A few closing thoughts on these Olympic Games.
It was wonderful to see that Bob Costas did not close the games — his event, his stage. Can it be possible that he was yanked due to public outcry? The closing ceremonies without Bob and Katie was actually pleasant to watch, thanks NBC!
After all the crap the American media gave the Greeks for not being prepared for these games I'd say they did a spectacular job. I'd say the nation deserves an apology for all the bad press but I suppose the internationally televised two-hour tourism commercial (aka closing ceremonies) will make up for it.
Is it possible the threat of terrorism was hyped beyond the need? I understand that it's happened in the past but while the world's anti-terrorism was focused on the right hand, the left came around with a blow in Russia.
There was talk about what Greece is going to do with all of this sports infrastructure after the games. They're going to hold some kick ass concerts and soccer games in fantastic Santiago Calatrava designed style that's what.
When you work at Home Depot do they give you incentives for trying out for the Olympics? And where are the athletes from Lowes Hardware, do they just not care or what?
I hope the IOC will pull their head out from their collective rear and get it together with the judges in time for 2006. If the athletes can't get a fair deal then what's the point in these games other than outrageous broadcasting contracts and advertising revenues? The judge fiasco in Salt Lake City in 2002 was bad enough. In Greece it seemed like every day some athlete was screwed out of a medal due to poor officiating. Enough already it's getting lame.
Once again, Canadian clothing maker, Roots, has styled the US Olympic Team in fine fashion. I can't get enough Roots.
Everyone's talking about Bejing in 2008. Uh, hello? The next Olympic Games are to be hosted in Italy two years from now. Damn, yo, why they all gotta be a winter game hate'as?
I think the best part of this whole shindig is when all the athletes from around the world mash together in one giant party. Say what you will but I think this is one of mankind's better displays of unity.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Who do you think was the athlete of the Olympics? Sure everybody deserves praise but who in your opinion captured the true essence and spirit of the Olympics?
I think that guy diving off the 10m board with the tutu was the athlete of the Olympics....
But seriously, praise should be given to the all the volunteers that we had here in Greece. They are the real reason that the Olympics went without a hitch. That and the 8 billion euros they spent :)
I agree with you Greg, the closing ceremonies did seem like one big commercial, but believe me, that's what celebrations are like everywhere here in Greece.
Sunny, I'd give a two-way tie for Rulon Gardner and Fani Halkia.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that the winter games seem to be the poor cousins of the summer variety. Personally, I'll be looking forward to the Turin games more than Beijing ones.
If anyone is interested, the Torino 2006 Comitee is hiring. They are actually looking, among others, for a designer/architect in order to develop the "Look of the Games".
If anyone wants to know something more "informal" about the XX Olympic Winter Games in Torino, i've set up few days ago this little and simple blog.
I live in the Olympic lands and will give via the blog some informal news and tips to people interested in joining our city during the Games.
Greece did an okay job. But what about the anemic attendence? The stands were emptier than a midweek Expos-Marlins game.
I blame low attendance on the media, not Greece. With all that bad coverage from the press on the large, potential threat of terrorism at the Olympics it's hard to sell tickets.
Well done Greece.
The shame of it is the debt your left with and I do hope the payback comes sooner than later.
Re the next Olympics... they actually begin very soon, the Para Olympics but there will be no NBCs' etc lining up to cover that one.
My favourite sportsperson was Morocco's El Guerrouj.
Australia ( 4th in the medal tally at 49 medals) spent app $4mill for each medal won.
Wonder how much Morocco spent ?
I had friends who tried to go and didn't after encountering average hotel prices of $1000 US a night when enquiring in June. I think the price gouging was out in full-effect, prompting a lot of non-EU tourists to pass. Anyone who's visited hot, sticky, ancient cities also knows the time to do it is when other people aren't there, not when it's clogged with 1,000,000 yahoos. It would be a shame to go all the way to Greece and not see Greece, no?
I too prefer the Winter Games, cooler sports, cooler gear. Greater international diversity and rivalries. No spoiled brat NBA players. Athlete of these games? I think the Brazilian who got mugged during the marathon, but who still managed to finish and hasn't yet hired a lawyer to sue for the gold.
The Liberal or Conservative Media?
Re: athlete of the games, how about the Brazilian(?) marathoner that was "attacked" on the course, yet still crossed the finish line in third with flying arms extended?
Yeah I think he gets my vote for best athlete. I don't know of any other competitor that fended off an attack and then went on to finish the event in high spirits.
Greg - I am not so sure that low attendance can be blamed on terrorism. It prolly had to do with the fact that it is vacation season in Greece and close to 2 million Athenians were out of station. It can also be a lack of interest on their part.
