Thursday, July 22, 2021
Let the GAMES begin!
And so...the start of the 2020 Summer Olympics are upon us! Only a year and change late...but better than we had any right to expect as of this time last year. We shall see how things go with Covid...already athletes who qualified and arrived are being disqualified and sent home for testing positive...how many more of the worlds best athletes will be denied their chance at these Games? It's hard to say, but we can be assured that not all of the best will get their chance.
I'm especially looking forward to the cycling events...both the ITT and the road....oh, and also the MTB (wasn't it just 5 years ago that Peter Sagan raced in the MTB race, where the reigning top few scoffed at his chances as he was starting dead last, and by the end of the first lap he had passed all but the top few and were on their wheel? That was pretty priceless...and then he flatted, and then again, killing any chance of a top finish.
Ahh well...I know the US as always has a pretty fantastic crop of athletes...we always do quite well in the Summer Games (not so much the winter).
Susie, I'll be counting on you for analysis and play by play...I doubt I'll get to see very much, and I know you will be light-years-ahead of me in viewing time.
So the Opening Ceremony happens tonight, and then officially the games begin (tho they have already started the Soccer if I recall from the news...the US womens team was beat by Sweden if I recall correctly in their first game?)
Game(s) ON!
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The men's road race is going to be a killer! Climbing and long! Hopefully those who just finished the Tour will hold their form, and not be too exhausted by the 3 weeks of racing, followed by a how-many-hours flight and how-many-time-zone changes! Just the last 2 would probably have me laid out before the race tomorrow. So who do you favor? The Belgians, the Serbs, the Brits? I don't think Craddock and McNulty are real contenders :( The American women are stronger in their cycling events, but the Dutch (as always) will be tough to beat.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I have to figure out how to watch the races - the Men's live broadcast is from 10pm until ?am, on USA network which I don't have access to. I think that I may have to sign up for one of the free trials that offers DVR (like Fubu or Hulu+Live)
ReplyDeleteI THINK my Peacock subscription has the Olympics...(just checked...it does, but NOT ANY of the cycling!!) Dang...so...not sure what to do now...will have to ponder this. Oh..and I truly thought the opening ceremonies were tonight (Thurs) but saw on the news tonight they are tomorrow. Looking at the teams, I agree that Belgium would be my pick for the team to beat...Netherlands looks strong also, and also Slovenia (has both Pogacar AND Roglic), The US Mens 'team' is only 2 guys...Craddock and McNulty...so they are pretty outgunned by the stronger 4 man teams (and Belgium has FIVE!...IF I were a betting man I'd be dropping my cash on Woot Van Aert...he was stunning at le Tour! And with Van Avermet, Benoot, Evenepoel, (and the 5th guy I don't recognize...Vansevenant) I'd think they can with with maybe three of them depending on how things go (who is marking who, etc)...I'd THINK Van Aert will be highly marked..as will Van Avermet (who won Gold in Rio 5 years ago). But I agree...it SHOULD be an epic race! AND it's on Saturday!
ReplyDeleteOK...bed time...need to be up EARLY tomorrow...taking Jeannie to the airport and she will be gone for over 2 weeks (girls vacation back in Ohio...Cinti)...while I meanwhile will have the monsters and bikes and work to keep me occupied...plenty for sure!
Howdy, howdy. :) For one of the very few times of the last 18 years, I did NOT get the usual PTD (post-Tour Depression) after the Tour concluded as I was so much looking forward to the Olympics AND finally had my roof replaced on Tuesday! Whoo-hoo! The guy who will be doing the interior work in my 2nd floor guest room stopped by this morning to "take a look" & I'm waiting to hear from him to see if I can get the work done next Thursday.
ReplyDeleteThe Olympics Opening Ceremony was shown LIVE this morning on NBC (& an edited version will be shown tonight). As expected due to the circumstances, it was lackluster & even though the parade of athletes took a looong time, there were actually only a small % of each country's athletes walking & then many left right after. Completely understandable but weird & sad all the same. There were some bright spots : the enactment of the Olympic Pictograms (LOVED THIS!) & the drones forming a world. It will be interesting to see how the various competitions both play out without "spectators" to the athletes & to those of us viewing on TV. The Olympics has always been a "TV show" to 99% of viewers but to ignore the excitement that the spectators always contributes is naive.
Honestly, as much as I want these Olympics to take place, I think the IOC & Japan have FAILED at preparation. 1st, I think it is INSANE that EVERYONE INVOLVED (athletes, coaches, orgs, volunteers, workers, etc) did not have to be fully vaccinated against Covid! Don't want the vaccine? Well then, YOU CAN'T COME! And WHY has Japan trailed so badly at getting their own people vaccinated?! At the very least, they should have concentrated on getting at least 90% of people in Tokyo fully vaccinated. Was Japan not able to get the vaccines from Pfizer & Moderna?
