Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

US volleyball struggling vs. Poland.

 

To some degree, NBC has been going with the same female-friendly formula in prime time for 30 years now. I think they think of it as water gymnastics -- people who are pretty or buff doing a bunch of flips. It's probably one of my least favorite sports, not because I don't think it's difficult or worthy of inclusion, but because I really loathe those "Oh, she didn't point her toes properly, that's four years of work down the drain," moments, and the Chinese always win. Synchronized diving seems like it was made to produce inventory for NBC. As Woody once said, "That's not flying, it's falling with style!"

As it relates to climbing, I suspect it gets dinged for being new, not pretty and not being a guaranteed medal for Americans.

There was some good discussion about cutting weight and such in here, but there's another factor in play, and that the IOC has been trying, for some time, to "cut weight" themselves. Every Olympics since Atlanta has had more than 10,000 athletes, all of whom need to be fed, housed and moved around. Paris is the first one since London 2012 that was under 11,000.

Partially for their own self-preservation and self-aggrandizement, the IOC is desperate to include more modern competitions and to achieve 50-50 gender parity both within the individual sports and the population of athletes at large, but there isn't much appetite to cut whole sports. Not counting the "temporary" sports like breaking or karate, a sport hasn't been permanently "removed" from the Olympic program since 1936.

So the way the IOC has been pulling it off is by trimming out events and cutting weight classes. For example in Barcelona (1992), there were 10 weight classes in both disciplines of men's wrestling. Now there are six in the two men's disciplines and six in women's freestyle only. It's also a great way to punish federations who aren't doing what you want. For example, there were 12 men's weight classes in boxing in 1992. There are now seven men and six women.

I don't know any people who are good at analyzing men's international volleyball, but I'd love to read it. Indoor volleyball is my favorite Olympic sport. It kind of felt like the better team stopped running into each other and started playing like it, but I'm still kind of pissed the US let that lead slip away.

 

Wrestling was on the chopping block about 10 years ago. And modern pentathlon seems to hang on by the skin of its teeth somehow. And I'm a bit bothered that some sports, like baseball and softball, seem to be in or out at the whims of the local organizers.

 

An American set a new WR in the speed category the other day. Maybe I missed it, but they didn't even show that during primetime.

 

The US women dominated the team pursuit on the velodrome. Kristen Faulkner - who won the road race on Sunday - becomes the 11th person to win two medals in two sports at the same Olympics.

 

I have long believed that having the Olympics located in a large, centralized location is an anachronism. To use France as an example after the opening ceremonies various sports could be moved to different venues around the country. Lyon is a metro area of two million people two hours from Paris by train. A couple of events could be held in Lyon and others scattered around the country. Beach volleyball could be played on an actual beach. It would be easier to house the athletes and there would be more venues for competitions to take place at.

 

Satellite transmission from remote locations with faster and more advanced communication devices has only made it easier to make that idea work. You would lose the "inclusiveness" of having multiple sports gathered at an athlete's village -- and perhaps make it more difficult for someone who wants to see multiple venues -- but that's got to be the future of the Games at some point.

Just imagine the incredible amount of satellite time being used to broadcast all these sports on multiple feeds, not even counting the Internet and cellphone usage involved. And I still remember the words "live via satellite" on Olympic broadcasts back when ABC used it as a novel technology.

 

I have always thought that the idea that the athletes want to experience being jammed into a village in order to interact with different cultures and athletes from other sports is a myth. Olympic athletes are focused on their event, period. And smaller villages would allow for more spacious accommodations.

 

Weren’t all the basketball games in Lille up until yesterday?

 

Ha! I remember when TV shows used to tell you they were "In Color" at the beginning.

 

USA-Aussies headed to overtime in men's water polo.

EDIT: Unbeknownst to me until now, it's being settled by 2-meter shots.