Athens 2004 - General Olympics thread!

[forre]

Originally Posted by spyretto

Some complete idiot got in the middle of the leader and stopped him and now he may just lose because of that
He was wearing a costume and a skirt with Irish colours.

Do they have a sort of national complex or similar? The marathon went good otherwise. Waiting for the closing ceremony.
The games are over - .. a sort of ....

[spyretto]

I hear that the closing ceremony will consist of a pot-pourri of Greek songs sung by middle aged Greek singers. Hopefully it won't be very distasteful.

Plus, "shake it", the Euro song...oh dear...

[RowerB]

Well that’s it. It’s all over. I’ll have an empty withdrawal feeling for the next few days (not as bad as after the Tour de France though).

As for the Marathon, I think if they asked the Brazilian, he’d say he would have got the Bronze even if the idiot hadn’t intervened. Apart from that it was a good race.

Highlights of the Games: Bettini winning the road race, El Guerrouj’s 1500m 5000m double and the last round of the Men’s 3m synchronised diving.

Lowlights: Nicole Cooke failing to medal in the road race and Feofanova getting beaten in the Pole vault.

[spyretto]

Now, that closing ceremony is just stupid

[spyretto]

Well, the games were great, we watched sports that we never get a chance to watch on tv. Moreover, there were no bombings, no ill preparation, or empty stadia as it was predicted. The Americans must be the most relieved, I'm sure, since they were the ones who raised those issues in the first place.

An extra sense of pride and glory since they consider themselves the real descentants of the ancient Greeks, as we all know.

Highlights: the stadia and the locations themselves, I mean it was really wierd - in a good way - to see those "typified" venues on Greek soil. The whole scenery, weather conditions and how the athletes would cope, all made for interesting viewing. The "colour" of the games: I mean we have that in all the Olympics and it's always something special to represent your country. The contrast of emotions; I think these are the things that make people who are not big fans of the sports watch the Olympics. The Greek audience and the way they made their opinion clear

Those showers they had in the marathon events. That was funny.

Lowlights were the doping cases - though expected - the closing ceremony (I wonder who came up with those ideas ) and the idiot in the marathon. Not many lowlights, it was mostly good.

Most remarkable sporting moments: the dominance of the Chinese in sports like badminton, table tennis, diving etc. and their induction into athletics with their two golds; The dominance of the Australians in swimming minus Phelps; Phelps himself; the "dream team" beaten; Russia's dominance in womens pole vault and high jump. The Russian volleyball team and their two fantastic games against Brazil and China. The Greek gold shocks ( diving, 400m hurdles, 20km walk ) Dimas' reception when he won the bronze medal The badminton final of the mixed doubles between Great Britain and China;
Kelly Holmes; El Guerrouj; China winning doubles in tennis, and the semi-final between Myskina and Henin; the Iraqui soccer team's valiant efforts and Argentina finally showing what they're capable of; Most of the team sports finals which were thrillers ( volleyball, waterpolo, handball, hockey etc.) Cuba once again dominating baseball and boxing; Korea once again in archery, Romania and Japan in gymnastics.

Hmm, I think that's enough

Biggest failings I'll have to say Radcliffe and Khorkina

[ypsidan04]

FIRST EVER ISRAELI GOLD MEDAL!!

Thirty-two years and eight Olympics after the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes in Munich, Israeli windsurfer Gal Friedman won a gold medal in Athens this week. Never before has the Hatikva been played at an Olympic medal ceremony. Not seen in this film clip is the scene after the ceremony in which hundreds of Israeli spectators came down from the stands to hug and kiss Gal in a very open show of emotion. I hope you can cut and paste this site, and watch the video clip. It opens in Windows Media Player.

http://video.nrg.co.il/lib/2004/sport/fridman_hatikva1.wmv

P.S. - I'm half Jewish, and have spent time in Israel, so this is pretty big news personally.

[RowerB]

I turned the TV on this morning to find Tele-Shopping. That really has hammered home that it is over.

