold). Or that Chinese figure skating couple who were literally made to spend the rest of their lives together at the age of 13(?) just so they could win Olympic Gold.

Yes, you can watch the 1956 Olympics from Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy and see medal-winning performances that teenagers are doing now on ski slopes and ice rinks around the world, but at least those people had lives before the Games. I expect that was not the case for many who journeyed to Torino five decades later...

Another thing - who the heck takes the photos of the competitors for NBC? Some Department of Motor Vehicles licensing office? I swear they look like craptastic Driver's License photos.

Kiskaloo wrote:Another thing - who the heck takes the photos of the competitors for NBC? Some Department of Motor Vehicles licensing office? I swear they look like craptastic Driver's License photos.

It was probably this guy.

Did anyone catch the 40yo skier from Finland I think it was. I realize he crashed in the Super G but still to be 40 and still able to compete at the olympic level is damn impressive.

rusty-spring wrote:

Kiskaloo wrote:Another thing - who the heck takes the photos of the competitors for NBC? Some Department of Motor Vehicles licensing office? I swear they look like craptastic Driver's License photos.

It was probably this guy.

Dude looks like the only reason he's there is to shoot upskirt shots of the underage figure skaters to post on the internet.

crazyidiot78 wrote:Did anyone catch the 40yo skier from Finland I think it was. I realize he crashed in the Super G but still to be 40 and still able to compete at the olympic level is damn impressive.

Patrick Jaerbyn of Sweden? He caught serious air before having his bell rung.

That whole Whistler course has been a nightmare. It's more ice than snow so it's like skiing on concrete and all the downhill events have seen huge crashes. I was watching the Woman's downhill the other day and that Italian competitor with the 200m faceplant was .

Gotta say, this is the Olympics to watch if you want to see wipeouts. The course conditions outdoors are generally so poor that nobody seems to be able to do much. I'm watching the Aerial Skiing and so far it's been mostly carnage.

Watching Kim Yu-Na of South Korea skate to music from the James Bond franchise last night, I could just see Petrushka and the other canon Generation 2's embedded in the Italian Team at Torino to help protect the Olympic Village. As a ballerina, I think she could be programmed to pull off a fair-to-middlin performance as a skater.

Last night was pretty impressive:

Spoiler:

This is what I like about this year's Olympics as (I personally) has not been seen in the Olympics for the past half decade. That whole "Go Big or Go Home" mentality.

Granted the disqualification got a straight-up 'Boo!' from me; it's been event after event of either Epic Win or Epic Fail.

Last night's Olympic events were pretty exciting, I'll agree.

Kim YuNa just got gold in figure skating. <3 I'm really happy about that, considering I'm her #1 stalker- fangirl.

Reina wrote:Kim YuNa just got gold in figure skating. <3 I'm really happy about that, considering I'm her #1 stalker- fangirl.

Yeah NBC actually started their coverage for the night noting she'd won the Gold. Way to get people to keep watching for two hours until you actually ran the tape of the event.

CANADA WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Five_X wrote:CANADA WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the Hockey right ?

Awinnell wrote:
the Hockey right ?

The whole thing actually I believe...

Canada won the Men's Hockey Gold and reset the total for most Gold Medals won in a Winter Olympics.

The United States secured the most total medals, resetting that record, as well.

As for the Closing Ceremonies, not bad. I'm torn between Beijing and Sydney as having the best Closing Ceremonies ever. Beijing certainly had the spectacle, but Sydney closed out an Olympics to "Waltzing Matilda"!

Yes, Canada won the Olympics, as they are based on number of gold medals. I feel nationalistic. Damn you Napoleon!!

Five_X wrote:Yes, Canada won the Olympics, as they are based on number of gold medals. I feel nationalistic. Damn you Napoleon!!

The Olympics hands out more than just Gold Medals, though.

So Canada is third in that list, behind the USA and Germany.