On a happier note, I would have never thought that I would ever enjoy watching badminton. I think NBC is really on the money with their efforts to put all these events online. I would have never watched women's weightlifting, archery, and badminton otherwise.
Wow....are people REALLY getting all worked up about lip-syncing? Who gives a shit? If the girl with a nice voice was ugly, then they have every right to get a prettier girl. Why do you think no ugly person has ever won American Idol?
Wow....are people REALLY getting all worked up about lip-syncing? Who gives a shit? If the girl with a nice voice was ugly, then they have every right to get a prettier girl. Why do you think no ugly person has ever won American Idol?
It has dick to do with work ethic and everything to do with image which is exactly why they replaced the little girl with the buck teeth who sung well with the pretty little girl and had her lip sync. It's the exact reason they are cheating and having 14 year olds compete in gymnastics which requires the competitors be 16 or pretty darn close; it's the exact reason they have 100,000 people participating in "security". The Beijing Olympics is all about making China look good and I think it is back firing on them it is only serving to highlight the vast differences in openness and freedoms.
So they replaced the girl, it's not exactly condemming 1.3 billion people, you know. As Jon Stewart said in the best Daily Show episode in recent memory..."HOW DARE CHINA DO SOMETHING WE DO AT THE SUPER BOWL EVERY YEAR?!!!"
It's a system the East Germans and Soviets used and the Chinese still use. East Germany and the Soviet Union were communist, the Chinese still are (in some ways more than others). I'm not making this up and it is documented.
As I mentioned previously, the athletics of the event are secondary as they were for the East Germans and Soviets.
Wow....are people REALLY getting all worked up about lip-syncing? Who gives a shit? If the girl with a nice voice was ugly, then they have every right to get a prettier girl. Why do you think no ugly person has ever won American Idol?
^ I don't know what you remember but I think she did alright during the opening ceremony, it's her career afterwards that was pretty crap and forgettable really.
And there you have it. Of course it is all about making China look good. But then consider the 1936 Berlin games were all about making Nazi Germany look good. The 2000 Sydney games were all about making Australia look good. Thats all the Olympic games are, just a showcase of all the marketable aspects of the host nation.
To give an example, the 2000 Sydney Olympics saw an increase of 1.6 million in overseas visitors to Australia, and the total economic stimulus arising from the Sydney Olympic Games, including infrastructure investment, visitor spending and the Organising Committee?s (SOCOG) revenues, is among the highest for recent Games. Were the games a success? You bet your arse they were. Because the success of the event is measured in tourist spending, visitor numbers and other intangibles such as market image. This last one appears to be where China isnt doing so well. The Western public is very quick to point out, frankly, trivial issues surrounding CGI effects, lip syncing, and air quality. China isn't the first nation to control particular aspects of an event to ensure it's successful running, and certainly wont be the last.
You want to have your sporting teams doing well, and China training children from such young ages to specialise in a specific sport is really not much different to other countries. Australia set up the Australian Institute of Sport after our failures in the '76 Montreal games and having seen the place and knowing about the gruelling training regimes that occur there, man I dont fancy the life of being an athlete, that's all! But the benefits are also quite considerable to the individual athlete. A successful athlete can command huge monetary sums and endorsement deals, and they're treated as heros by the public and become celebrities, so there is a payoff.
excellent swim by him today in the 1500m heats. damn if he can pull of another gold that'll be his 3rd gold in that event, which is a massive achievement.
phelps, again ... master class in swimming, his 200IM was not as dumb foundingly fast as previous swims, (not suprised, the guys got 17 swims total which is a heck of a lot) but he still handed the rest of the field their asses.
thats gold number 6 in the bag.
i reckon 7 is in the bag in the medley relay (do they do 4x200 or 4x100? i forget) the only iffy one is the 100m fly, i think he's got a challenge on his hands there, especially if Cseh is in the final too.
oh yeah, and Britain DOMINATED the cycling this moring!! C'MON!
i reckon 7 is in the bag in the medley relay (do they do 4x200 or 4x100? i forget) the only iffy one is the 100m fly, i think he's got a challenge on his hands there, especially if Cseh is in the final too.
oh right, i thought hed be doing the 100 fly.... BBC coverage has been a bit... well meh, especially for heats. it seems any other sport is immediately more important that swimming.
Cseh was usually leading phelps on fly every time they swam next to each other.
it'll be tight, but if anyone can do it, phelps is your man.
its c'mon Rebecca Adlington, she's got an excellent chance of a second gold in the 800m free, and she's perhaps the best looking out of the whole team. (though thats not saying alot most of our girls are butt fugly)
the prettiest girls on our team... in order
Caitlin McClatchy (petite)
Rebecca Adlington (close)
Jo Jackson (big forehead, but gorgeous brunette)
Kate Haywood
Did anyone else see the Swedish wrestler who got pissed off at the judges (I think he even swore at them) because he felt he should've won and got the gold, so after being given his bronze he stormed off the podium and dropped the medal on the floor. Real mature. :lol:
I just saw a little highlight thing of that, I didn't see the match or anything.
As Jon Stewart said in 
