Quaker2001

6 hours ago, Monzanator said:

USA will not boycott, NBC paid too much money to broadcast OG to have it without US athletes.

 

As for Poland, we could have a Civic Platform government in 2024 so whatever the current Minister of Sport says would be immediately rendered useless and it's not worth speculating on until the elections take place.

4 hours ago, mrv86 said:

Probably the main reason why USOC would not boycott.

 

The United States government does not have oversight over the USOPC.  Nor do they provide funding.  The USOPC changed their bylaws after 1980 so they wouldn't be forced into a boycott by the President.  It's their stated mission to send athletes to the Olympics.  So there is no shot of a boycott, yes in large part because they known the NBC money and the exposure that comes along with it is too big.  Besides, Jimmy Carter has said in hindsight it was a making to boycott 1980.  I can't imagine anyone would want a repeat of that for 2024.

10 hours ago, NearPup said:

I like these pictograms as art pieces. Not sure how well they work as, well, pictograms.

I said to someone on Twitter.. creative teams for TV networks will have some fun with these.  Might not be the most useful to identify what sport they're all for, which will be unfortunate for people on the ground in Paris

9 hours ago, Dolby said:

IOC is being accused of being an echo chamber but aren't you guys also in an echo chamber if you think that whole world wants to ban Russia/Belarus? 

 

For years, we have been fed this bullshit of "Don't mix politics with sports" and now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, it is ok to mix politics with sports? Would you all, who are asking for ban on Russians, be ok if tomorrow India bans Pakistani athletes from a major tournament hosted by India? 

Not the whole world, but seems like there's more than a few countries who don't like the IOC's decision on this one.  And considering there hasn't been a Russian flag at the last 3 Olympics, it's not like this isn't without cause.  Their NOC was banned for a state-sponsored doping scandal, and then after they used the last Olympics to begin an invasion on Ukraine, the IOC is looking for pathways for them to be allowed back in?  That's not living in an echo chamber.  That's acknowledging the reality of the situation.  Yes, I'm aware that not everyone feels the same way and that the population outside the Western world is bigger than the majority of the Americas and Europe that is calling for the ban.

That all said.. this is the IOC we're talking about.  They claim to advocate for human rights, but then they say they're apolitical when it's not convenient for them.  They are trying to be accommodating for Russian athletes (some of whom would undoubtedly return home with a Z displayed on their clothing), and yet they'll shame other countries who push back against that decision and who might threaten to boycott.

This is the state of the Olympics these days.  The problem remains that the Olympic movement is under the control of an organization of corrupt autocrats who don't realize how much they are disliked throughout much of the world.  I'm not rooting for them to go down because that would be a shame for sport and for the athletes.  But until they have that realization of the Olympic brand being tarnished, perhaps to the point it can't be repaired, there's no catch all solution for this.

2 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

Because the IOC, and to a greater extent the wider international sports network, has become an echo chamber that confirms the viewpoints of those in charge. It was honestly amusing watching PanamSports, EOC, OCA, ANOC, IFs, NOCs, etc. trip over each other to welcome the IOC’s position 
 

This isn’t to say there is or isn’t large support for the path they’re going down, I just feel like you’d really expect to see a greater diversity of viewpoints on such a divisive subject 

The IOC doesn't want to listen to outside opinions.  And Bach doesn't want to get on the bad side of leaders like Putin in case he needs him to host an Olympics.

I think the biggest mistake was being so openly public about wanting to include the Russians in Paris, in whatever form that would take.  I've see a lot of sentiment on social media that people will tune out the Olympics if Russia is there.  I know I'm not taking that tact, but we saw it happen with China.  It would be a shame if we had another Olympics clouded by politics, but sadly that's the road we're headed down.  And there's really not much of a way around that problem so long as Russia continues their offensive in Ukraine

Don't know if Thomas Bach or anyone at the IOC will take note of this, but it's an interest change of position for Anne Hidalgo..

Paris Mayor Against Russian Athletes Competing In 2024 Olympics 'While War Goes On'

3 hours ago, phelps said:

not really surprised...