Originally Posted by spyretto

Dimas' reception when he won the bronze medal

I try to watch weightlifting when it’s on Eurosport and I’m always impressed with the spectators it attracts.

[transcend]

I will agree with spyretto's appraisal of Paula Radcliffe and Svetlana Khorkina's losses as the biggest disappointments (along with Amelie's final loss in the tennis) for me, and my highlights were of course - Kelly Holmes's double, Matthew Pinsent's emotion at his 4th Olympic Gold (I love to see a grown- man cry), the Japanese men winning team gold in the gymnastics and Carolina (have I spelt it right?) Kluft's exuberance. It was a good Games - roll on Beijing! And now who's going to win the US Open tennis?

[spyretto]

It was a very memorable Greek summer 2004 with Euro 2004 and Olympics that I thoroughly enjoyed. While CNN felt they had to write a formal apology, going over the top a bit. I can't understand how Americans always perceived Greece as some terrorist-plagued third-world banana republic but it's their problem not ours Nothing that even happened there can even come close to what is happening in America.

But anyway, all is well. So cheers, everybody

Now all we need is Tatu to make a glorious comeback

Dear Athens,

Well, we feel bad. We really owe you an apology.

So, sygnomi, as you would say. Sorry.

Sorry about the way we acted. We were paranoid and stupid and just flat out wrong. Our bad. If you want, we'll sleep on the couch.

We mocked you, ridiculed you, figured you wouldn't be ready. We envisioned you as a bunch of lazy, swarthy guys in wife-beater T-shirts chugging ouzo instead of finishing the baseball dugouts. We were sure steeplechasers would have to jump over drying cement, pole vaulters over tractors, divers into 3 feet of water.

We were wrong. It was all done and it was beautiful. OK, so the swimming stadium never got a roof. Big freaking deal. Imagine: having to swim in an outdoor pool. Let's all sue. Besides, you know what? It was more fun that way. Michael Phelps was out there so much he ended up with raccoon eyes from his goggles. He looked like a snowboarder. "Cool!" he said.

We predicted women madly weaving olive wreaths next to the podiums as the national anthems started up. We foresaw painters sprinting along painting stripes just yards ahead of 400-meter runners. We figured beams would be falling on people's heads. Who knew Wrigley Field would be a lot more dangerous?

We were sure every street corner would have three or four terrorists, just kind of killing time, looking for somebody to kidnap. Some bozo said, "The only place worse to hold an Olympics would be Baghdad." Please. I guarantee you, we felt a helluva lot safer these three weeks in Athens than we do in L.A. Or Detroit. Or the Republican National Convention.

We insisted you spend 1.2 billion euros on security. You had to put up blimps and cameras all over the city. You couldn't throw a bucket of grapes anywhere and not hit a soldier with a rifle. And nothing happened. Zero. The only incident was when our Secretary of State said he was coming to visit. In other words, if Colin Powell would've just been happy with his remote, you wouldn't have had a single problem.

Why you had to pay for our paranoia, I'll never know. It's the world's problem, the world should have to pay for it. What small country is going to be able to afford to host the Olympics anymore with these insane security demands? From now on, if a country wants to send a team to the Games, it pays its share of security, based on its share of the gross world product. In other words, it's our war, we should have to pay for it.

And our ignorance cost you more than just the billion or so Euros. Our Edvard Munch screams leading up to these games kept millions of people away. Corporations bailed on you. Fans chickened out. I know burly journalists who were too scared to come.

Sygnomi. Really. You did such a beautiful job on all the venues, arenas and stadiums and yet most of them were so empty you would've thought you'd stumbled upon a goiter seminar. At one basketball game, we counted: There were 307 people. One women's soccer game involving the U.S. started with fewer than 50 people. I had a friend call one night and say, "You better get over to gymnastics, quick. There's only 15,000 seats left."

The shopkeepers told us, "We've never seen it so dead in August." Hotels came down on their prices by three-quarters. Shirt stores lost their shirts.

It's too bad. It was a glorious Olympics. It really was. The opening ceremonies were fabulous. The nightlife was amazing. Even the stray dogs and cats couldn't have been friendlier. I got lost once and had to hitchhike out of nowhere, and a motorcyclist not only picked me up but drove for miles until he found me a cab. So, efharisto, as you say. Thanks.

