Summer Review: Tokyo 2021

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BG32 said:
Just dawned on me how sad it is for Tokyo that spectators couldn't appreciate these venues and the games. They did an amazing job to have got the games done given the circumstances.
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Japan did a brilliant job getting this up and running and keeping everyone safe and putting on such great games. Well done, good on them. Amazing.
Suspect pretty lucky it wasn’t Rio’s turn.;)
 
Think the new sports have generally been a success. Will be interesting to see how they will go on in the future Olympics.

Karate and Baseball/Softball are gone from Paris and breakdancing will be in. Wont miss either Karate/BB/SB but I, for one, will not get into breakdancing. 3x3 was a bit of a poor mans basketball. It is not like futsal or rugby sevens.
 

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And possibly my last post on the Olympics board for the next few months...

Do you think you've watched the Olympics? You haven't. Read up on this guy...





Citius. Altius. Fortius. Shitpostus.

Been an absolute pleasure folks, nice change from the trolling elsewhere.
 
A successful games for Australia, I think it's only fair to say we actually finished 4th on the Medal Tally for individual countries ;)

But it's always great to have an Olympics in our time zone which is far more watchable, just a shame the American TV broadcasters meant the swimming finals were in the wrong timeslot, but handy distractions when working from home!!!
 
samFFC said:
So many highlights from the first week - McKeon, Titmus and Fox in particular.
And was great to rekindle the enjoyment of volleyball.

7plus was magnificent.
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Was great to be able to stream anything live but lack of full replays is frustrating.

Best coverage was London 2012 when Foxtel had 8 channels i think it was?
 
spike101 said:
Given that Europe was in lockdown for most of last and this year, I think the medals/results are skewed against those countries. Personally, the up and down, up and down of swimming is so boring.
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They could all pretty much train though. They all would've had exemptions as elite athletes and they probably had more elite competitions than our guys did over the summer months when many of our athletes stayed here
 
What a fantastic Olympics this has been! I have always loved the Games, but have enjoyed this edition more than any other than Sydney.
Through a combination of Australia’s brilliant success, a friendly time zone and being a wonderful distraction from lockdown, I have rarely felt more emotionally engaged in an Olympics.
Quite honestly, living alone and having felt really despondent at times during lockdowns, I have enjoyed the past two weeks as much as any time since COVID began, other than a couple of getaways.
My highlights go back to the swimming. I can’t split Annie’s win in the 400m and the women’s medley relay. Titmus delivered on the biggest stage in spectacular style after all the build up, and the medley had me out of my seat screaming at the tv like nothing since the freestyle relay in Sydney.
I think Titmus and McKeown will be huge stars of Australian sport in general in the next few years.
I hope Emma McKeon is too. I’m not sure she has quite received the recognition her achievements deserve yet. She deserves to be ranked as one our greatest ever Olympians for what she did in Tokyo.

For whatever reason, it is fashionable in some quarters to bag the Olympics, to say they are ‘irrelevant’. How any sports lover could possibly say that escapes me. The achievement, drama and emotion is unmatched by any other event. Even last night I was trying to keep up with the track finals, football final, the Boomers historic win, and a new Aussie star come so close in the high jump.
it’s a cliche, but it’s true - the Olympics is the greatest show on Earth.
 
Ch 7 did a great job covering the Olympics.

The swimming was a highlight for me, as was the men's basketball. Jess Fox winning nearly brought a tear to my eye.

I enjoyed the Athletics this year with a few Aussies giving a good crack in the finals in the 400m and 1500m.
 
By far the most I've watched, and enjoyed, an olympics. Was 17yo in 2000 so perhaps didn't fully appreciate it.

7+ was magnificent. Every event at your fingertips, basically advert free, with a diverse and unbiased range of commentators. Other than a few games of footy it's all I've watched these past 16 days. Having some leave followed by a working from home period was timely, and the half hour time difference to Tokyo obviously helped. Perhaps having visited Tokyo previously also enhanced my interest this time around.

