The London 2012 Olympics: Current affairs discussion

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

l, I still am angry at the waste of money tho.

Now let me see.
A nice new world class stadium..
A nice new Olympic standard swimming stadium.
A new cycling stadium..along with a bmx track

A whole set of buildings in the Athletes village that will be used as flats by Londoners after the Olympics have long closed..2,818 new homes.all with parks with improved transport system.
Plus a whole lot more..

Why don't you actually do some damned research?

http://www.london2012.com/mm%5CDocum...t2_Neutral.pdf

Or is it just that you can't put your preconceived prejudices to one side.

Oh and remember these games were sought and gained under a Labour Government and completed by a Coalition government so scoring political points is pretty meaningless.

[Russ]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-attacks.html

Just the sort of thing you'd expect from an American broadcaster. Imagine if we did the same about 9/11.

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Now let me see.
A nice new world class stadium..
A nice new Olympic standard swimming stadium.
A new cycling stadium..along with a bmx track

A whole set of buildings in the Athletes village that will be used as flats by Londoners after the Olympics have long closed..2,818 new homes.all with parks with improved transport system.
Plus a whole lot more..

Why don't you actually do some damned research?

http://www.london2012.com/mm%5CDocum...t2_Neutral.pdf

Or is it just that you can't put your preconceived prejudices to one side.

Oh and remember these games were sought and gained under a Labour Government and completed by a Coalition government so scoring political points is pretty meaningless.

Well said Maggie ,from what i have seen in my travels to that area a practically derelict area has been regenerated and is still being improved

[nodrogd]

Originally Posted by danielf

...What was wrong with Paul McCartney though. He wasn't quite out of sync, but it sounded like he was performing in gale force winds?....

Definately had a hitch with his mic at the start. Replayed it and they definately spliced in pre-recorded for a few seconds.

[carlwaring]

Originally Posted by devilincarnate

I did like this article for those who do not like the Olympics?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...tledge-1176109

Caption:.... Rowan Atkinson pretends to be bored by the ceremony

No. Mr Bean was bored playing the same one note over and over again!! Nice spin though

Originally Posted by carlwaring

.

Question..is the host nation's team always the last in? (as otherwise that was stupid!)

.

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Yep, tradition these days is Greece first as the birthplace, the rest in alphabetical order and finally the host nation

Yep

During the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the procession of athletes is always led by the Greek team, followed by all the other teams in alphabetical order (in the language of the hosting country), except for the last team which is always the team of the hosting country.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/gre...ympicfacts.htm

---------- Post added at 14:19 ---------- Previous post was at 13:24 ----------

I've just watched the opening ceremony on Iplayer and it was truly brilliant ,it captured the essence of Britain perfectly to me and shows how much we have as a country given the rest of the world

well done to the organisers they did us proud

---------- Post added at 14:29 ---------- Previous post was at 14:19 ----------

Originally Posted by danielf

Brilliant music as well (are U2 now British?).

I think that they were in it more as recognition for their charity work with underdeveloped countries which is one of the Olympic ideals

I'm not sure if Muhammed Ali should have been there though. That bit was painful to watch.

It was sad to see the worlds greatest sportsman in such a state


W

hat was wrong with Paul McCartney though. He wasn't quite out of sync, but it sounded like he was performing in gale force winds?

lets face it he never was a great singer and as he gets older his voice gets worse .

[Angua]

Just wondering if the Chinese cycling farmer got his wish?

[Russ]

It was painful to watch The World's Greatest in such a way but I'm sure he was happy to attend. It was a nice touch having him playing a significant part.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Not even events that we might have a hope of gold? I hate sports and it's coverage but I ALWAYS watch the Olympics.

Nope - I hate watching sport. It bores me, even if it's Team GB at the Olympics or England at the football.

The TV will be showing it all non-stop... but only because Mrs D loves it all. I won't be watching.

Originally Posted by Russ

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-attacks.html

Just the sort of thing you'd expect from an American broadcaster. Imagine if we did the same about 9/11.

Another story on it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012...ony?CMP=twt_gu


No surprise really. NBC's coverage came in for criticism from the very beginning.

- No live-stream, just a time-delayed broadcast that began when the ceremony finished.

- The NBC presenters were ignorant of who Tim Berners-Lee was. Apparently they suggested to the audience that they just Google him, not knowing that if it wasn't for TBL in the first place they would not be able to Google TBL...

- Replacing the "memorial wall" section with a Ryan Seacrest interview

In case you were wondering what the Queen was thinking during the Olympics opening ceremony.....

Originally Posted by Matt D

- The NBC presenters were ignorant of who Tim Berners-Lee was. Apparently they suggested to the audience that they just Google him, not knowing that if it wasn't for TBL in the first place they would not be able to Google TBL...

- Replacing the "memorial wall" section with a Ryan Seacrest interview

I think they where just ****ed at being reminded of how much GB has given the world, from industry to the WWW

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...&sct=hp_t11_a0

An interesting slant on the opening.

---------- Post added at 15:46 ---------- Previous post was at 15:38 ----------

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19029510

Boris loved the whole ceremony.

Speaking at the Olympic Park, Mr Johnson said: "It wasn't global 'Brito-pap'. It wasn't just Big Ben and Beefeaters and red buses and stuff. It was actually the truth about this country in the last two or three hundred years told in a big, dynamic way.
"People say it was all leftie stuff. That is nonsense. I'm a Conservative and I had hot tears of patriotic pride from the beginning. I was blubbing like Andy Murray.
"I thought it was stupefying, one of the most amazing events I have ever seen.
"The big anxiety we had was, could we do something that would rival Beijing. I think we knocked the spots off it."

Originally Posted by Maggy J

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...&sct=hp_t11_a0

An interesting slant on the opening.

A good read

[mertle]

goto say the cycling coverage was farse as bad team gb keeping the breakaways in check.

First gripe was the shoddy camera work One case the camera was moved left right like shaking.

Not giving us enough butchers who were in breakaways. In tour de france they will drive past give each shot.

Concentrating too much on one group. Airial shots too far away at times not letting us judge time gaps over time points as they spun off to show leaders. Which was crucial because some idiot didnt even bother giving us time gaps to groups enough. It was very rare to see captions.

Farse complete farse then we had this stupid slomo they do round this corner.

If they cant do it good enough then dont bother it became hard to watch because we was not getting information.
I dont know who was the idiots in charge of it BEEB or IOC but they need to do much better job.

It was like you was sat or stood watching race from the sides the information was soo poor.

Too cap it commentary drop very frequent awful plain awful organisation.

Not sure it was this bad in bejing.

I hope womens road race coverage improves 1,000%. If its just farse will stop watching it. Love my cycling but could not watch it like that again.

---------- Post added at 16:47 ---------- Previous post was at 16:44 ----------

Originally Posted by martyh

A good read

indeed you hear about load cyclist got kettled started fighting the police over it. Aparantly they do this ride every month but last night police would not let them do it.

[danielf]

I agree there wasn't enough info, but the commentators weren't at fault, as they didn't have the info. The Beeb would do well to hire a commentator who can actually tell the riders apart. The number of mix-ups was astonishing.