Hopefully, the Covid "rules" in place in the Village & at the venues are rigorous. And we won't see a massive outbreak. That would be heartbreaking, scary & possibly tragic.
A heads up : Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of the US East Coast so most LIVE action is during our night & very early morning. As in Beijing, the swimming HEATS will be in the early mornings OUR time (their night) & the Finals will be LIVE during evening Primetime (which is their morning). The gymnastics will take place in the early mornings (our time) & shown live ONLY on Peacock! It will then be edited & shown at night during Primetime on NBC so we will already know the results. Not ideal but it actually helps getting all the good stuff into the Primetime shows.
Other Olympic sports will be shown on USA, CNBC, NBCSN & the Golf Channel.
Gotta run! Have fun watching the Olympics & I'll catch up Monday! :)
Susie, sounds like things are finally turning around for you...glad to hear it! I also don't have my usual PTDS...not sure if it was the Olympics or what...anyhoo, gotta scoot...happy Olympic-binge-viewing!
DeleteI think van Avermet will just be support - this doesn't seem to be his kind of course, IIRC.
ReplyDeleteNBC continues to make watching the top cycling events as hard as possible! If you don't have access to USA channel with your setup, Matt, and you don't want to sign up for either Fubo or Hulu + Live (free trials at both), it looks like Sporza.be is not georestricted for the Olympics, and you can watch their livestream (commentary will be in Flemish) of the races. Then open another window for an English language site like cyclingnews for a ticker, or open the Sporza ticker and have your Edge or Chrome
autotranslate it.
My browser (Edge) translates the page:
ReplyDeletehttps://sporza.be/nl/matches/wielrennen/olympische-spelen/2021/olympische-spelen-kijk-vanaf-4-uur-naar-de-wegrit-in-tokio~1625695563861/
Thanks Rae...I'll have to see if I can get it (after my bike ride of course...tomorrow morning I'm out with the road group). Just finished watching the opening ceremony...boy the IOC chairman dude's speech went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...you get it...I hit the 30 second FF button a BUNCH Of times, he was STILL talking! Like Susie, I thought the drone-globe was pretty fantastic (ok, one of the most fantastic things I've seen)...and you have to give them credit for their fireworks on the roof of the stadium...the final bit was really amazing! As a guy who works in electronics, I can only imagine the work and equipment required for the drones and the fireworks. And keep in mind that working with pyro's is VERY VERY dangerous stuff...we also work with pyro's occasionally, and it's very spooky working with stuff that can explode from a spark or stray RF signal...we have mandatory training annually for it and wear special nomex suits that suppress static electricity. Setting up all those enormous mortar-fireworks and getting them all wired to fire on their specific electrical pulse would be terrifying! And there was obviously a LOT.
ReplyDeleteOK..I'm off to bed...tomorrow the Games officially BEGIN!
Game(s) ON!
SO...when I was getting ready to go to bed last night I went to the NBCSports website, clicked on Olympics, and eventually worked my way thru to the cycling and lo and behold, the Mens Road Race was LIVE!! I couldn't get video but the site had the route profile and where they were at, with the info on the break and the chase and the peleton...so I watched it for over an hour clicking on everything I could sort of watching via slo-mo text (like in High School playing Star Trek on the time-share basic computer...I was in a Basic programming class). I digress...I couldn't stay awake long enough to see the end...just peeked...WOW! The top group was as expected, just the order was not...won't give it away here in case you all haven't seen it yet, and I still hope to find some way to get video replay if possible...
ReplyDeleteOK...gotta go get ready to ride...life goes on and I have miles to hammer out! Happy Saturday!
I signed up for the one week free trial of Fubo, so I DVR'd the race and watched it this AM (no I didn't sit watch all 6 hours! I looked at the newspaper, checked my emails, did laundry & other chores until the last 90 minutes or so).
ReplyDeleteDiscovered later that the NBC Olympics channel (used to be NBCSports channel on my Roku) DID show it live, and has a replay! There was no indication anywhere that they would yesterday! I had signed into the channel using my Gold log-in when it was still NBCSports, but after the cycling pass had supposedly expired, and yet it is still showing me as logged in. So, even after that free trial is over on Saturday, I will be able to see the track events!
What a race! Poor Geraint, crashed out again. And WOW Brandon McNulty!! I did think that he might be (more or less) working for Pogacar, but when there were just a few Kms left and he was still out front with Carapaz I was going wild! and again in the last sprint, but no chance I guess against Poga and Van Aert - I think Van Aert might have won if anyone had cooperated with him in the chase, but he had to do ALL the work after his team was used up. Anyway, congrats to McNulty for a great ride, and to Carapaz (Ecuador is going wild!) for a smart one!
