A lot of pride in the Washington DC area for our homegrown Olympians. Swimming in particular is a monster sport around here - Phelps and Katie Ledecky both trained in local swim programs.

Local athletes dominate Rio Olympics opening weekend

[www.wusa9.com]

Damn, that's unattractive. Who'd want to have their big moment captured for all posterity looking like this?





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-08-10 02:29 by tatters.

Looks like they got stepped on by a giant cocker spaniel.

20 gold for Baltimore's son...freaking amazing.

21 Golds now, hard to keep up; probably 22 23 by the weekend. Glad to see he is enjoying himself. Tokyo 2020?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-08-10 07:01 by DeanGoodman.

Quote
DeanGoodman
21 Golds now, hard to keep up; probably 22 23 by the weekend. Glad to see he is enjoying himself. Tokyo 2020?

While I'd love it if he were able to come back in 2020, I'm pretty sure that this time he's done for real. New baby son, fiancé/wife... His life's about to move on. And he deserves the right to enjoy it! I hope he does.

Peace,
Mr DJA

Keith is ready for the Olympics.



[twitter.com]

^^ I'm sure Keith was as disappointed as I was that the tennis got rained out today!

Wow, just found out my friend from England is a close friend of Siobhan who Keith congratulated! Her other friends got interviewed on Sky news and she snap-chatted the interview!

Who is this Siobhan?

Quote
Koen
Who is this Siobhan?

[www.rio2016.com]

Well, we still haven't heard....are the Who ready for the Rio Olympics? any word from Pete or Roger?

Quote
Cristiano Radtke
Keith is ready for the Olympics.



[twitter.com]

Well, it would really throw ME off my game to know Keith was watching...

Watching some beach volleyball right now and it is interesting to see 1/2 of the seats in the venue are empty. I dont think I have ever seen that many empty seats at a premier Olympic event on a very nice day. I wonder what is causing this.

I noticed puny crowds there during some night games as well. It's the same everywhere - including swimming, another premier sport. And even worse in lesser categories like rugby sevens, archery, weightlifting, etc. Maybe gymnastics was better attended, not sure.

But still - beach volleyball on a sunny day - games with Canada and USA. What's not to like? - though it is winter and it gets chilly at night. It was raining yesterday.

The beach volleyball arena is a temporary construction on the beach, 10 minutes' walk north from the Stones' hotel. I walked past there a month or two ago when it was under construction. It is a fairly safe part of town, but walking on the beach is a no-no at night, and the arena was great for thieves because it gave them cover. This is where the human leg washed up a few weeks ago.

It is also a long way from both the Olympic Park and Maracana, though great if you are staying in Copacabana/Leme/Leblon, etc. Unfortunately beach-centric accommodation prices are outrageous - as you would expect - and the quality is lousy. I have stayed at a few different AirBnBs in Rio this year and they were all poor.

Generally people opted to avoid Rio because of crime fears (reasonable), Zika (ridiculous - it is winter), and bad infrastructure (perhaps most important). It just takes too long to get around at the best of times. The Olympics? Forget about it.

I also wonder about the ticketing. I think the Olympic tickets are sold a bit like Ticketmaster - i.e. extremely sketchy. All the key events seemed to be sold out when you went online. Better to stay home and watch really bad NBC coverage.

Quote
DeanGoodman
I noticed puny crowds there during some night games as well. It's the same everywhere - including swimming, another premier sport. And even worse in lesser categories like rugby sevens, archery, weightlifting, etc. Maybe gymnastics was better attended, not sure.

But still - beach volleyball on a sunny day - games with Canada and USA. What's not to like? - though it is winter and it gets chilly at night. It was raining yesterday.

The beach volleyball arena is a temporary construction on the beach, 10 minutes' walk north from the Stones' hotel. I walked past there a month or two ago when it was under construction. It is a fairly safe part of town, but walking on the beach is a no-no at night, and the arena was great for thieves because it gave them cover. This is where the human leg washed up a few weeks ago.

It is also a long way from both the Olympic Park and Maracana, though great if you are staying in Copacabana/Leme/Leblon, etc. Unfortunately beach-centric accommodation prices are outrageous - as you would expect - and the quality is lousy. I have stayed at a few different AirBnBs in Rio this year and they were all poor.

Generally people opted to avoid Rio because of crime fears (reasonable), Zika (ridiculous - it is winter), and bad infrastructure (perhaps most important). It just takes too long to get around at the best of times. The Olympics? Forget about it.

I also wonder about the ticketing. I think the Olympic tickets are sold a bit like Ticketmaster - i.e. extremely sketchy. All the key events seemed to be sold out when you went online. Better to stay home and watch really bad NBC coverage.

Thank you for the great insight.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-08-12 00:53 by jambay.

Great Sarah! Bronze medal in 100 meter freestyle. Gold-silver-bronze so far. I'm sure there is more to follow!

Fiji won big in Rugby Sevens over team Great Britain, still, GB gets (got the) silver, Fiji won the gold. South Africa Bronze. Good for all of them.

It's just amazing what these athletes can do.

Quote
tatters
Damn, that's unattractive. Who'd want to have their big moment captured for all posterity looking like this?

It kind of looks bad, but I have been getting some cupping treatments for years when muscles tighten up or get injured. Same with colds that move into the lungs. It really does help. My therapist takes the cups and moves them around the area of the muscle area once they adhere to the skin. Not comfortable to me, but again the end results are what counts. Happy to see the treatments getting some press.

Cup it up!

For all of the over-use of superlatives/adjectives/modifiers that we're faced with daily, I'll attempt to limit this post to just one...

I find it amazing to think that, in addition to all of his other achievements, by winning the gold medal (his 13th) in the 200 individual medley on Thursday, Michael Phelps broke the record for most all-time individual Olympic medals originally set by Leonidas of Rhodes in 152 BCE. Say what you will about ancient record keeping and calendar revisions, breaking a record that had stood for apx. 2168 years deserves to be referenced using any number of over-used superlatives/adjectives/modifiers.

Peace,
Mr DJA

Quote
tatters
Damn, that's unattractive. Who'd want to have their big moment captured for all posterity looking like this?

You can play Twister or Tic-Tac-Toe on her back.

Yeah, Rosie! That Canuck flag looks good, flying high!

Apparently the US Women's Soccer team wasn't quite as ready for the games as they hoped. Bummer.

Congrats to Sweden for a good and well executed game plan leading them to victory.

Peace,
Mr DJA

Quote
Elmo Lewis
It's just amazing what these athletes can do.

It really is. And part of the beauty I find in the Olympics is intently
watching an athlete whom I have never heard of performing in "a sport"
which I didn't even know was a sport... and having fun watching it!


GO TRAMPOLINE GALS!!! JUMP!!! YEAH!!! HIGHER!!! WOOOOO!!!!! TRAMPOLINING!!!!!!!

And in all seriousness trampolining is pretty cool.

Them silly divers in the pool only do one spinny trick per time
while the trampoline gals do 10-20 spinny tricks in a row! wooooosh!!!

Handball now. Go, Norway!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-08-13 00:06 by DandelionPowderman.

Quote
Koen

Quote
tatters
Damn, that's unattractive. Who'd want to have their big moment captured for all posterity looking like this?

You can play Twister or Tic-Tac-Toe on her back.

mmmm giant back hickeys/love bites

Enjoying these Olympics a lot.

Go team GB!

Its not easy being Green [arstechnica.com]