Also its interesting to note the crowds for women's beach volleyball. I recommend that in the future if attendance is an issue, they should rotate the venue for beach volleyball. On some days we can have ping pong and beach volleyball together, badminton and beach volleyball, track and field and beach volleyball. That should bring in the people to other sports.
John - Not sure abt America but here in Australia we will have coverage of the Paralympics. Your point abt Australia spending $4 million is not so surprising. Folks here are just nuts abt sports. To an outsider like me, its amazing to see their interest in all sorts of sports. But close to 50 medals is not bad for a country with 20 million in population.
Tom Dolan - Spoiled brat NBA players? Please. Iverson made me proud. Its funny the one player who gets the rap for being lazy, irresponsible in the NBA taught a lesson on accountability to his team-mates and their much vaunted coach looking for excuses for everything. The real brats are the players who didn't even go to Athens proffering silly excuses. At least these players went and made an effort.
I had several memorable moments in the Olympics. Phelps was awesome (can't wait for Phelps vs Thorpedo in Beijing)! The Brazillian was a true Olympian. I saw so many athletes with a frown after winning silver. They should learn something from the man from Brazil. El Guerrouj's double was brilliant as well. Now he is truly the greatest. I am not going to pick one but what made me put all of this into perspective was the line from Bekele (winner of 10,000 metres from Ethiopia) -- "When I was born there was food".
Those Home Depot Commercials! What about those damn
"defend your chicken" McDonalds commercials? No one wants to eat your chicken! No one. I really enjoyed the Olympics this year. Now I'm back to watching terrible tv. :(
The low attendance was because people prefered to see finals matches rather than preliminaries. If you noticed, every major final match was sold out, but preliminaries were half full. This was true at least for Fencing, Athletics and Greco-Roman Wrestling that I attended.
Is it only me, or is the Athens Olympic Commitee President really full of herself? YOu don't know how many times I wished that one of the Kalatrava arches fall and kill her while she was giving her closing ceremony speech. I really hate her, and I rarely hate anyone....
I agree, the Brazilian marathoner for best athlete (but a close second the tutu wearing diver). Didn't he recieve a Good Sportsmanship Medal from the IOC?
I can only hope Bob Costas will be around for 2008!
Donnie that kind of talk could get you banned around here.
What I've read was that many Greeks saw the events on tv drinking beer/coffe among friends in the cool of an airconditioner instead of in the heat of the stadiums. Sure, personally I would have seen it live if I had the chance but I understand too why people sat inside. I mean, temperatures around 40-45 degrees C is much, atleast for a scandinavian like me.
Wintergames are much more to my likeing as you might understand. Looking forward to Torino in two years. I mean just look at the maniacs in bobsleigh and so on. You're in a ice tube running 120mph with not that big breaks. Brilliant.
Regarding Beijing I'll boycot it completely. I think it's awful that a country like China are allowed to host the Olympics. It's so totally against what that country stands for in my book.
The low attendance was because people prefered to see finals matches rather than preliminaries. If you noticed, every major final match was sold out, but preliminaries were half full.
What? Apparently you didn't watch either of the soccer finals. Both Men's and Women's gold medal soccer matches had a handful of spectators and a few people they let in to sit under the shade.
Archery did even worse ... but who cares about flying arrows, am I right people?
Just not enough Greeks in Greece to fill the venues I suppose.
Sorry, I hate Costas. I hate Costas. I hate Costas.
The 3 "I hate Costas" should have cancelled my previous comment. Sorry.
Jim,
> Just not enough Greeks in Greece to fill the venues I suppose.
Apparently the Greek commitee was aware that there would be seats over and had calculated this in the budget for the games. There were enough Greeks to fill all events but there were not enough Greeks who could pay the prices for the tickets. Hopefully this is a turning point for countries that hold the Olympic games to a more saner budget.
Re: Soccer attendance... um, why would anyone want to see a strange mixed assortment of professional and (pseudo-) amateur footballers kicking a ball around in the heat? I mean, ever heard of FIFA? Why have soccer in the Olympics anyway?
"Regarding Beijing I'll boycot it completely. I think it's awful that a country like China are allowed to host the Olympics. It's so totally against what that country stands for in my book."
Not sure what your talking about Henrik. I am not sure what exactly you think China stands for.
I personally see this as a chance for China to show the world the huge strides it is making and help alleviate some of the stereotype of communist countries. I was in Bejing a month ago and they have already done alot of prep for the olympics, I think it will be one of the best olympics in recent history.
Well, I really feel for the US citizens who have had to suffer intrusive commentary, there's few things worse than having important events narrated with inane chatter.
