[rtpoe]

Yes, they're underway!

And all the crap about Zika and corruption and doping and how Rio can't possibly be ready in time can all be kicked to the curb now.

The Opening Ceremony was pretty cool. A recapitulation of the History of Brazil, done via modern dance. My favorite part was the flight of aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont. Regardless of who was actually "first" in powered, fully-controlled flight, that fantasy trip over Rio was beautiful.

I still see people in various comment sections who have overdosed on cynicism, and plan on ignoring the Olympics again.

I thumb my nose at them.

One follows the Olympics for moments like this one - the first time ever the national anthem of Kosovo has been played at the Olympics:

http://twitter.com/fdnhkj/status/762400598176169986

Here in the US, we're probably going "Oh, look, another gold medal for Michael Phelps. Hooray..... What else is on?" How much do you want to bet they're still partying in Majlinda Kelmendi's hometown of Peja? (How many of you know that Kelmendi is a two-time world champion and is ranked #1 in her weight class? How many Americans can find Kosovo on a map??)

I won't watch them on the TV (much), but I will keep an eye on things.

Oh, and just beacuse..... Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz, "The Girl from Ipanema":

[TheZookie007]

NBC always seems to give non-American Olympic competitors short shrift. As your example of the Kosovar athlete shows, it would be nice if their stories could be highlighted too. I look forward every four years to seeing other countries' athletes shine as much as American athletes.

In my opinion, with the exception of Bob Costas, far too many NBC commentators do poorly at their job. Take for instance Al Trautwig, who for some unknown reason decided to say of the parents of the great American gymnast Simone Biles "They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents." -- simply because she was adopted. Which, as any person who adopts knows, is total bullshit. Those are her parents, period, full stop. Even how they talked about the Opening Ceremony was disappointing, glossing over the Portuguese colonialization of Brasil as "immigration".

On the plus side: Gisele Bundchen did her country proud.

[Cutter]

I hope that NBC looses the rights to broadcast the Olympics.  The overdone athete highlights, the current inability to go through the closeing night without playing some show that no one will watch, or go to night news for an hour or two before finishing the last 30 minutes.

We tune in to watch competition.  I would like to see the other countries, the Atlanta Olympics were the worst.  Were it not for the Opening anc Closeing Cerimonies you wouldn't have known there were other countries there.

I know that there are other NBC affiliated channels showing the actual matches but London and the BBC showed how it should have been done last time.

[solvegas]

As long as NBC is willing to pay the most, they win. Money talks, bullshit walks. Besides, fiscally speaking, hosting the Olympics has been a disaster for Brazil. They have spent $20.2 Billion Dollars and will be lucky to get $5 billion back. With the economy in a bad way since China is no longer buying so many commodities from Brazil, it is doubtful that Brazil will ever get its money from the whole endeavor. Only three Olympics have ever made a profit. The 1932 Los Angeles games, the 1984 Los Angeles games and 1996 Atlanta games. Montreal finally paid off its 1976 games in 2006. And the Olympic stadium retractable roof has never worked properly and it sits mostly empty since the Expos and Alouettes left in 2005 and 1998 respectively. It took Mexico City twenty years after the 1968 Olympics to finish paying it off. I personally can't get too thrilled about it. The Olympics are way too politicized for my taste ( anybody remember the 1972 Munich Olympics where Russia stole the gold medal from the US in basketball with the help of a  German official ? ) and I truthfully don't care or know much about the majority of the sports.

[TheZookie007]

As long as NBC is willing to pay the most, they win. Money talks, bullshit walks.

Sadly, this is true. Comcast spent a shit-ton of money for the broadcast rights to the Games, so we are subjected to this bullshit coverage.

I know that there are other NBC affiliated channels showing the actual matches but London and the BBC showed how it should have been done last time.

True again. When the BBC were the host broadcaster for the Olympics in 2012, it was such a joy to see how it should be done.

