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    What are you watching in Beijing?

    I will be watching the boxing, football, BMXing, baseball, basketball along with the usual curious watching of beach volleyball, table tennis, tennis and, maybe badminton

    #2
    What are you watching in Beijing?

    Haven't we done a thread on this before?

    I'll try and catch some football- even though, knowing the way Channel 7 will cover the olympics, they will cut to some swimming or diving just as someone is about to score a goal.

    I'll also watch a bit of athletics, boxing, hockey. I can't watch basketball for more than two minutes without falling asleep.

    I won't be watching any swimming- I hate the way the Australian media whip themselves into a nationalistic frenzy over swimming....

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      #3
      What are you watching in Beijing?

      As much as I possibly can, with an emphasis on sports I'd never get to see otherwise-field hockey, handball, modern pentathlon, etc. But none of the X-Games crap, thank you.

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        #4
        What are you watching in Beijing?

        Swimming is astonishingly boring to watch. Given that there can be no tactics, and it's just swimming backwards and forwards in straight lines, there's just nothing to it. Given how bland it is, it's galling that there are 6 distances with 4 strokes for 2 sexes, plus various medleys and relays, and the BBC leave it on as the main event sending the world into a dreadful torpor.

        I'll be watching things like canoeing and modern pentathlon and taekwando and whatever else slightly out of the ordinary they have on.

        Apart from the swimming I'll mostly be consciously trying to avoid gymansticsy stuff and anything else that has "style" marks and becomes subjective rather than being proper sport.

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          #5
          What are you watching in Beijing?

          Weightlifting. I have no prior knowledge of who's who nor on many occasions what the rules are but every four years this Olympic sport takes me to her finely toned bosoms and entertains me accordingly. Small Turkish men who can lift 6 times their own bodyweight are about as fascinating as anything you'll ever see in televised sport. Apart from curling, but that's my winter fetish.

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            #6
            What are you watching in Beijing?

            I'm quite keen on volleyball and so am hoping that the BBC will deign to show a decent amount. They're announcing details of their Olympic coverage on Saturday.

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              #7
              What are you watching in Beijing?

              i'll watch swimming, athletics, diving, gymnastics.

              i'm curious to know why swimming is inherently more boring to watch than any other form of racing in the olympics. in fact, given how hard it is for swimmers to maintain their rhythm and stroke while experiencing intense physical pain you could argue swimming has dimensions you don't find in track racing. i suppose it helps to understand what you are looking at.

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                #8
                What are you watching in Beijing?

                Athletics and swimming for me, plus any individual Ultonian competitors spotted. The absence of lawn bowling and small-bore shooting a la the commonwealths is regretted.

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                  #9
                  What are you watching in Beijing?

                  Nothing.

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                    #10
                    What are you watching in Beijing?

                    OK, maybe the football.

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                      #11
                      What are you watching in Beijing?

                      Cycling (track and road) and Canoeing

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                        #12
                        What are you watching in Beijing?

                        A girl called Shanaze Reade from around here is a real medal-hope for the BMX-ing, so I'll have to watch that.

                        The thing is, I'm not sure what Olympic BMX-ing actually is? I don't know whether it's a race, a time-trial or a trick-based thing?

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                          #13
                          What are you watching in Beijing?

                          It's track-racing but, obviously, with jumps on the way around and she could do really well. They had her down down for 2012 but she has exceeded expectations

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                            #14
                            What are you watching in Beijing?

                            Nothing, unless I happen to flip across to something vaguely interesting while watching telly. I've always found the Olympics underwhelming.

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                              #15
                              What are you watching in Beijing?

                              none of the X-Games crap, thank you.
                              Maybe you are confusing the BMX trick riding (Which I still find skillful) and the BMX racing that will be in the Olympics?

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                                #16
                                What are you watching in Beijing?

                                Swimming is astonishingly boring to watch. Given that there can be no tactics, and it's just swimming backwards and forwards in straight lines, there's just nothing to it. Given how bland it is, it's galling that there are 6 distances with 4 strokes for 2 sexes, plus various medleys and relays, and the BBC leave it on as the main event sending the world into a dreadful torpor.
                                Substitute "swimming" for "athletics" in the above paragraph, and discus. Discus! Did you see what I did there?

                                I mean for fuck's sake, 100m. 200m. 400m. Who gives a shit about the latter two? Someone's the fastest bloke in world in a sprint, yeah? You don't have rowing golds for fastest over 1km, 1.5km, 2km, why the fuck does Athletics get away with it? There should be four golds in athletics, for the 100m sprint, the 1,500m, the 10,000m and the marathon. All the rest can go to cock. And as for the silly events that involve hurdles, and people like Sally Gunnell and Colin Jackson winning things, I mean well fuck off. Why don't they have a proper Obstacle race at the Olympics, where you have to put on a pair of pyjama bottoms and eat a Cadbury's Cream Egg before clambering under a net? Well? Why Not?

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                                  #17
                                  What are you watching in Beijing?

                                  I always enjoy watching the diving.

                                  Gymnastics, because Mrs. Inca has to watch it. NBC will be doing the "big" events for their evening coverage, I imagine, and only stuff with American athletes most likely, so I probably won't get to see anything else unless I tape it and have time to watch it later--I'll probably only do that with soccer.

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                                    #18
                                    What are you watching in Beijing?

                                    And don't get me started on boxing. What a pile of shite that is. There should be three weights in boxing - "Little blokes who it's fun to watch having a scrap", "Blokes your size", and "Fuck me, you wouldn't mess with him".