 

I think most people ready to begin the season in the USA don't want to spend a while thousends miles away to play the WBC.

 

if we were playing in a US-based group, most likely we would have a much more competitive team.

 

still, I hope to be able to watch some good, exciting baseball instead of that thing named Spring Training.

And also, the Mets have a lot of players participating, so it wouldn't surprise me if someone got in his ear and told him it would be smarter if he was in camp with them.  Not that he's playing for a job or anything like that now that he has his contract

1 hour ago, JoshMartini007 said:

 

A large part of those 40 nations are those that disagree with their participation, but would still compete if BLR/RUS compete. The amount that would boycott is in the single digits (unless something drastically changes for the worst)

My thoughts exactly.  A lot of nations - again, this one in particular - will express their dissatisfaction with the IOC, but I don't believe for a second they'll withhold athletes from competing.  

6 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

Polish Sports Minister is hyping up a statement to be made by around 40 NOCs sometime in the near future saying that they don’t support the participation of BLR/RUS. Assuming that actually happens, it would be quite the fracture in the Olympic Movement (again, assuming that actually happens and it’s not just postering on his part.)

 

Link: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230202-poland-expects-40-nations-to-oppose-russian-athletes-at-olympics

We'll see how serious these threats of a boycott are.  There's a lot of time before things start to get serious in the ramp up to Paris 2024.  I can promise you that for any notions about the United States boycotting, the USOPC will stand pretty firm that they plan on sending athletes to Paris.  However they have to message that to avoid making it seem like they're supportive of the IOC's decision

7 hours ago, rafalgorka said:

And tbh, i really don’t care about Paris 24 that much

 

what i care is how to stop this war

 

and if not allowing BLRUS to perform in Paris may help to stop the war somehow i am for it 100%
 

but i don’t know how not-allowing could help to stop it ofc

 

THE PROBLEM IS i am sure that allowing them to participate will not help to stop the war at all, 

as things stand today

For all the times that the IOC has claimed to advocate for human rights (and then not advocate for human rights when they claim they can't actually change the world), the course of the war probably will not be affected by whether or not there are Russian athletes competing in Paris.  That said, there is definitely an argument that their presence there will be used as a propaganda tool to support the war.  So I can fully understand why there's no good solution here

On 1/28/2023 at 8:22 PM, JoshMartini007 said:

Back in 1980 it took a lot of political push from the world's most influential nation and even then the United States only picked up a handful of mid to high economic nations to join them on their boycott. Most of Europe still competed in some capacity.

 

Even if the United States was 100% in for the boycott in 2024 I doubt they could convince a similar number of African and Asian nations to join them like they did in 1980.

It doesn't matter how many nations boycott.  What matters is the money.  If the United States were to boycott (which they won't.. the USOPC changed their bylaws after 1980 to largely detach themselves from government involvement so the president wouldn't have the authority that Carter did to force their hand), then the IOC doesn't get their TV money from NBC.  That's what would cripple them.  But that's not going to happen.  The USOPC exists to send athletes to the Olympics and NBC will want the show to go on.

8 minutes ago, phelps said:

tbh, I always dreamed of a coverage like we had in Tokyo...

 

OK, Discovery messed up quite a few things, but having all the streams (in good quality, even if I missed the 4K a lot) of all the events live and on demand was priceless.

 

for the first time ever, I could really choose what to watch and when...I only hope that next time round they will keep the Olympic streams available on the apps for connected devices a bit longer, so to easily get all the things I had to skip in the 2 Olympic weeks because of the lack of time.

 

and OK, it's behind a paywall, but it's an extremely cheap wall, that 99% of people can easily afford without any regret.

 

therefore I'm more than happy of this new deal between WB-D and the IOC.

2 minutes ago, Grassmarket said:

Yeah: I’d rather pay & get the service than not pay & not get it.  

NBC messed up big time with Tokyo because they were touting Peacock as their big new streaming service, but didn't really advertise the fact they'd only have coverage of certain events.  And some of the live events they did have were on the free version rather than the subscription service.  Plus, I interacted with some people that weren't aware that every event could be live streamed through their app if you have a cable subscription.

