Topic: 2016 Olympic Games Thread

Today I watched a lot of the fencing. I thought it was dumb at first, but once I started to understand the rules and the competition intensified it really grew on me. There were some great battles for the medals, with a couple of unsuccessful but still exciting comebacks.

Also watched some of the tennis and judo. I really didn't like the judo.

Saw that woman cyclists crash, why on earth did they host the race on a road where it has little ditches for the riders to fall in? Some of the facilities I've seen so far have an air of amateurishness about them.

@adf86: While it was a dangerous track — and I wish the lady that crashed a speedy recovery — I honestly thought it was quite an exciting one to watch. Both gruelling and dangerous. Perhaps I'm just a sadist.

I don't deny that it was an exciting race and that sport of this calibre have an air of danger to them but this seemed very avoidable, which could have ended someone's career or worse.

@get2sammyb: I managed to watch the replay of Judo and enjoyed it alot, though it does help that I do have a rather extensive background in martial arts. Might squeeze in some water polo here in a bit.

Day 2

Women's Beach Volleyball - My favorite Olympic sport to watch. I started today out by watching a match I missed last night between a US pair (our "A" team) & an Australian pair (we won 2 Sets to none). Finished the day out by watching one of today's matches between the other US pair (our "B" team) & a Polish pair (we lost 1 Set to 2).

Men's Indoor Volleyball - Caught a match between the US & Canada in the afternoon (we lost 3 Sets to none). Can't say I'm a huge fan, though. Maybe it's just the canera angle, but the playfield looks too crowded with 5 players on each team (it looks too small for all of them).

Other - Caught the last few minutes of a Women's Rugby match between the US & New Zealand (they switched over to this after the forementioned Men's Volleyball game), that we lost 5-0. After that they once again switched over, this time to the last couple runs of White Water Kyaking (actually looked kind of interesting). Of course, later in the night I watched some of the Swimning event's (including Michael Phelps winning his 19th career Olympic Gold in the Team Relay), and the Women's Gymnastics qualifiers (the athleticism on offer is quite mind boggling).

Team GB finally got some medals! Adam Peaty is an absolute monster of a swimmer, breaking the World Record twice in the same competition, plus Jazz Carlin got a silver. Bit of a shock to see Djokovic get knocked out of the tennis so so early (as well as the Murrays and the Williamses going out of doubles) plus that crash in the road race looked horrible, but overall it was quite an exciting day. Can't wait to watch the diving today though.

Nice to see the host country get their first gold. Woman's 56k Judo in case you're wondering.

Day 3

Women's Beach Volleyball - The big event for me today was tonight's match between USA's "A" pair (with Walsh-Jennings) & a Chinese pair. The Chinese girls put up a good fight at the beginning of each set, but we ended up winning it 2 sets to none. I almost wouldn't have minded it if China won though... I thought Fan Wang was hot, lol. Earlier in the day I also watched a match between Australia & Venezuela that the Aussies won.

Women's Table Tennis - Caught a match between China & Hong Kong. The Chinese girl absolutely dominated the match.

Women's Rugby Sevens - The medal matches were today, and I used them as background noise while I did some chores this afternoon. I was able to sit down and watch the last half of the game between Australia & New Zealand. I actually kind of liked it (it's kind of like a game of football that almost never stops).

@RR529: I agree with ya on the Rugby part. I never seen a Rugby game before the Woman's Australia vs New Zealand match, and I thought why isn't this more popular here??? Lol. It reminded me of a combination of Football and either soccer or basketball. I liked the continuous play.

I might go back now and watch some of the other matches.

@tasuki when the Olypmics is over try watching some rugby league its got a decent fast pace to it. The teams are bigger and the actions is good, the English league is good and Austalia is as well. There is Rugby Union as well which is worth a look different rules to League.

@dryrain: I have thought about it. I also found out that the US has a pro Rugby League, granted it's only like 6 teams atm but my town is one of them so I might check them out at some point too.

This is one reason I like the Olympics, it introduces me to new sports that I normally wouldn't get to see.

@Tasuki: Yeah, it's awesome from that perspective. I was on the edge of my seat watching the synchronised diving yesterday, and I've never watched it before in my life!

@get2sammyb: Right. That's how I was a few years ago with water polo, last Olympics with kayaking and now this year with rugby. Lol

Day 4

Women's Beach Volleyball - Watched today's game between USA's "B" pair & a Brazilian pair. The Brazilian girls won 2 Sets to 0 (the home crowd was very energetic).

Archery (Individual) - Saw Venezuela VS China (Mens): Venezuela won 6 Set points to 2. Australia VS Egypt (Mens): Australia won 6 Set points to 0. Russia VS Columbia (Womens): Russia won 6 Set points to 4. Russia VS Iran (Womens): Russia won 6 Set points to 2 (it was pretty cool though, as the Iranian is a Paralympic champion who qualified for both Olympics & Paralympics this year). The Archery did look very cool, and seems like it'd be tons of fun.

Boxing - Only one bout for me today (just something to watch while I drained my tablet battery before charging it). Cuba VS Italy, with the Cuban winning by unanimous decision.

Other - Tried watching a game of Men's Handball (Germany VS Poland), but I dropped it at around the 25 minute mark because it wasn't doing anything for me. Also caught some of the Women's Gymnastics team finals (where the USA took home the Gold!).

USA are so bloody good at swimming. It's been a bit disappointing for our teams so far — we've clocked up tons and tons of fourth place finishes across dozens of events. That said, velodrome is historically our strongest sport so hopefully we'll pick up some medals there. Murray and Konta are looking very strong for medals in the tennis, too — especially with Djokovic and Serena going out.

Best moment of the games so far the south korean and north korean athletes having a selfie together.

@get2sammyb: I honestly have not been watching swimming much at all this Olympics. For US anyway it seems every Olympics they always air swimming and gymnastics the most. I actually decide to check out PS VUE so I can watch the Olympics, since I don't have cable. With the option of being able to watch all the events on demand I have found myself watching alot of the other events that normally aren't televised here in the US like Rugby, Judo, Equestrian etc..

@Tasuki, they actually do show everything, it's just that NBC spreads it out across all their networks, many of which normally have nothing to do with sports. For example, Tennis is exclusive to Bravo, Golf is on Golf Channel (this one makes sense), Soccer & Basketball get their own temporary exclusive channels (that you'd never know existed unless you looked for them), while NBC (during the daytime), NBC Sports Network, MSNBC (normally a cable news network), CNBC (economic news), & USA get random events throughout the day (Martial Arts, Boxing, Archery, Rugby, Equestrian, Handball, Indoor Volleyball, etc.)

They just take what I assume are the biggest ratings grabbers here (Swimming, Gymnastics, Track & Field, and Women's Beach Volleyball), and bundle them together during primetime.

That said, I agree with your approach. I usually watch it on my tablet (with the NBC Sports app), that way I can watch what I want, when I want (instead of blindly rummaging through a dozen channels hoping they just happen to have something you want to see on at just the right moment).

@RR529: Yeah I should have posted what I was thinking clearer. But yeah they do have other sports it's just that most people can only catch the prime time stuff due to work like myself and school and it seems that every Olympics the prime time stuff contains swimming, gymnastics, track and field etc. but it's probably as you said those are the ones most Americans are interested in and get the network the highest ratings.

And unless you can find those other sports due to the channels and times and other factors you don't get to see them much. Like me for example I work usually 5 days a week 730 to 400 PM so I can only watch the Prime time stuff.