I had checked my old NBCSPorts Gold site and that's where I found the paper-site last night...then this AM before heading out for my bike ride I was looking on the TV at the upcoming Olympic NBC broadcasts, and there in the 2nd slot it showed volleyball, mens road race, and a few other things! So I recorded it and watched it this afternoon...didn't show the whole race, more like the highlights + the last 40K or so...AWESOME! (and FREE!) Boy was I surprised! And I also was shouting at my TV for McNulty to hold on! If he could have just stayed with Carapaz he would have had Silver...but alas, it was too much for the rookie and the gang caught him, and even so he slipped into a high place, very cool!!
ReplyDeleteI've been binging on Olympics (off my DVR) all day when I wasn't doing other things...didn't end up getting a lot done other than TV and my bike ride turns out...that will have to stop, but it is day 1 and all new. Volleyball, swimming, and gosh...the Mens Volleyball..they jump SO HIGH it blows my mind! (I played a lot of VB in the Navy and after...indoors, beach and grass triples)...I'm ONLY 6' and had a pretty decent jump, but those guys have their heads WAY above the net (meaning they have a LOT of those very long arms WAY above/over the net...and they hit so hard! I actually prefer to watch the ladies as there are more volleys...but the US/France match was still pretty great.
What else...gosh, seen so much I've already forgotten a bunch...too much...overload...on day ONE!
SO MUCH going on in the Olympics, my tiny brain is overloaded! Just watched the young Alaskan girl win the 100M Breaststroke...Lily King has officially handed over the torch (took 3rd)...what a wonderful surprise! And the look on her face when she was looking up at the board and realized she had WON! That was just WONDERFUL!
ReplyDeleteSusie, I just got a check in the mail from the Floyd Landis settlement lawsuit...I won't go into detail here about my big score (uhm..gag, choke)...let's just say that I MIGHT be able to buy a cup of coffee somewhere (other than Starbucks)...tho likely not even that...maybe HALF a cup? (can you BUY half a cup?) Yep...feeling pretty smug now that he learned HIS lesson! NOT!
Hey Matt - I got a check yesterday too for $17.55. LOL, it's LESS than 3% of what I gave that piece of shit. On the check stub, it states "This may only be a partial payment towards your total loss". Do you think that means more should be coming or are they saying "this is it, bub, you were an idiot for believing in that piece of shit & this is the price you paid"? Tomorrow, I'll call the phone# referenced on the check & see what they say. I'm actually shocked we got ANYTHING after MORE THAN A DECADE. I keep all the stuff I was mailed & emailed about the "Landis court case" in an envelope in my desk at work & EVERY DAMN DAY I open that particular drawer & see it, I get enraged all over again.
ReplyDeleteI only chuckle at myself for how naïve I was to believe in him...maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time believing that Valverde is as good as he is being 41 (if Simone is ancient then he is a true dinosaur!) Tho you put a lot more into his fund than I did...(I even drove a few hours after work one night to buy a copy of his book and have him sign it). I guess I'm just a trusting fool...need to be kicked in the head to wake up from that sometimes. Anyway, I HOPE you do indeed get more...I chuckled when I read that part, saying to myself "yea..don't hold your breath").
DeleteAnyhoo, I'm also Olympic-saturated & it's only the 4th day! My TV has been on one of the Olympic channels 24/7 & when awake, I keep flipping back & forth looking for what I want to watch. I got to see just the starts of the men's & women's road cycling races but luckily, NBC then later broadcasted the final kilometers. I thought poor Bobke was going to literally choke when that nobody-Austrian woman was on the way to winning the Gold.
ReplyDeleteOverall, my joy AND fears are both coming true about these Olympics. For many veteran athletes who were timing their 4-year peaks to LAST July & then couldn't train at all for weeks/months & then had to start again, the delay has had irreparable damage for some (some didn't even make their Olympic teams & others just couldn't re-peak after the last year of fear/uncertainty/anger/depression). In last night's swimming, we saw 3 Americans that probably WOULD have won Golds in their events if held in 2020, take only Bronzes. It BROKE MY HEART! Sure, it was fun to see the Alaskan teenager have the swim of her life, but Lily King is one of my all-time faves & I really wanted her to swim to Gold again.