                                    Instead, there are two or three weights that just about fall into the category of "blokes your size", and about nine weights that fall off the scale of "little blokes who it's fun watching have a scrap". Amir Khan? He's about 5 foot 4 and 8 stone 6. He's a technically brilliant boxer, but I mean, come on, in a pub car park, even I'd fancy myself to stick one hand on top of his head and kick him in the clockweights.

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                                      #19
                                      What are you watching in Beijing?

                                      Taking into account the time and possible state that you are posting, Rogin, Amir Khan would still have you presently (to use a technical term)

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                                        #20
                                        What are you watching in Beijing?

                                        I shall be paying special attention to the hockey as I've just had the pleasure of conducting interviews with the GB men's and women's captains:

                                        http://londonist.com/2008/07/interview_ben_hawes_gb_mens_hockey.php

                                        http://londonist.com/2008/08/interview_kate_walsh_gb_womens_hock.php

                                        I'm also about to interview the K2 500m flatwater canoeing pair of Anna Hemmings and Jessica Walker and there's plenty of interesting backstory there.

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                                          #21
                                          What are you watching in Beijing?

                                          Flatwater canoeing??

                                          Is there some sort of defined cutoff point that separates flatwater from whitewater, or is there an in-between category like Mildly Choppy Canoeing?

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                                            #22
                                            What are you watching in Beijing?

                                            Flatwater means it's ona lake/open water not on white water where they've opened the big damn at the top of the river before you kayak on down

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                                              #23
                                              What are you watching in Beijing?

                                              garcia wrote:
                                              i'll watch swimming, athletics, diving, gymnastics.

                                              i'm curious to know why swimming is inherently more boring to watch than any other form of racing in the olympics. in fact, given how hard it is for swimmers to maintain their rhythm and stroke while experiencing intense physical pain you could argue swimming has dimensions you don't find in track racing. i suppose it helps to understand what you are looking at.
                                              A load of people's backs. Perhaps it is difficult to maintain a rhythm, but they manage it and in the absence of any meaningful closeups of people in agony or crumbling under the pressure of performing on the big day then you may as well watch eight metronomes in a row. Boring, boring, boring.

                                              The sooner they make darts an Olympic event the better.

                                              Sometimes the running is fun to watch, especially if there's some animosity between a couple of participants like Lews/Johnson or Thompson/Hincksen or Coe/Ovett. Sometimes the field events like the javelin are entertaining. I do enjoy watching the floor exercises in the gymnastics even though it isn't a proper sport. Beyond that I'm struggling. Generally it's just a bad day on Eurosport stretched out over about three weeks.

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                                                #24
                                                What are you watching in Beijing?

                                                Is there some sort of defined cutoff point that separates flatwater from whitewater, or is there an in-between category like Mildly Choppy Canoeing?
                                                Not in the olympics. The whitewater courses are really sporty by the standards of normal people, plus they go through gates and - and this is insane - have to go through some of the gates moving upstream. As somebody whose done a bit of canoeing but not an expert, I'm in awe of those paddlers.

                                                Flatwater canoeing is on a similar course (the same?) as the rowing. The water is completely placid. The canoes are very shallow and slim and the paddlers just haul ass.

                                                I'd like to watch canoe/kayak, baseball, softball, soccer, water polo, indoor volleyball, wrestling, BMX and some of the stuff we never get to see except in the olympics like track cycling, fencing, team handball, badminton, etc.

                                                But I don't think I'll watch much of these games because I won't be able to watch much outside of prime time, which NBC usually fills with swimming, gymnastics,* basketball and track. I'm not really interested in any of those. I may watch some of the basketball, actually. I think the USA is going to put on a show.

                                                That and I don't want to contribute to the Chinese government getting smug about a huge success, the fuckers.

                                                *Gymnastics would be ok if it weren't for the obnoxious announcers "oooh, she's going to lose points for moving her foot an eighth of an inch there...really disappointing!" Oh fuck off you prissy, uptight cow! You get out there and do that.

                                                That's one of the things I like about the X-Games compared to other "stunt" sports like gymnastics or diving. There's a lot more emphasis on originality and brass balls, not fiddly little minutiae.

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                                                  #25
                                                  What are you watching in Beijing?

                                                  Purves Grundy wrote:
                                                  Sometimes the running is fun to watch, especially if there's some animosity between a couple of participants like Lews/Johnson or Thompson/Hincksen or Coe/Ovett. Sometimes the field events like the javelin are entertaining. I do enjoy watching the floor exercises in the gymnastics even though it isn't a proper sport. Beyond that I'm struggling. Generally it's just a bad day on Eurosport stretched out over about three weeks.
                                                  Yes, exactly. I'd go further, though, I think. Where athletics (transl.: "track and field") is concerned, I can't work up any enthusiasm for anything but middle-distance running, in which those rivalries can play themselves out in something approaching some kind of dramatic way, sometimes, a bit. Sprinting is, as a sport, dull, as is full-on distance running. And while I can sort of see the entertainment value of chucking stuff long distances, I'm in practice overwhelmed by its fundamental pointless silliness.

                                                  In a year in which we've had an international sporting event that regularly hit the heights of both drama and tactical interest, the fundamental shitness of the Olympics is going to be thrown into especially stark relief. Take one shit sport with no fans and multiply it by a hundred, and for my money what you get isn't, by some sort of alchemy, a worthwhile event. What you get is a hundred shit sports with no fans.

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