Topic: 2016 Olympic Games Thread

@RR529: @Tasuki: In England you generally get 'AmericanFootball is just pansies Rugby' and 'Baseball is just Rounders'. The reality is every sport is flippant / boring / awful until you take the time to understand it. I love the NFL, MLB and even other foreign sports like Road cycling and even something as extreme as cross country skiing I can appreciate. But you need to be in the mood to learn and also be in the right spot and watch some great games or races first. I absolutely hate Rugby, my first experience was at anfield (urgh i had to have 4 baths just to feel clean again) watching the almighty new Zealand tour team vs a North England B team and they battered them by 60 points. It was so boring and unexciting I couldn't wait to leave. From then on I didn't watch it at all and still dont to this day. I also dislike most sports were scores are awarded by a panel - like ice skating and diving. Too much scope for cheating.

Downloaded the NBC Sports app to my tablet that way I can watch what events I want, when I want (I'm going to try & get in some Archery, Fencing, & Boxing when I get up on Saturday. Maybe Shooting & Table Tennis too).

Tested it out by watching a replay of the women's Soccer match between the US & New Zealand. Got through the first half, but that's all about I could handle (I'm sure I'd like it more if I had a greater understanding of the technical aspects of the game). Still, I like trying it out once in awhile.

Some pretty interesting matches in the men's football yesterday. That 5-4 Nigeria-Japan game was insane, and I feel a bit sorry for Fiji considering they got thrashed 8-0 by South Korea. Still, I can't believe that Brazil drew 0-0 with South Africa, especially considering SA got a player sent off.

Not sure if I'll bother watching the opening ceremony tonight, not only because of the time but also because it sounds like it'll be a bad one. Apparently Judi Dench is a reading a poem with some Brazilian actor, so it doesn't sound too enthralling.

Haha yeah, I may just watch the opening ceremony highlights. I watched a bit of the Mexico vs Germany game last night — it was a bit of a goal-fest for 15 minutes.

@themcnoisey Scoring for diving the highest and lowest scores are ignored when they total up the points so there is less scope for cheating because of the mechanisms in place.

Hugely diasspointed with the decision by Boxing to allow professionals into the Olympics. It was one of the few sports that was truly amateur which is what the Olmypics was founded on.

I do not think any sportsman or woman who has previously served a drugs ban should be able to participate in the Olypmics. You have Gatlin shouting his mouth off complaining about Bolt missing the qualifying event when you have a proven drugs cheat wanting to take part in the Olympics.

Almost time for the opening ceremony. I'm looking forward to it. Anyone else watching?

@get2sammyb: I have to wait a few hours still, it won't air till 8pm my local time which is in 3 hours.

@Tasuki: Boo! No live coverage or are you just at work?

@get2sammyb: No I am at home, I think it's more that the network wants to air it in prime time when most people will be able to view it. AH well give me some game time.

It was pretty good. Quite modest compared to London, but they obviously had a much lower budget for it. It was exactly what I expected really - Carnival-esque, and the screen on the ground was a nice touch.

Always love watching all of the athletes walk out — haven't heard of some of the countries before.

Yeah, it was still a well made performance, but out of all the opening ceremonies I've seen (started with Beijing in 2008), it was probably the weakest (except for maybe Vancouver in 2010, which I don't remember much from).

I quite liked it to be honest. It did pretty well for its budget, and I really liked how it mixed the carnival samba atmosphere with the sobering reality of climate change. The samba was awesome (I used to be in a samba band once, but let's try and forget about that) and the moment when the refugee team came in was a really good one.

Overall, it was pretty great, especially for the low budget it had, but the worst part was Australia's outfit. Those shorts... what were they thinking?

To be fair, weren't they saying in commentary that they've used recyclable buildings that they're going to turn into schools and stuff?

I must admit, I didn't really understand the environmental link either, though. Like, I understood why they wanted to send that message out, but I didn't think they linked it into the rest of ceremony very well at all. It was basically like two disparate parts that they glued together.

@Kidfried: They lit up the stadium with huge fireworks right before their warning about CO2 emissions.

That's the olympics for you.

Watching the gymnastics at the moment, some dude just wrapped on the pomel horse, funny watching 4 years of work go up in smoke - better than watching one night at the palladium I'm in stitches here.

Sampled a lot of things today.

• First up a Table Tennis match between America's youngest competitor in the sport (he was 16), and a veteran Iranian. Fun game to watch, but unfortunately our guy lost.
• Then I watched an Archery match between the US & Chinese teams. I think our guys won (it was the quarterfinals). Pretty interesting.
• Then I tried out the Shooting as I watched the finals of the Women's 10M Air Rifle competition. I didn't think it was that entertaining to watch, but at least one of our American girls won the Gold (I believe the first of the games). The two Chinese competitors won Silver & Bronze.
• Then I finished up by watching 5 Boxing Bouts. British boxer beat the boxer from Cameroon, Columbian boxer defeated the Brazilian, Spanish boxer beat the Armenian, the Italian beat the Mexican, and the Japanese boxer defeated the Venezuelan. (Actually, all the winners were the guys wearing Blue. No one wearing Red won any of the matches I watched, lol)

I watched most of the six hour Men's Road Race. It was absolutely agonising — and I was just vegging out watching it. Absolutely brutal race.

Managed to watch some of the Men's basketball US VS China. It was a tad boring to be honest.

Caught a few of the Swimming competitions tonight. Out of the 4 races I watched, the US didn't win any of them, though.

That'll probably be it in terms of day one stuff for me.

Caught some of the cycling road race, it looked absolute hell, but made me feel a little better that I'm only running 10k today. I managed to watch some of the early-morning swimming too, little disappointed that we didn't get any medals (although Peaty did break the WR for 100m breaststroke)

I'll most probably watch more swimming, cycling, and gymnastics, maybe a bit of rugby sevens and hockey too.

@RR529: That lady from Hungary was incredible. I forget her name, but at one point she was like five seconds ahead of the World Record. It was amazing. She left the rest of the field in no man's land.

I'm really addicted to the hockey at the moment. Never really watched it before, but some of the skills are amazing. There's been some ridiculous goals already.