They fixed that for Beijing.  All of the streaming was there, so you get everything with the basic subscription tier.  I remember back in the day the thinking was "wouldn't it be great if NBC had a pay-per-view where you could get all the Olympics."  Well, that's exactly what we have now.  For $5, sign up for Peacock for the month and cancel right after.  Sure, technically that's a paywall, but that's an unbelievably good deal for the country that once put a $125 price point on the Olympics Triplecast.  Looking forward to clapping back at the "it's the Olympics, they should be free" crowd next summer when they're complaining that $5 is too expensive.  For.. the.. entire.. Olympics!

I've heard a lot about this arrangement for the past few Olympics and sorry to hear for European fans of the Olympics that it's continuing.  Apologies on behalf of an American company that is doing this all to you.  I guess for some it's a good thing, but definitely not in certain countries where there used to be much better coverage.

And I'll say this on behalf of 1 of the few Americans who doesn't detest NBC's coverage of the Olympics.. we don't have it as bad as many people would have you believe.  Yes, NBC's coverage is full of commercials and sticks with certain athletes sometimes ignoring the rest of the world.  But we have everything streamed and it's all under 1 umbrella.  So if you know what you're looking for and are willing to deal with a poorly designed interface to access those streams, it can be a very pleasant experience

8 hours ago, dullard said:

The scheduling of the 4x400 heats and 400 final on the same day is really unfair for the smaller countries that can't rest their stars from the 4x400 heats.

Kinda feels like they may have done that to stagger the women's 400m and the 400 hurdles.  But yea, that's definitely going to cause issues for countries who have athletes in the finals that would normally run in the prelims for the relay

37 minutes ago, hoversaBR said:

No pair from the United States in the men's. 

Wow, would not have guessed that either.  Looks like the top ranked teams are #21 and #43.  Although that's with a limited number of tournaments played, so they'll be able to jump up the rankings as they start playing more

6 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

To be fair, for Beijing 2022 the focus towards, during and after the Olympics was on how much of a shitty Olympics it was  

 

Partially because of the choice of location, but of course a large part due to what's largely a matter of force majeure (COVID-19). Even now when thinking back about Beijing 2022, I mostly think about how the only reason to remember them is how empty and obscure it all felt.

Similar to Tokyo, there was all sorts of fear-mongering that the Olympics were going to become a mass super-spreader event and it was irresponsible to hold it in the first place.  With both Olympics, there was news of positive cases (and especially in the case of Beijing, about all the prevention and containment measures), but the competition was largely unaffected and every event was held to completion.  That was no small feat especially with Tokyo before vaccinations were as readily available.

No question the Beijing games were almost completely devoid of any real joy.  Who knows what it would have looked like if not for COVID and China did get to put their best foot forward

2 hours ago, Monzanator said:

 

Nobody in Poland would even consider Budweiser a "beer" though. The who ra-ra stuff will go away sooner rather than later, does anyone remember the protests in 2014 when Brazil was under presssure to "hide" some of the favela poverty? Yeah, does anyone remember that eight years later? Will anyone care about Qatar's Islamic rules in 30 days time? Of course not. So let's don't pretend any uproar here will change anything because it won't.

Again, it's the same story with the Olympics.  Speaking of Brazil, remember in 2016 when everyone was scared that Zika was going to be a major problem or that the water quality in Rio was going to make everyone sick?  Actually, most people probably don't because no one talked about it after the Olympics, especially since it was a non-issue.

In the lead-up to the 2022 Olympics, a lot of people were talking about human rights issues in China.  Since February, I can probably count on 1 hand the number of times I've seen any mention of the Uighurs.  I guess that stopped being a think after China was out of the spotlight.

So yes, it'll be the same deal here.  About 5 minutes after the World Cup ends, no one is going to care about Qatar anymore.  Migrant worker deaths will be yesterday's news.  People who are in an uproar over these things will move onto some other political issue.  And the cycle will start over again until the next host country starts getting talked about.

