2016 Olympics - Rio Games Index Thread

[Elgee]

I absolutely love the Olympic Games, and I will watch whichever sport they show on TV, no matter how obscure. I'll even watch the soccer, though it's not something I'd normally watch! lol

 

Anyhoo, during the following 2 weeks (and probably during the Paralympics too), we will be making threads about the various events, updating the scores or standings, and generally talking about things. Please feel free to start threads about events which are on!

 

This thread will be the index thread where we'll give the links to the various threads.

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I made a thread for the men's golf tournament.  :)

[Elgee]

Index of threads:

 

Football / soccer

Golf

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I think it's just the two of us in here.  >_>

 

So far I've seen pretty much everything that's been televised in the US.  I've been recording what I can't watch live.  Unfortunately we do tend here to completely ignore a number of events in favor of covering others in depth, but it's probably the broadest perspective I've seen so far.

 

I absolutely loved watching the men's and women's road Cycling, and the Canoeing slalom has been surprise favorite of mine too.  Swimming obviously gets the most extensive coverage here--it's America's most dominant sport--and I've enjoyed that a good bit.  I've watched a lot of in-door volleyball, gymnastics, rowing, and diving too.  Events that I've found pretty boring but have been thoroughly covered here are beach volleyball and water polo.

 

Everything else hasn't been covered at all here.

 

So I was thinking, and now I'm curious, what are the earliest Olympic games that any of you thoroughly remember?

 

I'm sure I was in front of the tv plenty during the '88 Olympics, but I have no real memories of them.  Albertville and Barcelona in '92 were the first that really stuck with me, and I can still point to a lot of specific events, especially in the Winter games, that I watched from start to finish.  :)

[Guest]

I don't have a tv... and if I did I have no time to watch it. So it's just sad?

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I didn't have a television for the vast majority of 2004-2014. I still somehow managed to watch every Euro and World Cup during that stretch, and all the golf majors, and every Winter Olympics except Sochi, and NFL football every Sunday. I'm not really sure how, but I made it happen. This is the first summer Olympics I've been able to watch in ages.

 

Now that I have kids, I'm stuck in one room for a lot more hours of the day, and a tv became pretty necessary for sanity's sake. I love having sports on in the background if I can help it. I started watching all the tennis grand slams last year and caught a sizable chunk of the Tour de France this year, and of course the Summer Olympics.

[Elaevia]

I don't think I can remember a specific Olympics I started watching - it was only really 2012 that I paid too much attention, and that one was awesome!

 

I was lucky enough to get tickets to basketball and beach volleyball.

 

something that I've been really impressed with last time and this year is the explanations: I was watching some fencing for the first time ever and the commentators didn't just assume that viewers would understand the sport - they explained the scoring system and the rules etc. It makes it so much more interesting when you know what's going on. I don't know if that's a general Olympic thing or just the BBC?

[Elgee]

I honestly can't remember when I started watching the Olympics, but it must have been somewhere in the 1970's or 1980's. The only thing I refuse to watch is boxing, but other than that I'll watch anything - the more obscure, the better! lol

 

Currently my favourite is the pistol shooting - I'm totally hypnotised by the guy from Vietnam.

Right at this moment I'm watching the rowing heats.

 

A few things frustrate me, especially at the gymnastics and athletics: you know something is happening somewhere, you can hear the crowd cheering, but all we see is a gymnast unwinding the tape around their arms or something. It's so stupid! Surely they can show what happened a minute ago on another apparatus while we're waiting for the next person on thi one?? Doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

[Elaevia]

Yeah, you do miss some good things, and I wonder if it's distracting for the athletes as well?

 

Just caught the end of rugby 7's quarter final - yay GB! Sorry Elgee :(

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Ooo, I just found the other channels where they've been running the rest of the competitions this morning.  They haven't really been advertising it much on the main network, but apparently we really are getting 100% of the events televised here, which is way better than I ever experienced in a previous Olympics.  NBC is pretty great at handling sporting events.  No more having to endure beach volleyball when there are interesting things going on elsewhere.  :P

 

Watched some judo and archery today.  Really hoping I didn't miss all the fencing events before I found out about this, because that's something I've always wanted to watch and I've never seen it covered in a previous Olympics.

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I don't know if any of you follow tennis, but the men's singles tournament has been pretty intense.  After knocking out Djokovic in the first round, Juan Martin del Potro just beat Nadal in the semi-finals.  He'll be facing Andy Murray tomorrow.  Would be one of the most impressive and unlikely runs ever if he pulls it off.

[Elgee]

Watching the individual Artistic Gymnastics at the moment, though they're not showing what they've advertising.

[Ryrin]

I love the Winter Olympics and the swimming the summer.

 

Does anyone find track boring to watch?

[Elgee]

Been waiting 4 years to see Louis Smith of GB in the men's pommel horse. In the team competition he fell off, and in last night's the screen froze! Gah.

 

On to athletics: I'm so proud of Wade van Niekerk I could burst. Not only the 1st South African in 96 years to win gold in the men's 400m, but he obliterated the World Record!!