2004 Olympic Games - Athens

[Andúril]

Well done Van den Hoodenbangindude.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Geez did you see the outfits on the womens beach volley ball teams??

Which is, if you ask me, the only reason why something like beach volleyball is an Olympic sport.

[Artanis]

Paul Hamm! Congratulations!

[HOBBIT]

Beach Volleyball is indeed fun to watch.

And partly because the girls are in bikinis. It's part of it's charm! The guys in beach volleyball are also in muscle type tanktop shirts. It's all about sex appeal.


It works and gets more people to watch it.

But think about it - it's BEACH VOLLEYBALL. What would girls wear at a beach playing volleyball? Bikinis!! :P

It is very authentic with the beach type music playing in the background, bikini girls playing, girls in bikinis dancing in between games , and when there is a time-out or they are resting, they even sit in beach chairs! :P

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Is there anyone else but me who thinks the official Olympics website suck?

I finally checked it out. Didn't do a thorough investigation, but I liked the swimming section... seems quite informative with all the full break-downs of times, etc (I didn't even know they tracked 'reaction times' - but since everything is on touchpads, it'd be easy enough to do... and easy to make a disqualification on a relay false start as well).

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by HOBBIT

Beach Volleyball is indeed fun to watch.

Blargh. It's been the most boring thing on, so far (and I know that I'm in the minority here...) If I want to watch butch women in sports bikinis, I'll just go down to the local beach. As far as oogling goes, track and field gives you better opportunities.

[Fenir_LacDanan]

Originally Posted by Valandil

Goodness Fenir, I'm not trying to trump the IOC... I was just explaining my viewpoint / opinion on the matter. Is that not OK?

Sorry if you though I was snapping at you Val, it's all good.
The point was that you dont need to win gold in the most popular events to win gold. A one eyed man is king in a world of blind men, and thus the one solitary medal won by some african nation is a tremendous source of national pride for said nation.
Also, with china being the best example, a golds a gold, be it in the 100 meter freestyle IM, or in the equestrian dressage. The chinese know this, so they focus their training and resources on events that they think they can win. It is the same with eastern Europe, they focus on Diving, Gymnastics and the other less "popular" sports. Hence (as at the time of posting) the chinese are still far in the lead with medals. Gold is gold.

[Fenir_LacDanan]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Blargh. It's been the most boring thing on, so far (and I know that I'm in the minority here...) If I want to watch butch women in sports bikinis, I'll just go down to the local beach. As far as oogling goes, track and field gives you better opportunities.

And I'm with Hob, Beach vollyball it is definetley worth a look. Thats the reason they wear those tiny outfits, to get blokes to watch. Womens Basketball players wear skin tight costumes. Why? Its not for the added 1/1000th of extra speed they may get from the lack of drag. Its to make it appealing to men. Sad but true.

And we're off!

[Millane]

Originally Posted by Fenir_LacDanan

And I'm with Hob, Beach vollyball it is definetley worth a look. Thats the reason they wear those tiny outfits, to get blokes to watch. Womens Basketball players wear skin tight costumes. Why? Its not for the added 1/1000th of extra speed they may get from the lack of drag. Its to make it appealing to men. Sad but true.

And where off!

but its not appealing, the girls that dance perhaps but the women are not attractive. Insidious, im not talking big guys im just saying that they have the figure of a skinny (bordering on malnourished) bloke, sure you can tell if they are girls or not but if they were in normal clothes the tall chinese wench looked like a guy...

[Elvengirl]

OMG, unbelievable!
Did anyone see Paul Hamm in the all around competition?
That is the most incredible gold medal, I have ever seen won. To have that grave of a mistake, be in 12th place, and then come back with the best performance he could give, and pull it off.....wow it was amazing.
I am sooo happy for him. hehe and to see his reaction at winning the gold! It was priceless! ..........wow

[Artanis]

I agree with you Elda, Paul Hamm was stunning.
I felt sorry for the Korean guy though.

Now for the women's all around competition.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

As far as oogling goes, track and field gives you better opportunities.

Those Bulgarian discus throwers get me going every time.

Actually, I find it nearly impossible to see how anyone gets the horn watching the olympics. And I include (UK reference here) Sharron Davies' silicone-enhanced chapel hat pegs here. Maybe it's different for girls...

Britain won its first gold today. Well done to them, but I'm staying at work as long as possible to escape the wall-to-wall feigned interest in sailing and "Britannia rules the waves" comments.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Fenir_LacDanan

Womens Basketball players wear skin tight costumes. Why? Its not for the added 1/1000th of extra speed they may get from the lack of drag. Its to make it appealing to men. Sad but true.

they do? i havent noticed this. they tend to wear baggy stuff just like the men. and in fact the sexual appeal (in the states at least) tends to be to those of the lesbian persuasion and not red blooded males who are less likely to have the hots for a 6-8 goliath amazon with hands bigger then your face then the are for impish little beach volley ball babes. most likely because of inferiority reasons no doubt. and whats this nonsense about the chinese being FAR ahead with medals? Last time I checked they were in second place to guess who. yeah they still have a couple more golds but that lead is disapearing fast as well. and this was certainly as of "your posting time" as you said. so what were you looking at exactly?

