Gearing up for the games

We thought it might be fun to talk about an event which is about to saturate the world media. By all means weigh in on your favourite events (or least-favourite), but let's talk about the bigger picture as well. Here's some questions, to start things going:

Question #1: What do you think of the underlying concept of the Olympics? (You can read the Olympic Charter online or download it from the official site.)

Question #2: Do you think that there are sports that should (or should not) be included in the current Olympics?

Question #3: If you could change two things about the current way in which the games are organized what would they be?

Question #4: If you could change two things about the current way in the the games are broadcast what would they be?

Question #5: Do you have any other thoughts about the upcoming games?

The Olympic Games of 2012 will begin Friday July 27. You can learn the schedule for the different sports and follow results on the official site. This page leads to more detailed information about each of the individual sports, their schedules and results. Click here to find information about the media coverage of the Olympics in your area.

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Comments

[gleomstapa]

Well, not as a general rule - the casual women's suits of the time had a lot more fabric and included a skirt and stockings, and look like you couldn't do much more than wade and splash in them. I guess exceptions were made for actual athletic pursuits. - and it certainly does help the similarity that the guys weren't swimming topless.

I know more than a few guys who wish they didn't have to swim topless now, actually.

[Anonymus]

That's really cool gleomstapa. I realised it wouldn't be that hard to look it up myself.

If anyone else's interested, here is a photograph of a man who won a gold medal in swimming in the 1912 olympics: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3d/1912_George_Hodgson.JPG

And here is a photograph of two women who won medals in the same olympics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fanny_Durack_and_Mina_Wylie-1-.jpg

[cjmr]

"I know more than a few guys who wish they didn't have to swim topless now, actually."

In competition or for recreation? 50 spf rash guard T-shirts are gaining in popularity in our area, even for men.

[gleomstapa]

For recreation. Maybe "have to" was the wrong verb - the rash guard T-shirts are present but not especially common, particularly in indoor pools, so they're torn between feeling self-conscious in silence or wearing a shirt and possibly needing to explain themselves.

[Froborr]

It's a question I ask myself every time I go to the pool: Which will make me more self-conscious, being the only guy wearing a shirt, or going topless? The answer is pretty much always the latter, but it doesn't make it a good answer.

[Lonespark]

Rashguard shirts are seen on at least half of boys under, like, 12 around here, but I haven't seen any on older guys. Then again, mostly when I'm at the pool it's mom with kids, the occasional dad with kids, and seniors.

Swimsuit styles seem designed to embarrass everyone. I know my brother and many of his adolescent friends disliked taking their clothes off to to swim. Then, too, there was the thing where my friends and I would have suits we loved, that we nonetheless disliked being seen in by most of our peers. Some were cruel or hostile, but anybody not a friend was generally uncomfortable.

[Lonespark]

OMFG Yahoo, why don't you want us to have nice things?!?!

There's an article up when I open my email, that says, "US Female Boxer's Big Disappointment." W.T.F.? Why not use Queen Underwood's actual name? But failing that, since there's a picture with the story, if you wouldn't say "male boxer?" you don't get to say "female boxer." (The picture with the story doesn't appear to be Queen Underwood; I think it's Natasha Jones of the U.K., who beat Underwood in a pretty exciting match. But you can tell the boxer is a woman.) The story Yahoo's stupid headline leads to is actually titled "Queen Underwood makes history as first U.S. Olympic women’s boxer, but loses in prelim."

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Huh? I thought this was the first year the Olympics had women's boxing at all, so of course she would be the US's first female Olympic boxer. (And Katie Taylor is ours, and is, I believe, expected to do well. I am not a fan of boxing.)

TRiG.

[Lonespark]

Oh and here is a neat article:

http://www.racialicious.com/2012/08/03/on-the-olympics-being-indigenous/#more-24273

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Thanks for that, Lonespark.

TRiG.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

On BBC5live this morning, Niki Campbell went through all the former Empires to work out their standings. The Turkish Ottoman Empire would only have come mid table, the Roman one okaish..I think the British one came out on top

Effers, h2g2