A pretty cool opening ceremony, except for the Zombi dance. Heaps of eye candy
I'll be putting in a few viewing hours.
A typhoon is on it's way but I don't expect it to have much impact on the surf in Chiba. Will be interesting none the less.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Actually, just did a recap. Typhoon #8 could pump!

Personally I don't a flying fark about the olympics. That's just me though not saying it has no value to some. I'd like to see limited resources spent on other things that's all.

I refuse to watch any of it ever since they let people born as men compete as women in the weight lifting.

Was fascinated by the 1980 olympics when living in the UK. Had not had telly up until that time and the BBC coverage was brilliant. If you wanted to watch pistol shooting they had it.

Fast forward to 84 for my first year in Aus. The coverage was all American. Featured a lot of interviews with yanks barbecuing in their back yards.
I watched in dismay for two days then gave up on it.

Not watched since.

I've only seen the 1824 drone lightshow which was epic. Will watch the surfing & skating & that will be about it. Never cared much for the olympics.

It was pretty farking disgraceful the Queensland Premier was there & then they made out she was forced by a man to attend the opening. Its so not important that Australia goes into even further debt to pay for 2032, we will be no where near paying of the debt incurred from the casedemic.

Surfing starts 0830 tomorrow (Sunday) morning AEST. (that's probably about 0530 - 6ish(?) for the WA crew).

Owen, Julian, Steph and Sal Fitzgibbons - what a team. And by all accounts they're all proud as fark to be representing.

I hope they fkn give it to 'em.
Carna Ozoids!!!!

(Skating starts around the same time I think).

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Spitfire said..
I refuse to watch any of it ever since they let people born as men compete as women in the weight lifting.

Yeah, but the Beach Volleyball is worth a gander.

Julian the first Aussie up next in heat 3 - definitely stirring the ol' patriotic nerve endings. Classic. Carna Ozoids!!!

piping in crowd noise to the gymnastics

humans are retarded

How come they put the Olympics on in the wrong order? Swimming before athletics is the wrong way around.
I go for a swim after I've gone for a run so I can cool off. Of course triathlon does it backwards, but triathlon is not an Olympic sport.

Love watching the olympics, good for a change, beats most of the crap on telly these days.

Check out this shot of BL calling the surfing this morning in bare feet - what a legend.

I'm with eppo on this -- waste of time.

Honestly, surfing is an Olympic event? I thought tennis and basketball with pro athletes was pathetic desperation for relevance.

And Japan can't actually cancel the Olympics, whether they wanted to or not, because it's a licensed trademark of the IOC and only they can cancel it. Just a giant con.

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Mr Milk said..
How come they put the Olympics on in the wrong order? Swimming before athletics is the wrong way around.
I go for a swim after I've gone for a run so I can cool off. Of course triathlon does it backwards, but triathlon is not an Olympic sport.

Isn't it only a swimming competition?

I mean we don't have world famous people in other sports also, do we....

Men's hockey usually goes well, but I'm not sure why. At school it was a girls' sport. Do blokes take it up at Uni?
It's as good as any other ball/goal/team sport, so why not?

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Mr Milk said..
How come they put the Olympics on in the wrong order? Swimming before athletics is the wrong way around.
I go for a swim after I've gone for a run so I can cool off. Of course triathlon does it backwards, but triathlon is not an Olympic sport.

The men's Olympic distance triathlon starts in two hours

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Rails said..

Mr Milk said..
How come they put the Olympics on in the wrong order? Swimming before athletics is the wrong way around.
I go for a swim after I've gone for a run so I can cool off. Of course triathlon does it backwards, but triathlon is not an Olympic sport.

The men's Olympic distance triathlon starts in two hours

Ooops. I must have accidentally slipped back into HW mode. Ignore the facts!

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Mr Milk said..

Rails said..

Mr Milk said..
How come they put the Olympics on in the wrong order? Swimming before athletics is the wrong way around.
I go for a swim after I've gone for a run so I can cool off. Of course triathlon does it backwards, but triathlon is not an Olympic sport.

The men's Olympic distance triathlon starts in two hours

Ooops. I must have accidentally slipped back into HW mode. Ignore the facts!

Bloody good race

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Mr Milk said..
Men's hockey usually goes well, but I'm not sure why. At school it was a girls' sport. Do blokes take it up at Uni?
It's as good as any other ball/goal/team sport, so why not?

It was a girls' sport at school because the boys were banned from playing it. We played it once in PE, and there were broken bones. I don't know any male who played it as a sport and doesn't have a life-long injury from it.

Fencing just looks silly. Reminds me of a couple of school kids playing "I touched you last". Does it have that much skill?

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Kamikuza said..

Mr Milk said..
Men's hockey usually goes well, but I'm not sure why. At school it was a girls' sport. Do blokes take it up at Uni?
It's as good as any other ball/goal/team sport, so why not?