A few highlights that jump to mind in no particular order:
The table tennis. Have played for about a decade (very much a mid-week hack) but have never bothered to watch the pros. They are phenomenal.
Cross country mountain biking
The track and field in general. Huge admiration for their talents. Moloney/Dubler the highlight in an event I'd never previously paid any attention to.
Fox in the slalom
The Boomers
Woman's soccer final. Have a soft-spot for Canada.
Sports Climbing. Who would have thought..
Lee's bronze in the Marathon Swimming. Is there a lonelier sport than this one? Incredible mental strength.
The indoor volleyball
At risk of sounding like a chauvinistic male, the amount of eye-candy on offer, especially in the track+field events. Not that the female viewers missed out either.
Not necessarily high-points, but some of the interviews with athletes that didn't meet their expectations left an impression.
 

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SA HAWK said:
Was great to be able to stream anything live but lack of full replays is frustrating.

Best coverage was London 2012 when Foxtel had 8 channels i think it was?
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7 plus have full replays of most things, but you have to scroll down a bit to find them, and the scroll through all different replays to find the one you want, they seem to be in a random order. The commentary is the international one though not the channel 7 so you won’t get Gaze and Bogut on the bronze basketball match for example.
 
These were a great games and they were the games that we needed. So many highlights both in competition and on the sidelines.

The other thing I enjoyed was there was no negativity from the coverage, at least not that I can recall. Instead whether the athletes got a medal or not the focus was on what was achieved rather than what wasn’t. That was refreshing.
 
estibador said:
Am I the only one who can't really get into the Winter Olympics?

I mean, I try, but since I've never even seen snow in real life I just can't relate to it on the same level as the real Olympics.
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Feels less "Olympic" as well to me but maybe I'm just being stupid. Obviously not much of the games other than track and field would resemble the original Greek ideas.
 
Congrats to Japan in very difficult circumstances

My highlights - apart from Medals - was Emily Seebohm and Cate Campbell both medalling in their (near) last events. Its unlikely we see them again so thank you

Emma McK - wow - Olympic icon

But the highlight was the introduced/new sports like BMX and rock climbing - the skateboarding not so much but I appreciate the variation

Peter Bol kept a nation watching and Dubley should get the Landy Medal
 
I loved this

Bermuda's Flora Duffy wins gold in women's triathlon race of world champions

The double triathlon world champion dominated the run to win her country's first-ever Olympic gold medal, with 2020 world champion Georgia Taylor-Brown taking silver and 2019 world champion Katie Zaferes bronze.
olympics.com olympics.com

i just love the stories, like the Tunisian kid in the pool, you can’t help but barrack for the underdogs
 
Allezjuel said:
Japan have done an exceptional job running these games more or less without incident, I don't think many other countries could have pulled this off. I honestly wouldn't mind Tokyo been given the games again in the not to distance future to make up for it, as all the venues already exist they could spend minimal money to run it again, and then give the Japanese spectators who missed out on seeing it the chance to, at the same time making up some lost revenue in the process. Tokyo 2040 has a nice ring to it.
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Agreed! Perhaps the IOC should have considered offering Japan another go in 2032 rather than awarding it to Brisbane who let's face it, won it in a Bradbury. 2040 is a bit far down the track and a lot of infrastructure will require updating.

However let's not trivialise the cost of holding the games even with infrastructure already in place. It's astronomical for a nation these days, particularly with more and more sports being added to the list.

I have little worry for athletes who competed in front of volunteers, coaches and fellow athletes in empty stadiums. They didn't lose their cycle. They still competed in an Olympic Games.

I have great sympathy for Japan though.

