Your Rio 2016 Summer Olympics anticipation thread!

Had to miss some of it due to a phone call -- interesting, a full section on Japanese immigration, I guess?

Second country with the most japanese + Tokyo 2020 kinds of explain it? I think there was arab merchants as well?

Now that is one long strut.

Glad to be with you, Ned. Usually it's just me and Bee in the San Francisco Giants threads.

can someone just post every date/time bolt is running & phelps is swimming obrigado

Al Gore to take the mic at any moment.

I thought a Brazil piece on BBC news channel last night had a young female singer saying she was performing with Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. Didn't see anything before the teams started being introduced.

I'm legit torn here, as my family has an invested interest in this olympics--a sprinter my dad coaches is competing, and my parents are there watching--but its not like I don't get (and agree with) all of the reasons this is wrong, stupid, irresponsible, etc.

I like Olympic sports but wow, opening ceremonies are dumb as hell. Go straight to the sports.

Andy Murray one fisting it there. As it were.

Can't wait for the entrance of the Refugees' Team.

Didn't know Palestine competed as its own nation, pretty dope.

Refugee team was a moment...

Truly. Was worth the wait.

Agreed.

Also FU Heatherwick, that torch is beautiful.

Quite glad it wasn't Pelé.

Yeah, the torch rules. And cool to see Gil and Veloso just continuing to do the damn thing.

God I hate NBC coverage.

Oh believe me, the way to see this is via the BBC website and VPN access. Especially since they offered a feed *without* commentary, which is what I was watching. Kinda perfect.

Meantime, I question the adverb in the headline.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/nation-world/article/USA-basketball-players-accidentally-visit-brothel-9125583.php

This is why I don't watch broadcast tv. Too many trailers for movies I could otherwise ignore.

WTF: Jim Gaffigan is in an advert for Chrysler minivans scored by "Real Human Being" from the Drive soundtrack

So Gil and Veloso did turn up? Maybe I should have stayed up and watched more of the ceremony.
Seemed pretty nice. Not that interested in the sport. Do hope refugees and Palestine get some high scores. Would be nice to see some gold but wonder if they've had as much chance to train.

Ceremony was v colorful & creative, good vibes imo

Nbc commentary lame jingoistic & dullas usual

dull as*

flame contraption was so dooooope

Enjoyed that, pretty restrained after Beijing and London but the forest section looked awesome. We turned off and went to bed sometime around the Cook Islands so I missed the refugee team and whoever ended up lighting the torch.

Caught like two minutes worth of the BBC's 'Olympic Breakfast' this morning, that was two minutes too long.

Proper coverage:

http://gawker.com/a-perfectly-legal-and-transformative-visual-interpretat-1784908618

caught up with it this morning, ended up fwding through the silly spectacle and just watching the athletes' parade. might have teared up at the refugee team (am hungover). also, the iranian flagbearer! former taekwondo competitor who was disabled in (??? forgot - bomb blast or earthquake?) and turned her focus to archery, and has qualified for both olympic & paralympic games in it :)

Early highlight in women's handball, reigning Olympic champions Norway vs World champions Brazil. Nervous opening though, and as usual Norwegian team slow out of the gate.

yusra mardini won the first 100m butterfly heat!

Watching the men's cycling road race here -- not even the first circuit at the end and this is clearly going to take out a lot of competitors before it's all over. Wonder how many will actually finish.

I'm a bit behind watching on dvr - dumoulin abandoned so early! weird that he would race if he wasn't healed up

Whew well I won't give away anything but my prediction is coming true.

water polo teams all look like the guys who stole yr lunch & stuffed u in lockers in high school

Watching these streams (table tennis and soccer) without commentator blather is great.

i need to investigate the streams

Just don't try to step in the same stream twice.

lol

I'm jumping between the four streams of women's table tennis and it's really interesting to see the different styles of play.
xp fnarrr

first Olympic gold ever for Vietnam! Hoang Xuan Vinh, men's 10m air pistol.

