Listening to the Radio 5 Live discussion at the end of the games one of the points made was that the organisers had been worried everyone in Paris would clear off on their summer holidays as usual and the atmosphere would be dead. So having the opening ceremony spread around the city to grab people's interest would seem to make a lot of sense.
Yes, it was a bit slow for my taste. Long periods of not much happening. But then most ceremonies have a long period when nothing's happening except athletes processing in, most of them from countries I've barely heard of. In the long run we'll remember the horse galloping along the river and we'll forget how bored we were of it after 5 minutes. And I'll remember the abseiling and the ceremony with the flame long after I've forgotten the over-long dance piece.
So overall I liked the ceremonies. And the sport was great. And Team GB did pretty well. By historical standards, compared to the improvement that started in the run-up to 2012 they did incredibly. What's not to like?
As soon as farting becomes an Olympic sport i'm ready to go...
They is skill involved in farting 💨 Synchronized farting could catch on and the training with baked bean and broccoli would need to be carried out to the minute as there would be a right stink if we didn't medal after the financial backing of the Lottery.
I think nerves would get the better of you Soapy and you would be bricking it.
Some interesting stats showing the success by each Team GB sport, and the amount of funding they got. £13.6m for Hockey and no medal doesn't look good, £23m for Sailing delivering 2 medals looks expensive too.
Ive always thought the medal scoring system to be poor in that realistically only golds count for anything. If you were to give 3 pts for a gold, 2 for a silver and 1 for a bronze this is what the final medal table would look like:
G
S
B
Pts Total
1
United States
40
44
42
250
2
China
40
27
24
198
3
France
16
26
22
122
4
Great Britain
14
22
29
115
5
Australia
18
19
16
108
6
Japan
20
12
13
97
7
Italy
12
13
15
77
8
Netherlands
15
7
12
71
9
Germany
12
13
8
70
10
South Korea
13
9
10
67
Then why did the USA finish above China?
Oh yeah, more silvers.
Okay, yes used as a tiebreaker but a team who has 15 gold and 0 silvers could be ahead of a team with 14 golds and 70 silvers just feels wrong.
It's in the spirit of 'Who won the most?', biggest, strongest, fastest etc.
Some interesting stats showing the success by each Team GB sport, and the amount of funding they got. £13.6m for Hockey and no medal doesn't look good, £23m for Sailing delivering 2 medals looks expensive too.
Its about £1.5m a year per team on the Hockey teams, it's cheap
I've often wondered what the criteria for lottery funding should be, should it just be about medals, or should it be about participation as well.
For example we're not a strong basketball country, so it gets a tiny amount of funding, but far more people play it than a lot of minority sports which are funded more because we have medal chances. £23m for sailing and £14m for canoeing versus £1.4m for basketball for example.
I've enjoyed watching it, but £8m for Taekwondo seems an awful lot for what looks like a pretty cheap sport to participate in.
For context, I'm a pretty shit bike racer, but am better than 99.9% of people. I'm as far away from qualifying for the Olympic road race as any of that 99.9% 🤣
I'd like to see the Venn Diagram of that one and the one of the twats that think they could beat a bear, wolf, chimp, croc, etc in a fight. Would be like stacking pennies...
Christ, these blokes (and it will be blokes I'm sure) are an embarrassment to us all.
I'm particularly impressed by the men who reckon they could get to Olympic standard in football in 4 years, given that it involves being under 23 at the time of the tournament. That would be great, but there's a minor difficulty...
not to mention the time and effort involved in changing nationality to a country who actually compete in the football
These Olympics have been excellent. Certainly on a par with London, with the extra glory of a great opening ceremony not confined to the stadium. For me the finish to the triathlon, with a local to me mixed race competitor winning was the most thrilling event, it was very relatable.
There must have been two opening ceremonies then, because certainly the one I saw (possible the rehearsal as it was raining) was pisspoor, pretentious and boring? Cant think why you liked it?
One major reason was it was different to every opening ceremony I have seen in the past, so it can be argued it was the best non stadium opening there has ever been. In terms of detail, well one feature I liked was interspersing the introduction of the teams with events. I have also been to Paris, love the place (despite the food) so I possibly related to it more. I wonder if the Americans will revert to a stadium opening, or try to imitate Paris with a backdrop of freeways, the Hollywood sign, film studios and fast food outlets. In four years technology will have advanced so much each of us might have a personalised ceremony experienced on headsets.
Agreed it was different but by no means was it any good, there may be a good reason why this type of opening has been rejected by every other host city. Oh and by the way, caught a little bit of snobbery on your lips there.
The most memorable opening ceremony moment was probably from the USA, by the way, with the arrow fired to light the flame.
I have to say that I found the opening ceremony to be really quite good, verging on brilliant in parts (and, IMHO, I think it was a key element of the whole concept of integrating the events with the city, which has been a massive success).
The downpour made it much harder to succeed (and the was a clear need to make sure that all the broadcasters were clued in to the classical allusions for some parts of the ceremony) but I really did enjoy the ambition behind what was attempted and some of the images, including, for me, the Montgolfier balloon, are easily as iconic as those from any other Olympic ceremony.
To paraphrase JFK, the French Olympic Organising Committee chose that style of opening ceremony precisely because it was hard. For every other host city going forward, a stadium-based event is going to look like taking the easy option.
As soon as farting becomes an Olympic sport i'm ready to go...
They is skill involved in farting 💨 Synchronized farting could catch on and the training with baked bean and broccoli would need to be carried out to the minute as there would be a right stink if we didn't medal after the financial backing of the Lottery.