Imagine the cost of these games to Japan - massive investment in infrastructure and logistics, but very little recoupment directly from ticket sales, and indirectly for the economy of Tokyo, satellite cities for football and the marathon/walks etc, and Japan in general with no boost in tourism or economic spending. If anything, apart from plaudits and pats on the back from a job well done during difficult times, Japan did not get what they or any nation want when they originally bid and won the right to host the games - apart from an exponential rise in COVID-19 data.

We don't live there, all we got (most of Australians) was what Channel 7 chose to show. Imagine Sydney 2000, with a 110k stadium built specifically, the Olympic Park precinct and all the other facilities now (still used but at a fraction of the capacity of the games), being empty during the games after the cost and effort to build them? Imagine that was right now while most of this country is in lockdown and out borders closed?

I enjoyed the games. Loved many of the performances - and I'm an athletics nut so it was great to see a great championships at the national stadium. But there is a great deal of guilt from my end enjoying what was going on over there in the Olympic bubble.

Don't mean to be downer in this thread. Looking forward to Winter Beijing, Comms in Birmingham, World Cup Qatar, and IAAF World Champs in Eugene (the new stadium looks fantastic) in 2022. Just consider what the vibe would be in Australia if Tokyo 2020 was here? I doubt it would be the 'distraction we needed' as it has been described on social media and scribes alike.
 
BobbyMorri said:
crap, I could go on and on.

By one thing to mention. the road cycling. So brutal events and 2 very special winners, especially the female event. crazy winner
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the scenes when the 2nd place thought they won the gold was pretty funny. I would feel bad for them a bit but it was totally their fault they let a breakaway get that far infront.
 
21 years after the world rocked up to Sydney and saw Roy and HG and thought WTF is going on with these guys, before they got it after 2 or 3 days.

NBC decided their country needs a laugh and thru their Peacock network gave Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg a platform to take the piss.

I only yesterday found a tweet with a 1 minute video of their highlight of their call of the opening ceremony and posted it here in yesterday's Day 16 thread a few saw it and have hit the LOL smiley.

Summer - Tokyo 2021 Day 16 Thread

The Australian uniform makes them look like bus drivers. Reminds me I found this today - Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg did the opening ceremony commentary on one of NBC's station 0.28 in they commentate on the Aussie uniform.
www.bigfooty.com www.bigfooty.com

In June I was daily reading SwimSwam magazine's website and their take on the Oz, USA, Canadian and French swimming trials and also during the Olympics, and early this morning I got a notification of their story on Michael Phelps analysing the swimming, in particular the butterfly with Kevin Hart and Snoop Doggy, with Hart challenging Phelps to a butterfly race, they had the link, but it was to NBC Sports who have blocked it in Oz, but I looked around and found the Peacock network youtube page and found a few others you might enjoy.

swimswam.com

Watch: Phelps Talks Technique on Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg's Olympic Highlights

Snoop Dogg and Kevin Hart interviewed Michael Phelps during their Olympic Highlights segment to discuss Hart's technique and Phelps' commenting role in Tokyo.
swimswam.com swimswam.com






These are put up by individuals







 
Im sadder than usual about these Olympics finishing. All over the world the average person needed some joy in their life and watching the Olympics provided that escapism from the dark cloud that COVID19 casts over us all.

On a personal note i suffered an injury the day before the games opened so being bed ridden for almost a week was more easily tolerated with Mckeon and Titmus tearing up the pool. The 2nd week i missed a lot of events because of work and its my mission now to take 2 weeks annual leave for every Olympics for the rest of my life.

Highlight for me was the swimming and those come from behind gold medal performances. Had me cheering at the TV time and time again. And of course the Boomers getting a medal finally. Couldn't be prouder of Mills. Our best basketball player ever!

Lowlight was the Japanese missing out on perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend the games, with the opening ceremony feeling rather short and hollow. Thankfully there was no outbreak of covid among the athletes and a disaster was averted.

The older i get the more i appreciate watching the worlds best do their thing. Today is boring and back to reality and the only solace i can take is the next olympics is only 3 years away.
 
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