Big upset in tennis as Aga Radwanska loses R1 to Zheng Saisai though tbh considering Radwanska had to fly from Montréal to NYC to Lisbon to Rio in the past week thanks to a missed connection - and played like it - she was always a R1 upset candidate

OH JESUS CHRIST THAT VIDEO OF THE FRENCH GYMNAST BREAKING HIS LEG NOOOOOO

SILVER MEDAL TO DENMARK IN CYCLING! HELL YEAH!!

https://ssl.gstatic.com/onebox/media/olympics/photos/o16/live/RIOEC8613SYM1_768x432.JPG

I hope you're athletes are as funny and undisciplined as ours. Two cyclists were interviewed about the silver medal, one said it was 'fucking sindsygt (insane)', the other went 'yeah... hum... it's... fuuuuuck...' :)

Hearing the crowd completely TRASH Hope Solo every time she has the ball is one hell of a thing.

this table tennis match between the czech dude and the nigerian dude is high quality

Archery is lit. Loved watching the final between Korea and USA.

What's the big fuss about Hope Solo? Am I missing something?

Solo overreacted to Zika fears. So now the home folks are giving her their thoughts (booing whenever she has the ball and screaming "ZIKA!" whenever she does a goal kick).

Also Lochte has historically been a 'big event' swimmer - he peaks at Olympics/Worlds and swims like a dead dog the rest of the season (this has generally got results, until this year). This means his non-sponsor earning potential at Pro Series/World Cup meets is way less than year-round pros like Chad Le Clos or Katinka Hosszu. For context, Hosszu is the only swimmer to ever top $1m in career prize money, and she is a massive outlier - unless you race every weekend like her, the prize money barely pays your airfare/accommodation - definitely not coaching/physio staff etc. I doubt Lochte's new cough sweet gig will make up for the loss of the Speedo contract so maybe he'll switch up his in-season game. He's going to have to do *something* different as his last few years of peripatetic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ training clearly didn't do the job: while he won the 200IM at Worlds last year, it was with a now-illegal underwater kick, clearly making up for lack of closing speed (last length was half a second down on his WR split; on the 200free he was 2nd for 150m then went backwards on the last 50, finishing 4th) which was fully exposed in Rio (last length 1.5sec down on his WR split!). It will be interesting ('interesting') to see if he does try a Hosszu and goes for prize money, or sacks off any sort of credibility and goes full-on Cher infomercial. I doubt he'll quit just yet but I can't see him making the 2020 team.

Right, I'm re-lurking now - unless a dedicated swimming thread starts up I'll see you all in 4 years :)

If you'd write more posts as interesting as that, I would definitely be pro a dedicated swimming thread :)

fo real, tell us more about the illegal kick thing!?

https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/fina-officially-makes-ryan-lochte-turn-illegal-in-im-races/

Backstroke kick is faster and less effort for Lochte, saving energy for his final free leg. So basically his 200IM finish has suffered a fair bit as a result of the rule change. Still world class obv, but no longer the gold-medal-cert-if-Phelps-isn't-around of the last 4 years. I guess his best shot now is the 4x200 relay, where he's always been consistently good (even this year). Can't let your teammates down! Apart from doing a runner & saddling them with a $10k fine!

interesting, thanks!

good posts, ty!

These Russian leaks are insane. And the state news are using it for propaganda purposes. Throw this asshole state out of professional sports at this point.

Bill Sweeney, chief executive of the British Olympic Association, said: "The British public have a fantastic opportunity to meet their Rio heroes."

The velodrome training centre for Team GB's track cycling athletes, who have brought home 11 Olympic medals, is based in the city with many of the team living nearby - including Sir Bradley Wiggins who will be absent from both celebrations.

it is quite heartwarming to see someone who isn't really into all this vulgar showiness, such modesty and humility should be applauded.