I think nerves would get the better of you Soapy and you would be bricking it.
What would thr outfits look like for this new sport?
For context, I'm a pretty shit bike racer, but am better than 99.9% of people. I'm as far away from qualifying for the Olympic road race as any of that 99.9% 🤣
The 10km world record of 26 minutes is the best example of the difference between Olympians and amateurs in my opinion. If you can do it in 45 minutes you're in very good shape.
Loved the 1984 Olympics , 14 years old , tv in room , the odd hand shandy , watched V sci fi series , watched the Olympics, sleep till 1-2pm , get up 6 shredded wheat and piss about and then back again for some more evening adventures , no wonder I'm a hermit , what a life back then
Agree with a number of other comments here. Great Olympics, superb venues, fantastic setting, great and enthusiastic crowds. Didn't however think either the Opening or Closing ceremonies were very good. We did it a lot better in London.
As soon as farting becomes an Olympic sport i'm ready to go...
They is skill involved in farting 💨 Synchronized farting could catch on and the training with baked bean and broccoli would need to be carried out to the minute as there would be a right stink if we didn't medal after the financial backing of the Lottery.
I think nerves would get the better of you Soapy and you would be bricking it.
What would thr outfits look like for this new sport?
If you were to weight it more to gold and silver and give gold 5pts, silver 3pts and bronze 1 pt then the table remains the same:
G
S
B
Pts Total
1
United States
40
44
42
374
2
China
40
27
24
305
3
France
16
26
22
180
4
Great Britain
14
22
29
165
5
Australia
18
19
16
163
6
Japan
20
12
13
149
7
Italy
12
13
15
114
8
Netherlands
15
7
12
108
9
Germany
12
13
8
107
10
South Korea
13
9
10
102
Final MEDAL table we are 3rd. Based on it being about MEDALS won and not their bloody colour.
What the medal table (however you display it) shows is how being the host country really does give you a boost. I went back over the past 7 Olympics to show how we stack up against the French.
2000 France 38 UK 28 2004 France 33 UK 30 2008 France 43 UK 51 2012 France 35 UK 65 2016 France 42 UK 67 2020 France 33 UK 64 2024 France 64 UK 65
As you can see we've been pretty steady since 2012 & so have the French ( even more so since 2000) but then this year they almost doubled their tally from 2020 & 2004.
For context, I'm a pretty shit bike racer, but am better than 99.9% of people. I'm as far away from qualifying for the Olympic road race as any of that 99.9% 🤣
The 10km world record of 26 minutes is the best example of the difference between Olympians and amateurs in my opinion. If you can do it in 45 minutes you're in very good shape.
Best ever 10k time was 39 minutes. I've got a mate who can run a 10k in 33, and a 5k in 16.42, and he is almost superhuman. Absolutely boggles the mind what real athletes are capable of
Comments
Yes, it was a bit slow for my taste. Long periods of not much happening. But then most ceremonies have a long period when nothing's happening except athletes processing in, most of them from countries I've barely heard of. In the long run we'll remember the horse galloping along the river and we'll forget how bored we were of it after 5 minutes. And I'll remember the abseiling and the ceremony with the flame long after I've forgotten the over-long dance piece.
So overall I liked the ceremonies. And the sport was great. And Team GB did pretty well. By historical standards, compared to the improvement that started in the run-up to 2012 they did incredibly. What's not to like?
Synchronized farting could catch on and the training with baked bean and broccoli would need to be carried out to the minute as there would be a right stink if we didn't medal after the financial backing of the Lottery.
I think nerves would get the better of you Soapy and you would be bricking it.
Some interesting stats showing the success by each Team GB sport, and the amount of funding they got. £13.6m for Hockey and no medal doesn't look good, £23m for Sailing delivering 2 medals looks expensive too.
Could sort a great doping programme for £20m (I'm kidding of course).
Typical though, posh sport, sailing, gets a disproportionate amount....
For example we're not a strong basketball country, so it gets a tiny amount of funding, but far more people play it than a lot of minority sports which are funded more because we have medal chances. £23m for sailing and £14m for canoeing versus £1.4m for basketball for example.
I've enjoyed watching it, but £8m for Taekwondo seems an awful lot for what looks like a pretty cheap sport to participate in.
For context, I'm a pretty shit bike racer, but am better than 99.9% of people. I'm as far away from qualifying for the Olympic road race as any of that 99.9% 🤣
Christ, these blokes (and it will be blokes I'm sure) are an embarrassment to us all.
The downpour made it much harder to succeed (and the was a clear need to make sure that all the broadcasters were clued in to the classical allusions for some parts of the ceremony) but I really did enjoy the ambition behind what was attempted and some of the images, including, for me, the Montgolfier balloon, are easily as iconic as those from any other Olympic ceremony.
To paraphrase JFK, the French Olympic Organising Committee chose that style of opening ceremony precisely because it was hard. For every other host city going forward, a stadium-based event is going to look like taking the easy option.
Let's face it, most of us would struggle to achieve the level of ability shown by the Australian break dancer...
that way catastrophe lies
I was his Bo Selecta.
What the medal table (however you display it) shows is how being the host country really does give you a boost. I went back over the past 7 Olympics to show how we stack up against the French.
2000 France 38 UK 28
2004 France 33 UK 30
2008 France 43 UK 51
2012 France 35 UK 65
2016 France 42 UK 67
2020 France 33 UK 64
2024 France 64 UK 65
As you can see we've been pretty steady since 2012 & so have the French ( even more so since 2000) but then this year they almost doubled their tally from 2020 & 2004.