I personally can't get too thrilled about it. The Olympics are way too politicized for my taste ( anybody remember the 1972 Munich Olympics where Russia stole the gold medal from the US in basketball with the help of a  German official ? ) and I truthfully don't care or know much about the majority of the sports.

The Olympics are indeed way too politicized. They're basically a venue for some dick-measuring every four years.

But with good commentators and good coverage, the viewers can be educated about the majority of sports at the Games. Which is something, again, Comcast NBCUniversal is really sucking at.

We tune in to watch competition.  I would like to see the other countries, the Atlanta Olympics were the worst.  Were it not for the Opening anc Closeing Cerimonies you wouldn't have known there were other countries there.

Ugh, yes. They were the worst. This is the Olympic Games, not the "USA and then everyone else, maybe, if we get around to it" Games.



And speaking of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies: in 2016, there is no excuse for commentators not to know how to pronounce the names of countries, or for them to make juvenile "jokes" at their expense (as that lush Hoda Kotb did when Djibouti appeared on the Parade of Nations).

[rtpoe]

Time for our Olympians of the Day!

While everyone was drooling over the barely-legal (if that!) bespangled princesses of the US Women's Gymnastic Team, the person who many people consider the greatest gymnast of all time won another gold medal, this time in Men's Individual All-Around. Kohei "Superman" Uchimura now has a total of three gold and four silver Olympic medals - to go with his nineteen World Championship medals.

If I'm reading this right, he's taken first place at every world championship (including the Olympics) in the Men's Individual All-Around since 2009. He earned the Silver medal in that event in Beijing....

There's no video of him winning the gold this year (that I can find), so here's an interview with him from last October that includes a lot of his routines:



He intends to be ready to compete in Tokyo in 2020......

And now, another first....

In 2000 and 2012, Fehaid Al-Deehani was on Kuwait's rifle team. He earned a bronze both times, in double trap and trap, respectively. This year, Kuwait's national Olympic Committee couldn't get its act together in time to sponsor a team. Rather than give up on competing, Al-Deehani and the other Kuwaiti athletes took advantage of the "independent athlete" provision in the rules. They entered the stadium under the Olympic flag as "Independent Olympic Athletes".

The 49-year-old Kuwaiti army officer bagged the gold in double trap this week. That's the first ever gold medal for an independent.

By the way, as the only medalist ever for Kuwait, he was given the chance to carry the flag - the Olympic one - in the Parade of Nations. He refused. "I am a military man and I will only carry the Kuwait flag," Al-Deehani said. "I cannot carry the IOC flag."

[TheZookie007]

Another first:

Simone Manuel became the first black American woman to win an individual swimming event gold medal, ever. She shared the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle with Penny Oleksiak of Canada. This is the first gold for the US in the 100-meter freestyle since 1984.

This is Manuel's second Olympic medal. She won silver in the 400-meter freestyle relay last week. This is also the first time two Black women swimmers have represented the U.S., Lia Neal being the other black member of the squad.

More proof of how NBC is fucking up: they didn't broadcast the medal presentation ceremony live (although they eventually did show it an hour after it actually happened). Thankfully, the BBC came to the rescue. I am leery of putting the link that showed the two broadcasts side-by-side because NBC was showing Russian gymnasts and who knows how old they are?

[TheZookie007]

Meanwhile:

Deadspin: "Michael Phelps Tied A 2,168-Year-Old Olympic Record"

Another two golds last night for Michael Phelps, the most decorated American Olympian ever: That makes 21 gold medals in his career, 25 medals overall, and with his win in the 200m butterfly—a particularly personal win, given his loss in that event four years ago—Phelps now has 12 individual wins to bring him into a tie with the late, great Leonidas of Rhodes.

Olympic historian Bill Mallon pulled out this beauty of a factoid, and there’s no reason to doubt it: the IOC is good at keeping stats and the Classical and Hellenistic-era Greeks weren’t bad either. Leonidas of Rhodes was a sprinter, apparently one of the best who ever lived, according to the mostly complete Olympic records first compiled by Hippias of Elas and updated and revised by later scholars.