However, the closing ceremony really was the only time where inanity and jocular comments would have been welcome. I had to laugh when the BBC presenter had to say, "We could really do with some help from Terry Wogan here, I really don't know what to say!". Mr Wogan, for those of you outside the Sceptr'd Isles is known (amongst other things) for his biting sarcasm while providing commentary for the Eurovision Song Contest. Greek efforts at "popular music" and other such razzmatazz are known for their cringeworthyness and shocking sentimentalism, only beaten by Turkey...
Terry was sorely missed. Those of us watching it were hiding behind the sofa cushions in fright.
And as for football, or soccer, as Americans are wont to call it, well yes, there's every reason to NOT have it in the Olympics as the professional sport already occupies 99.9997% of all sports coverage already (except in America).
Dave,
It still is a country ruled by a top elite layer with absolute power (sure, that can be said of alot of countries, even so called democratic ones) where the citizen have small rights. They are still abusive against free speech and free thinking and have millions of people employed to screen peoples internet habits and cellphone usage. And that, to me, is a country who should not be able to host the olympics.
Johnny,
I feel soccer has a place in the olympics, but I, beeing european, have no understanding why baseball, softball or waterpolo do. Differences in preferences ofcourse and this thinking can go on for ever and ever. Allthough, the thing with horses (don't know the english term for it) is one that should definatly be ruled out. The olympics are for me efforts achieved by men/women without the help of any other animal.
My 2 cents.
Henrik,
I can understand your feelings about illiberal regimes hosting big sports events like Olympic games.
In the past, however, we had worst examples than Bejing 2008: think about Berlin 1936...
Apart from the Olympics, we could cite also a couple of football's World Cups, Italia 1938 under Mussolini's fascist regime, or Argentina 1978 under one of the most criminal dictatorships ever seen - btw, both won by the hosting country, for the pleasure of internal propaganda.
Modern Olympics were born from a bunch of good ideals, but then early grew into one of the biggest shows in the world.
Like any other big show, in the end it's all about (panem et) circenses to keep the masses quiet and gain international prestige: you'll find that dictators are the ones who struggle more for this, and, sadly, we allowed them to get it more than once.
...beg your pardon, Italy hosted WC in 1934 - year XII of fascist era, as they used to say in those times :/
Well, on a less gloomy mood, my 2 cents about sports that deserve a place in the olympics.
For me, there are two criteria: one is historycal tradition, and the other is how highly the olympic competition is rated among the athletes.
Football (i mean soccer), tennis and road-cycling don't match the second criterion: a world cup (or even a continental title), a Slam tournament, or a Tour de France are much more important than an olympic gold, and consequently you're going to see few interest and few top class athletes at Olympics.
That's a pale surrogate of the real thing, and maybe those sports should go.
For waterpolo, the olympic gold is indeed the most important honour you could ever get, so every nation bring in the best players and the pathos is very high. There is a lot of interest for it and it should stay.
And... Henrik, how the hell can you say that beeing european you have no understanding of waterpolo?? Apart USA and Australia, all the best teams in waterpolo are always been european (Italy, Spain, and many eastern europe teams)!! ;-)
For what concern equestrian, it may seem silly seeing horses at olympics, but it has a great tradition point.
When De Couberten launched Modern Olympics, the only discipline which was not modeled after ancient greek games was "modern pentathlon", which included a horse jumping trial.
Abundance,
Ofcourse, thoose nations hosting the games back then was a horrid example in my book also, but have we not learned anything since thoose years? Apparently not.
Currently the big new marketshares are beeing created in China when the goverment have approved to commercialise it to some extent and the top dollars can be made there. In the best interest of capitalism, not democracy nor human rights, it is seen through corporate eyes as a way of displaying China as a "good" nation that you can invest in and making their business' and investments there to be legit. Allthough they know what the country is all about; oppression of the free mind and thought.
Why didn't Iraq get to host the olympics in 2000? Oh right, Saddam was a bad dictator. (To my knowledge they didn't apply but that's beside the point). And I excuse myself for wandering a bit far OT of the article.
Regarding waterpolo on that case I should maybe state that I am Swedish more then European. Not a big nation in the sport (Sweden apparently have a team that participated in the 1980 Olympics when I was four years of age) so this opinion is also originating partly from the fact that we don't see that much coverage of the sport outside of the olympics (read none) but also I just think they wear silly hats aswell as the sport relies on penalties to a heavy degree. Ofcourse this can be said about a lot of sports, especially teambased ones.
Regarding horses they maybe should have a place since the original olympics had the chariot races, it's just the relationship man/animal, beeing that you rely on the animal to get a good mark, that bugs me a tad.