[Rían]

general comment 1 - yeah, that Russian gymnast (Ghorkina?) looked really anorexic! She's always been thin, but she looked downright sick

general comment 2 - speaking of skimpy costumes, what's with the men's super low-cut outfits for aquatic events? When we were watching diving, the kids kept saying "Mommy, they need to pull those bathing suits up!" And for swimming, one would think that one would want the suit to go higher up for aerodynamic (hydrodynamic?) reasons. But maybe they are more streamlined that way, I don't know. Perhaps they all want to become plumbers when they finish swimming (I don't know about other countries, but in the US, there's a general joke that plumbers always have their pants hanging low).

Whew, that men's relay last night was exciting! The American team broke one of the longest standing records.

And it seems like the swimming refs are catching those illegal dolphin-kicks now - they've disqualified several swimmers. Too bad they didn't catch the one in Phelp's race, where he was just barely nosed out of the gold medal by a guy that did an illegal kick that the refs missed Too bad - that was definitely the difference in the race, and the cameras caught him red-handed, but the refs didn't.

Great comeback by Paul Hamm! What a high bar routine!

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Whew, that men's relay last night was exciting! The American team broke one of the longest standing records.

And it seems like the swimming refs are catching those illegal dolphin-kicks now - they've disqualified several swimmers. Too bad they didn't catch the one in Phelp's race, where he was just barely nosed out of the gold medal by a guy that did an illegal kick that the refs missed Too bad - that was definitely the difference in the race, and the cameras caught him red-handed, but the refs didn't.

Women's relay, wasn't it? (was it THAT hard to tell? )

I think that was the breast-stroker, (Hanson?) - who got edged out by the Japanese guy doing the dolphin-kick, wasn't it? Yeah - as in professional sports, once the commentators start picking up on it, the officials have to get in gear about it as well...

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Valandil

Women's relay, wasn't it? (was it THAT hard to tell? )

One of the things I've been pleased about was that the women swimmers actually looked like women ... (remember when those East Germans popped onto the scene with 5 o'clock shadows? )

I think that was the breast-stroker, (Hanson?) - who got edged out by the Japanese guy doing the dolphin-kick, wasn't it? Yeah - as in professional sports, once the commentators start picking up on it, the officials have to get in gear about it as well...

The women won their relay, too, but wasn't there a men's relay on last night, too? Oh well, all those events are merging together.

It may have been Hanson, too, but I was pretty sure it was Phelps who also got edged out by an illegal kick.

I was sorry to see that some non-Americans had a perception that Phelps was conceited I didn't get that feeling.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

One of the things I've been pleased about was that the women swimmers actually looked like women ... (remember when those East Germans popped onto the scene with 5 o'clock shadows? )



The women won their relay, too, but wasn't there a men's relay on last night, too? Oh well, all those events are merging together.

It may have been Hanson, too, but I was pretty sure it was Phelps who also got edged out by an illegal kick.

I was sorry to see that some non-Americans had a perception that Phelps was conceited I didn't get that feeling.

Hmmm... well, I think the men's 800 free relay was the night before last (Tuesday) and the women's 800 free relay was last night (Wednesday - I put the days because for some folks it's already tomorrow - Friday! ). The men won the close one, holding off Thorpe... the women blew away the old World Record.

The only two races so far where Phelps didn't get gold were freestyle... the 200 free and the 400 free relay. It's hard to do an illegal turn in freestyle, because it's basically 'free' - and anything you do is fair game (just so you touch each wall and stay in your lane)... a guy could swim butterfly or breaststroke for the whole thing and it's entirely legal.

Looks like today was another good day for US swimmers... even Amanda Beard-of-SwimPants won a gold!

EDIT: has archery come up yet?

[Artanis]

What a great gymnastics team the USA has got! It's not that many years ago when they weren't even mentioned in the world of gymnastics. Now they've won the individual all round competitions for both men and women! Congrats!

[Rían]

Thank you! I thought of you when I watched the Norwegian beach volleyball team


Archery!!! I hope I can see at least some of it - I need to get a TV guide ...

[Fat middle]

Spain won at last our second medal (silver again). It's been in 20 km Walk.

'Tis not much for a team with more than 300 athletes

Tomorrow, my mate probably will won another silver in Sailing (Finn).

The best sports so far for us are being Basketball (men and women) and handball. Three victories in three matches in all of them.

Today, women basketball versus USA. Probably first defeat...