It was a girls' sport at school because the boys were banned from playing it. We played it once in PE, and there were broken bones. I don't know any male who played it as a sport and doesn't have a life-long injury from it.

yep - I can still feel the hockey stick inflicted dents in my shin bones from back in '78 and '79

That's a pretty weird take on it after all it's a martial art that used to be fights to the death with dueling.
The object of winning is to touch them first with priority. In the kill zone .

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actiomax said..
That's a pretty weird take on it after all it's a martial art that used to be fights to the death with dueling.
The object of winning is to touch them first with priority. In the kill zone .

Would be more interesting without the padding and with real foils but yeh, based on the you lose, you probably die school of sports. Same with javelin, shot pot, archery, hammer throw, shooting, boxing, wrestling, judo, karate etc...
Bring back jousting and I might just watch

PS. Also have shin dents from hockey, got banned at our school for boys

If i have seen anyone kneeling to theirs or anyone elses national anthem i have changed channels

So none has a problem that viewing rights generate literally billions of dollars and the athletes see none of it. Countries hosting spend a great proportion of their GDP - some going into huge debt that could be spent on the countries infrastructure overall. Maybe I'm looking too much into it. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi, oi, oi.

Well I remember when Coke paid $100 million for the rights to use the Olympics branding in the last Olympics
So I think you have a fair & validated point.
Were does that money go ?

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eppo said..
So none has a problem that viewing rights generate literally billions of dollars and the athletes see none of it. Countries hosting spend a great proportion of their GDP - some going into huge debt that could be spent on the countries infrastructure overall. Maybe I'm looking too much into it. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi, oi, oi.

if countries don't want to host it they don't bid for it. I think that tells us whether its worth it to them or not. In theory it should generate a boom in the country that hosts it as they spend up on infrastructure and the rest of the economy does well. Normally tourism follows as well.

Similarly the athletes do not need to compete. They can be accountants or mechanics or even maths teachers, and forget the dream of representing their country at the olympics. If they want to make money from sport there are more obvious ones to devote your life to.

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FormulaNova said..

if countries don't want to host it they don't bid for it. I think that tells us whether its worth it to them or not. In theory it should generate a boom in the country that hosts it as they spend up on infrastructure and the rest of the economy does well. Normally tourism follows as well.

Similarly the athletes do not need to compete. They can be accountants or mechanics or even maths teachers, and forget the dream of representing their country at the olympics. If they want to make money from sport there are more obvious ones to devote your life to.

Its not like we get to decide if we want to host an Olympic games or not. I can't remember the last time I was was asked if we should bid on the games, whether at a ballot box or in person. Despite not being asked a certain portion of the taxes I must pay goes towards the Olympic games in one form or another. If I had the choice of where my taxes went, going to sports would be right down the bottom of the list. I'd much rather my taxes go to people who need a hand rather than people who want devote ten years of their life to running around a field or whatever they want to do. People should pay for their sporting ambitions out of their own money or get support voluntarily from others.

The people who make the decisions don't spend their own money on the Olympic games and when it invariably ends up costing a lot more than expected and with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, these decision makers walk away with a big fat pension and benefits they can enjoy through their retirement while the poor tax payer has to foot the bill.


The Olympics is on the nose right now as most people realise its a bit of a scam. I think Brisbane won the 2032 games bid by default as no one else wanted it. It seems inevitable the Olympics will soon be held at the same city every four years, most probably Los Angeles as too many hosting cities have suffered.

Nah, you can't host an Olympics without it passing a cost/benefit analysis. Governments are dumb, but not that dumb.

Someone has to pay for the infrastructure, and no one likes that if its them so there has to be some justification. If you went to each one of these groups that has to cough up money and asked them if they wanted to, they would all say no. If there was someone higher up that provides the pool of money its not a problem, but otherwise no it would not go ahead.

Imagine if we all got to vote on every little decision. Nothing would get done as we all have our own areas of interest and none of us are experts on everything.

Would I vote for any spending on the institute of sport. No, probably not, but I can understand how its important to the country as a whole. Unless you want to live in your own bubble of going to work, sleeping, going to work. If that's all you care about, you can whittle everything down.

I think your analysis of the benefits and the reasons why a country (those with influence) bids for the Olympic is very naive. Nor do I subscribe to not sharing the viewing rights with athletes. It is their profession and we all watch because of them. Someone somewhere is making a buck.

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eppo said..
I think your analysis of the benefits and the reasons why a country (those with influence) bids for the Olympic is very naive. Nor do I subscribe to not sharing the viewing rights with athletes. It is their profession and we all watch because of them. Someone somewhere is making a buck.

By all means, I am happy to hear your views on benefits and reasons. I may not end up agreeing with them but it would be good to hear what you think.