The Beijing Olympics

[Guest]

How many people on here will actually watch them?

I won't be bothering, although in fairness this is not exactly a massive sacrifice for me to make (helped by Ireland having pretty much zero hope of getting any medals, as usual).

[Gangster Octopus]

The Beijing Olympics

No hopes for the swimming this time?

[Guest]

The Beijing Olympics

Michelle Smith de Bruin is now a barrister.

MOTWYW

[Ek weet nie]

The Beijing Olympics

I had to google MOTWYW and it took me to the Red Issue site. I feel dirty now.

[ooh aah]

The Beijing Olympics

I reckon I should be able to see a bit of the football tournament, and I think we've got a decent team for the boxing, but the rest I'm really not that bothered about.

Maybe if friends are going to the athletics I might tag along, but the qualifying rounds of the athletics is pretty dull stuff really.

[ursus arctos]

The Beijing Olympics

I mentioned on another thread that I have no intention of watching the opening or closing ceremonies and expect not to watch as much of the events as we normally do.

I was completely Olympics-mad as a kid, but the increasing commercialisation/politicisation of the Summer Games post-Munich has really turned me off (with LA '84 and Atlanta '96 being the low points to date (though the run-up to Beijing indicates that we may have a new nadir; we didn't get to see Moscow in the US).

[jefe]

The Beijing Olympics

I'll be watching as much as I possibly can. I love the Olympics, particularly now with the spread of the cable universe. NBC for the Athens Games started to spread its coverage across all its cable channels, so you now can see the stuff that they would never touch before-field hockey, fencing, modern pentathlon, etc. It's no longer a strict dose of swimming/gymnastics/track and field/basketball till you puke. I remember watching Gernamy-Holland men's field hockey at the last games and thinking that if this was ever on I would watch it more.

[trimster]

The Beijing Olympics

I hope to see some football, hockey, boxing, a bit of athletics...

I certainly won't be watching any swimming: in Australia anything to do with swimming is accompanied by hysterical nationalistic chest thumping, which tends to get a bit tedious....

[erwin]

The Beijing Olympics

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My most exciting moments in the Olympic games were David Hemery and Lilian Board. It's perhaps a sign of the times that neither athlete would nowadays cause much of a stir. And it's not perhaps because of the athletes as such; rather a devauluation of the achievement, brought on by familiarity with the same achievement, dislocation of hero worship to more media-friendly sports (football) and the sense that, because of the otherwise impossible things available to youngsters in the virtual world, a bloke running 100 metres in less than 10 seconds is really no great shakes.

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