20 hours ago, Federer91 said:

One thing is for sure so far, people who wouldn't normally care about the WC, or football in general are very vocal these past 2 weeks. Good thing we talk a lot at work about the teams and players, because when i go "online" the football is a little side thing. Hopefully this will change, when the matches actually start.

It's a lot like the Olympics that way.  All we ever hear about in the lead up to the games is negative media stories.  For Beijing 2022, those all got amplified.  But once the Olympics started, the focus was rightfully on the athletes and the competition.  I'm sure that will happen to a large extent here.  There's a lot of down time between matches though, so I'm sure we'll still hear a lot from fans who are on the ground in Qatar, especially if they're unhappy with their experiences there

4 hours ago, hckošice said:

LA Organizing Committee is seriously considering to move the Canoe Slalom events to Oklahoma City ... Riversport Rapids Whitewater Center in Oklahoma will already host the canoe slalom world champs in 2026

 

Well, still a lot closer than Tahiti is to Paris

7 hours ago, Vektor said:

So many "potential host". But I think we should all know that if Seoul wants this, they will easily win 2036 SOG without any contest just like how Brisbane did. It's a no brainer, IOC will take the easiest, savest route, and that is going to be Seoul. The only other option is Berlin, but I kinda doubt that the Germans will take that bid seriously. But if that happens, I think IOC will just pull another Paris/LA and reward both Seoul and Berlin with 2036 and 2040. 

 

 

IOC will rotate the Summer Games between the same couple of wealthy countries until the end of time, unless none of them will bid

 

               

 

Plus maybe   at some point and hopefully   some day. The rest will likely never host a modern Summer Games.

A lot of these "interested parties" will move further into the process and some will undoubtedly drop out once they realize what is required to host an Olympics.  No, Seoul is not a no brainer by any stretch of the imagination.  We'll see how much support the Germany bid has (and remember it's Rhine-Ruhr, not specifically Berlin).  Yes, it's possible we're headed towards a future where only a handful of countries can host the Olympics.  Given the IOC's requirements, a lot of that is on them, but at least hopefully this "new norm" version of thinking will make it easier

4 hours ago, JoshMartini007 said:

is out due to the provincial government not supporting it. Too bad, I thought we could have had a good chance.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/2030-olympics-bc-government-will-not-support-1.6631883

 

We are down to and

What a crying shame that Canada, a country with some of the most deep-rooting winter sports traditions, has now put 2 cities forwarded in consecutive cycles and had to abandon both.

Good draw for .  Most of the tougher teams are on the Australia side of the bracket and they get the New Zealand half.

1 hour ago, phelps said:

volleyball has always had a problem with the lenght of the matches...most sessions in the previous olympics have gone way beyond the scheduled time...

 

so, they wanted to have longer time slots for each match and less matches in total in the preliminary rounds (using 2 different venues was never an option)...

 

p.s. just to explain...personally, I don't like this new format at all...

It's a fair point.  I know volleyball is a lot like tennis that way where a match can be relatively short or run really long.  I'm old enough that I remember volleyball in the Olympics before rally scoring, so I can only imagine how long some matches took then.  And I do remember the start of some matches from Tokyo delayed because the previous match ran long.  So if that's no longer an issue, then perhaps this has some value, even if it means fewer games being played

23 minutes ago, MHSN said:

thanks, now it makes sense

 

still a terrible format though

Yea,  I don't get it either.  Makes sense for basketball where asking teams to play multiple days in a row is a tough ask.  Not so much with volleyball.  And now instead of sessions including 2 games, your ticket only gets you 1.

22 minutes ago, MHSN said:

how come volleyball has 48 matches ? (24 for each gender) it doesn't make sense. if we count 8 matches for knockout rounds, how we can have a preliminary round with 16 matches ? even with 3 groups of 4 it should be 18

 

what I am missing here ? only 6 teams advance to the knockout round ?

They didn't list the bronze and gold medal matches.  There are 36 preliminary round games (so it's likely the 3 groups of 4 format from basketball).  4 QF for each gender, 2 SF.  Dates and times for the rest are TBD

English language version of the PDF..

https://olympics.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/Paris-2024-Olympic-Sport-Events-Schedule.pdf