Olympics 2016

I remember watching as a kid with my parents. Gymnastics used to be non-stop, every team, nary a commercial, tension the entire time. This year's coverage was a joke, men's and women's.

I found a channel on DirecTV which supposedly would allow me to record non-standard sports to watch. I was ecstatic I could finally watch judo, weightlifting, fencing, archery. But nope, I can't get any of the programs to playback for me. And what is up with three different channels all showing the exact same basketball or soccer game at the same time, rather than doing different sports???

I grew up living for the Olympics years, sitting in front of my parent's TV for hour upon hour. Now that I'm grown with my own TV and (theoretically) more coverage thanks to satellite vs cable, I'm far more disappointed with the product.

I'll check out that online website, see if I can finally catch some non-standard sports.

mirandashell said:

I have just seen a bloke that weighs less than 77kg lift 214kgs over his head. TWO HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN KILOGRAMS.

That is amazing. No-one thought he would do it. But he did. Astonishing. I love the Olympic Games.

Click to expand...

Weightlifting is the best sport for high drama. The contestants in the lower weight categories are amazing, but the drama is amped up when the heftier competitors turn up for the office. It's more than slightly boggling to see that the bar actually sags under the weights lifted.

Here's an interesting website that recalculates the medal tally based on population size (ie: available talent pool).

As it stood yesterday, the USA would've been sitting at 34, China at 49. At that point, Slovenia was sitting in first, followed by NZ. I suspect Fiji might be sitting in first position now though, given their first ever Olympic medal (gold, no less) in the mens rugby 7's.

All of Canada's medal winners so far have been women. Penny Oleksiak, the 16-year old has her fourth medal: a gold.

Xelebes said:

All of Canada's medal winners so far have been women. Penny Oleksiak, the 16-year old has her fourth medal: a gold.

Click to expand...

I was really pleased for Penny, and for Simone Manuel (I believe she's the first African American to win an individual swimming medal ... amazing effort) but at the same time I felt just awful for the Campbell sisters. They're super nice people. Cate broke the OR in the heat and then again in the semi, holds the WR ... and just faded horribly in the final. And her sister Bronte's the current world champion. They were fully expected to both podium. This must be absolutely shattering for them.

be frank said:

Here's an interesting website that recalculates the medal tally based on population size (ie: available talent pool).

As it stood yesterday, the USA would've been sitting at 34, China at 49. At that point, Slovenia was sitting in first, followed by NZ. I suspect Fiji might be sitting in first position now though, given their first ever Olympic medal (gold, no less) in the mens rugby 7's.

Click to expand...

I'd like to see a list proportional to taxpayer money spent on elite sport.

GO Swedish women! I hate soccer and most women's team sports, but go Swedish women's soccer team!

cornflake said:

GO Swedish women! I hate soccer and most women's team sports, but go Swedish women's soccer team!

Click to expand...

Whoa! They beat the Americans!

(I love underdog stories - and it seems like this Olympics has had more than its share of upsets!)

Hope Solo is taking it, predictably, very well:

“We played a bunch of cowards. The best team did not win today. I strongly, firmly believe that.”

Click to expand...

Pia Sunhage's reply is great. Used to be the US coach. Now coaches Sweden.

According to Hope Solo, I think you should define what is a good team. Well, usually – especially with the Americans – a good team is when they’re winning.

Click to expand...

Hope Solo is such an insufferable pos. It makes me inordinately happy to see her lose. A swarm of ecstatic blonde people racing past her kind of added to the hilarity.

She was also kind of terrible in the shoot-out. Guessed wrong almost every time, and seemed to be playing for the top corner before getting beat low inside the post. I'll give her credit for her one save. I'll even give her credit for being a good goalkeeper overall (though I think she gets seriously sheltered by a good team in front of her) but she can't save penalties, apparently.

mirandashell said:

Well TBF, no-one really expects keepers to save penalties. It's very hard to do. So when they do save one, they are a hero. It's usually down to the player missing.

Click to expand...

Ehh, at the professional level, keepers have about a 25% save rate, although it's been getting higher and higher in recent years because of increased keeper athleticism. It's still going to be very hard for a keeper save a perfect penalty put hard and low just inside the post. But none of those Swedish penalties were anything like perfect. At the very least, Solo should be guessing the right way. She kept moving too early.

Does anyone know how to watch an event that's already happened?

I'm trying to find a video of the women's 10,000m race, but I can only find short clips.

Watching the Olympics seems to be basically impossible.

kuwisdelu said:

Does anyone know how to watch an event that's already happened?

I'm trying to find a video of the women's 10,000m race, but I can only find short clips.

Watching the Olympics seems to be basically impossible.

Click to expand...

It may be geo-blocked, but if you can get the CBC coverage, it looks like that race is at http://olympics.cbc.ca/video/vod/track-and-field-aug-morning-session-31035.html

ETA: Looks like the race starts around 1:49, if you are able to access the video.

Captcha said:

It may be geo-blocked, but if you can get the CBC coverage, it looks like that race is at http://olympics.cbc.ca/video/vod/track-and-field-aug-morning-session-31035.html

ETA: Looks like the race starts around 1:49, if you are able to access the video.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Didn't say unavailable, but I got "technical difficulties", so presumably geo-blocked.

After much frustration was able to help my father figure out his cable username and password, so I managed to get into it in NBC's app. No announcers. Oh well, probably for the best. At least I knew approximately where to skip to, thanks.

Can you get BBC i-player where you are? If you go on i-player and search you can find replays of lots of events, i.e. stuff that was originally broadcast live but you can still watch after the event. Not sure if it's available outside the UK though.

Albedo said:

I'd like to see a list proportional to taxpayer money spent on elite sport.

Click to expand...

That would be interesting, but I'm guessing that the US would sit on the top, given that the USOC is not federally funded at all.

As to medals and population size, that's interesting to an extent, but not all events have the same sorts of appeal around the world.

Puerto Rico wins its first gold medal ever courtesy of massive underdog Monica Puig in women's tennis. Damn if I wasn't crying during the medal ceremony