At the 154th Olympiad, held in 164 BCE, Leonidas completed the “triple,” winning the stadion sprint (about 200 meters*), the diaulos (twice the length of the stadion), and the hoplitodromos, a diaulos with the runners wearing a helmet and greaves and carrying a shield, the armor weighing more than 50 pounds.

*The stadion was not a fixed length, but instead varied based on the length of the stadium was being used. At Olympia, that was 192.27 meters. The dialous was simply “there and back.”

Then Leonidas won the triple at the next three Olympic Games, in 160 BCE, 156 BCE, and 152 BCE. As Pausanias tells us, Leonidas, “the most famous runner...maintained his speed at its prime for four Olympiads, and won twelve victories for running.”

Leonidas must have been a true superstar in the eastern Mediterranean; the events in which he competed and won were among the most popular and most important an the ancient Olympics. The stadion traditionally opened each games, and the hoplitodromos closed them...

The Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement confirms that Leonidas’s 12 wins (he was awarded wreaths, not medals), is an Olympic record, ancient or modern. Well, it was his Olympic record for a couple millennia-plus. Michael Phelps has tied him, and has two more chances to surpass him: the 200m individual medley on Thursday, and the 100m butterfly on Friday.

Still, I’d like to see Phelps do this while wearing armor.

[gonZo]

Still, that's a motherfucker of a record to tie.

[rtpoe]

Our Gold Medalists of the Day:

Apisai Domolailai, Jasa Veremalua, Kitione Taliga, Osea Kolinisau, Savenaca Rawaca, Semi Kunatani, Leone Nakarawa, Jerry Tuwai, Samisoni Viriviri, Josua Tuisova, Viliame Mata, Vatemo Ravouvou, and Ro Dakuwaqa. *

Fiji's Rugby Sevens team.

Some highlights of the final match are here: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/fiji-wins-olympic-rugby-sevens-gold-medal

It's Fiji's first medal ever in their 14th Summer Games.

It should not have been a surprise, since rugby sevens is the national sport. And Fiji is ranked #1 in the world.

How big a deal is it there? When it came time to announce the players who made the Olympic team, it wasn't a press release. It wasn't the coach of the team. It wasn't the head of the Fiji Olympic Committee. It was the PRIME MINISTER.

"I can have an hour-long drive to work and I can see 50 villages playing rugby. It's a passion," said Coach Ben Ryan.

"Rugby is like a religion in Fiji, and we're already a very religious country," deputy editor-in-chief of the Fiji Times, Elenoa Baselaia, told CNN. "It's normal that we go to church on Sundays, it's also normal that everywhere you turn, there is people playing rugby every afternoon. Whether it's with paper scrunched together to make a ball, it's with bottles or a real rugby ball, somebody in the neighborhoods is playing rugby."

* No, I don't know who's who in the attached photo - or why there are only twelve players there when the official Olympic roster - where I got their names - has thirteen.....

[TheZookie007]

It's Fiji's first medal ever in their 14th Summer Games.

I think this Games also saw Kosovo win their first-ever Olympic medal, and it was a gold too. If you're gonna win your first, it might as well be as the best in the world, right?

[rtpoe]

And it was Kosovo's first appearance at the Olympics... (see above)

Speaking of first-time medals.....

On Friday, Joseph Schooling earned Singapore's first ever gold medal. It was in the Men's 100m Butterfly, and he beat Michael Phelps to do it. It wasn't close, the margin of victory was three-quarters of a second. That was also the first time a man from Singapore appeared in the pool in any swimming final. By the way, Phelps, Chad le Clos (representing South Africa), and Lészló Cseh (Hungary) all earned silver medals for coming in next with identical times of 51.14 seconds.....