And now today (SPOILER ALERT!) with Simone Biles withdrawing from the team competition after one event (vault) & the non-stop questioning on TV/Twitter if it was due to injury "or what"! Honestly, she has not looked like herself when competing since the US Championships. I think she's been injured all this time & they've kept it hidden (understandable). She's 24 & that is ANCIENT for a female gymnast. Plus, because she keeps pushing the envelope, her poor body is probably just been pushed too far. Every Olympics, I WORRY nonstop about illness &/or injury befalling my chosen heroes & until their events are completed, I don't exhale. THIS year, because of everything that happened the past year, I was just happy the Olympics were actually happening & didn't do my usual worrying. So, it's MY FAULT! I'm sorry Simone!
Oh...that's it Susie...I'm emailing Simone right now...letting her know WHO's fault it is that she's dropping out! Oh wait...I think that's her on my cell...give me a moment...
ReplyDeleteYep...it was her...just ratted you out. I said "hey Sim (my bff name for her)...Susie is the one you need to blame here...she DIDN'T worry for you this year! I mean, seriously Susie...you need to up your game...people are counting on your worry for them to make it thru!
I'm playing a bit of catch up with the Olympics (just watching the women's RR now - boy I am impressed with the crowds! so nice to see) and haven't watched nearly as much as I usually do.
ReplyDeleteRE Simone - I was surprised since it sounded like she had been hammering it in the practices - but every picture I saw of her, her face just looked exhausted if not downright ill. So, I guess her coach and the USOC probably share a great deal of blame -- along with you, of course, SusieB!!
This must have been the week for settlement disbursements. I received my $10.75 check of recompense for the loss of over $5k in a mutual fund that collapsed a couple of years ago. Let me be clear though - I didn't buy that fund, I inherited it; it was a completely inappropriate investment sold to my elderly & sick stepmother by her investment advisor. One of the reasons I will never use one of those firms/advisors.
ReplyDeleteThere are firms/advisors that are on the up and up...but you'd need to do your homework...any that would target seniors (especially sick ones) are pathetic human beings (pretty much right in there just behind the scammers as far as I'm concerned...someone who can knowingly swindle seniors out of their nest-egg savings that they NEED to live on...I hope there is a VERY special place in HELL for those!) One of those got to our dad years back after he had finally sold his RV (my brothers and I had no idea it had sold)...it was at a lot being sold on consignment...and one day my big bro looked online (he checked now and then to see if it was still for sale)..it wasn't, so he called the dealership, it had sold over a month ago...so he called Dad and he had no idea where the money was (it was all gone...close to 20k). All he had to live on was his SS at that time...which isn't any sort of a livable wage. Hopefully whoever was responsible for that gets their due...we can only hope.
DeleteAnd hey...Olympics! Last night was pretty awesome in the swimming! Some really great moments and awesome performances by the Americans! And watched some of the tandem diving too...mind blowing stuff, especially the top 3 teams, they were just INCREDIBLE!
I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a rest from sports! The Olympics following so closely on the heels of the TDF (what was that, was there a bike race less than a month ago somewhere?) has me EXHAUSTED! Jeannie has been on a 'girls vacation' (back in the Cincinnati area) for the last 2 weeks, allowing me complete and total control over the remote (very unusual as we normally 'share')...thus other than the news in the mornings as I'm getting ready for work, it's been all Olympics from the moment I get home until I go to bed every night!
ReplyDeleteThere has been SO MANY amazing performances I have lost track. One thing that stuck in my craw from a week or so ago...the mens 800M track preliminaries...can't remember the names but one of the Americans was running and was tripped from the guy behind (he was moving over to get out of the crowd)...the American fell and the guy who caused it fell on top of him...they were both out...so the American got up, held out his hand and helped the other guy up, they hugged and jogged to the finish together. It made big news due to the 'sportsmanship' of it...later the guy who CAUSED IT was reinstated into the final, and the American WHO DID NOTHING WRONG wasn't! WHAT KIND OF BS IS THAT?? Do any of you have any insight into this that I missed? Apparently the guy who CAUSED IT was one of the top contenders, and the American wasn't...is this some kind of Olympic politics? I just don't get it.
Other than that, just amazing stuff. I've watched lots of volleyball (indoor and Beach, way to go to April Ross and her new partner! Ross is freaking AMAZING beyond belief!!) And I didn't see it, but just heard (on the morning news, this is my Friday off) that last night 35yr old Allison Felix just won the Bronze in the 400M, and has now medaled in FOUR STRAIGHT Games! How amazing is THAT!
OK...I need more coffee, and then figure out where/what to ride this morning...my last weekend as a bachelor (Jeannie comes home Monday)...so I have THREE STRAIGHT DAYS to ride guilt-free!(other than the sad-eyes of the fur-babies when I walk out the door...lots of guilt there!)
Have a great weekend and enjoy the last of the Games!