Somebody did a poll and found that 97 percent of fans were "satisfied" with safety and security, 95 percent appreciated the job the volunteers did and 98 percent had a favorable impression of Greece. The other two percent were Paul Hamm's family.

And what did you get for all your trouble? Nothing but heartache. With 9,000-plus Greeks about to go delirious, our men's volleyball team handed you a giant buzzkill --- coming back from eight points down to win the fourth set and then the fifth to advance to the semifinals. The only really good game our men's basketball team played the whole time was against Greece.

It was Greek Tragedy Fortnight on TBS. It started even before the Games with your heartbroken judoka jumping from a balcony, followed two days later by her distraught boyfriend. Your two best sprinters turned in their credentials to end a doping/conspiracy/motorcycle wreck soap opera that tore the nation up. One of your favorite weightlifters had to give up a medal for a failed drug test, then wept in front of the world protesting his innocence.

And now you're stuck with about $8.5 billion in debt, a bunch of huge, expensive stadiums you'll never use (Hey, kids, who's ready to synchronized dive?!) and a whole lot of "Get Your Butt to Team Handball!" shorts nobody was around to buy. Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how did you enjoy Dallas?

So, really, we're sorry. If it makes you feel any better, we all feel a lot more Greek now. We're all coming back to the States telling the daughter, "OK, you be Athena and I'll be Zeus!", demanding our favorite restaurants reserve us a table about 1 a.m. under the moon, right near a 2,500 year-old ruin. We keep spitting in people's hair for good luck, crushing plates for no reason and hollering "opa!" in the shower.

No idea how to make this right for you, except this: We vow, here and now, we'll never make you host us again.

See you in Baghdad, 2016.

LOL

[goku]

I was looking around and see these pictures. Funny.

funny olympic pictures

[ypsidan04]

Originally Posted by kirillov

What a memorable two weeks. Spyretto, you've covered almost all of the highlights. In addition, I must point out that there were so many hot olympians. I was highly aroused on many occasions.

Hahaha. You bet.

[coolasfcuk]

sorry to come here so late and talk about this but......


since i was in sweden when this happened... i didnt see it on tv - Kluft was getting all the attention! lol

so our gymnast Jordan JOVTCHEV got silver medal with a scandal...with PERFECTLY executed program, while the greek guy that got the gold was a bit shakey and not with the perfect landing!!! baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah , our poor guy, one of those that got f.......... over.

for him... and i heard that even the 3rd place itlaia raised his HAND as to show to the crowd who the real winner was.

[spyretto]

Originally Posted by coolasfcuk

sorry to come here so late and talk about this but......


since i was in sweden when this happened... i didnt see it on tv - Kluft was getting all the attention! lol

so our gymnast Jordan JOVTCHEV got silver medal with a scandal...with PERFECTLY executed program, while the greek guy that got the gold was a bit shakey and not with the perfect landing!!! baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah , our poor guy, one of those that got f.......... over.

for him... and i heard that even the 3rd place itlaia raised his HAND as to show to the crowd who the real winner was.

If you are referring to the rings and Tampakos, you have a good point. He always looks shaky, still gets all the points.
The thing is, the Greeks threw a tantrum about one of their guys who didn't even qualify for the final with a "perfectly executed programme", so maybe the judges didn't want to push the envelope too much. There were bigger "scandals" in the gymnastics than this one.

[spyretto]

Today's paralympic opening ceremony was not televised in the UK; however from the little I glimpsed on the internet, it was very long - 3.5 hours - with beautiful artistic sequences around Hippocrates's "tree of life", which was at the center of the stadium.

Probably better than the Olympics opening ceremony but that is of course a matter of taste. The stadium was packed.

The BBC will have some coverage of these games every evening from 6 pm till 7:30pm

[nikki]

Did you realise that we are now 2nd in the medal table at the Paralympics ? Our disabled sportsmen and women are doing really well .