Today (Saturday), with all the big name stars having been **91** early, Monica Puig (ranked #34 in the world(!)) won the Women's Tennis Singles competition. What's the "first" there, you ask? She competed for Puerto Rico - and it was their first ever gold medal.....

[TheZookie007]

Yahoo Sports: "Robbery of Ryan Lochte shows the real threat of Rio Games: Crime, not Zika"

RIO DE JANEIRO – The most pressing risk facing these Olympics never was Zika, according to many experts. It was local crime. And Sunday’s scare involving American swimmer Ryan Lochte provided more proof.

Conflicting reports initially emerged early on Sunday about the star swimmer being robbed at gunpoint. “I think they’re all shaken up,” Ileana Lochte, Ryan’s mother, told USA Today. “There were a few of them … They were just, they just took their wallets and basically that was it.”

Citing the USOC, the IOC first denied the report, which first was reported by Fox in Australia. The USOC later confirmed the incident, saying Lochte and three other U.S. swimmers, Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen, were in a taxi leaving France House early Sunday that was stopped by robbers posing as police.

Lochte told NBC’s Billy Bush the robbers’ car sideswiped the taxi.

“We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing just a police badge and they pulled us over,” Lochte told Bush. “They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground — they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn’t do anything wrong, so — I’m not getting down on the ground.

“And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, “Get down,” and I put my hands up, I was like ‘whatever.’ He took our money, he took my wallet — he left my cell phone, he left my credentials.”

Fortunately, by all accounts, no one was hurt. But this is only the latest in a string of incidents that have plagued the Games. A stray bullet somehow landed in an equestrian press conference. Rocks pelted a media bus (which some inside said were bullets). Two Australian rowing coaches were reportedly robbed at knifepoint last week. A Portuguese education minister was mugged. A group of Spanish sailors were held up at gunpoint in May. Two Australian Paralympic athletes were mugged in June.

[TheZookie007]

Another first at this year's Olympics:

Fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first U.S. athlete to compete at the Olympics in a hijab, fell short of winning a medal in Rio de Janeiro.

Despite making history by winning the first round during the Women’s Individual Sabre on Monday, Muhammad was defeated by Cecilia Berder of France in the second round.

Muhammad was one of the most recognizable athletes entering the Rio Olympics. Earlier this year, Time magazine named her on their list of “The 100 Most Influential People.”

The New Jersey native said while growing up, she felt awkward playing other sports, such as track and volleyball, with her head, arms and legs covered.

“I would get stares,” Muhammad told the Los Angeles Times. “My skin color, my religion, made other people uncomfortable.”

“Fencing found me,” said the 30-year-old Olympian, who took up the sport when she was 13.

“I wanted a sport where I could be fully covered and I didn’t have to look different.”

[TheZookie007]

Two-in-one firsts at this Olympics:  the first women's rugby sevens medals won -- and a marriage proposal.

BBC Sport: "Rio Olympics 2016: Venue worker's marriage proposal to Brazil player accepted"
The couple have been together for two years

An Olympic final, a medal ceremony and a marriage proposal - it was some night at Deodoro Stadium.

As the crowds dispersed after Australia won the first women's rugby sevens gold in Games history, Marjorie Enya entered the pitch and asked Brazil player Isadora Cerullo to marry her.

Enya, a 28-year-old manager at the venue, grabbed a microphone and delivered an emotional speech before the couple embraced to applause.

"As soon as I knew she was in the squad I thought I have to make this special," Enya told BBC Sport. "I know rugby people are amazing and they would embrace it."

Enya said she had not been nervous about popping the question so publicly to her partner of two years, insisting: "She is the love of my life."

Cerullo, 25, was part of the Brazil squad who finished ninth in the inaugural Olympic outing for sevens.

They started as 12th seeds, having only qualified as hosts.

The couple live in Sao Paulo, where Cerullo, who has dual US citizenship, moved to focus on making Brazil's squad for the Games.

"The Olympic Games can look like closure but, for me, it's starting a new life with someone," added Enya. "I wanted to show people that love wins."