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Explain why you are (NOT) watching the Olympic spectacle in Rio.
July 22, 2016 - 11:56am
an idea from babblers Rev Pesky and Michael Moriarity ...
Quote:
Michael Moriarity wrote:Quote:Rev Pesky wrote:And as far as the Olympics go, they are the absolute center of corruption in sport. Forget banning Russia. The whole bloody organization should be banned. It is nothing more than a taxpayer funded party for the stinking rich, and the idea that they have some integrity to lose is ridiculous.
I couldn't agree more. But it isn't just a corrupt party for the super rich. It's also the circuses part of "bread and circuses". I've always been amazed that so many otherwise sensible people are sucked in by this bullshit.
Discuss.
BORING! Reason #1.
I can't think of another reason to not watch it.
I stopped watching the Olympics after they threw open the doors and allowed professional (paid) athletes to participate - prior to that I used to very much enjoy cheering on the underdogs in team sports when they went up against the US, the Soviet Union, either of the Germanies, the UK... I have particularly fond memories of Peru crushing the Americans in women's volleyball one Olympics. But with the inclusion of professional athletes... well, I am hard pressed to tell the difference between the Olympics and the regular sports broadcast weekly.
I don't follow sport.
I could say I'm not interested, but it is so much more fun to say it is because of the sour grapes.
I don't have cable television so I don't watch much of any sports. I miss the CFL and curling sometimes but the Olympics not so much.
1. no cable
2. don't really like sports
3. sense of self not intertwined with what country's athlete can throw a hammer farthest
Huh. double post. Oh well.
4. prefer throwing javelins to watching them thrown
5. Jamaican bobsled team not invited
6. afraid of contracting Zika
I'm hard pressed to understand the attraction of the Olympics, personally. So intensely dull.
What about the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat [part of the intro to ABC's Wide World of Sports in the Jim McKay era] or human drama generally ...?
From your TV?
Vinko Bogataj
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ZvwIFbXMM
http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2010/03/20/vinko_bogataj_and_the...
Better safe than sorry. It's only been in the last 20 years that you could contract a virus through your computer.
Don't find it thrilling. Though I do watch the World Cup. Maybe something about individual vs team sports?
The Olympics - war fought by other means.
And yes, terminally boring.
I like the doping scandals, though.
The most recent one is a double whammy. The manner in which the entire Russian team - using the machinery of the Olympic movement itself, such as WADA, etc. - was very nearly banned from Rio discredits the Olympic movement by being used in such a way. The boycotts of 1980 and 1984 were straight out political actions and identified as such. This one leaves an ugly brown stain in the olympic "underwear". Frankly, I would not be surprised if there was more of this.
Secondly, the other side is that doping, generally, by anyone, plays into the general opinion that the whole thing is corrupt and not just those "caught" today.
One thing I learned from my reading was how, by virtue of the professionalization of sport, and its dominance by corporate interests in particular, the whole array of sports administrators and officials adds another layer of possible corruption to sports. People whose livelihood is tied up in managing these events and such may not dare to rock the boat for fear of ruining their careers. So I have more respect for genuine whistleblowers - even if I'm not impressed with the cabal here - than hitherto.
A whistleblower cabal? Sure you aren't talking about Wikileaks?
One thing that I've always found interesting -- and a bit off-putting -- about both the Summer and Winter games is the huge public fascination with whichever sports feature the youngest women in the tightest outfits. Everybody loses it over gymnastics and figure skating and speed skating -- who REALLY sets their TiVo to make sure they don't miss the Biathlon, or the Shot-put?
It's almost like the Academy Awards. "For a full text list of all the non-beautiful people who won Best Sound Recording for a Foreign Documentary or whatevs, see our website".
Actually biathlon is a pretty good TV sport
The Canadian Boxers Who Thumbed Their Noses at Nazis
There was an alternate "Games" planned in Republican Spain in 1936!
US Launches Olympic-Sized Spying Operation at Rio 2016
rabble.ca columnist Rick Salutin: Rio may be end games for high-performance capitalism
See also
The Olympics are not what they seem: A much-needed antitode to the nauseating claim that the Olympics are not political
... and, of course, perhaps the best "left" sports writer in the USA
Dave Zirin: Where sports and politics collide
do athletes really need to create their future off of the backs of the disposed and the millions of tax payers burdened with the debt?
In addition to the Russian Track and Field athletes, the Para-Olympic team has been subject to a blanket ban in Rio. Marcus Godwin weighs in.
Here is the true agenda behind the Russian Olympic doping scandal
"...The attempt to ban clean athletes from the Olympic Games because of their nationality is utterly unprecedented in the history of the modern Olympic movement. It is far more corrosive than previous boycotts and shows the depth of moral, spiritual and intellectual collapse of the west. It is deeply shocking that even some western athletes have put their names to articles which have been published in western newspapers which full of racial prejudice, conjecture, rumour mongering and stereotyping.
There will be an Olympics of some sort in Brazil. However they are already tarnished and whilst the main victims are obviously the Russian athletes and para athletes, Brazil has had its Olympic Games sullied by the Great Power to its north. The big question now is whether the Olympic movement can survive the attack which has been made on it and which has brought the curse of discrimination and geopolitics to its very heart?"