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Olympics

An interesting article about NBC's coverage of the 2016 Olympics.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...eda1fe-5b3f-11e6-9aee-8075993d73a2_story.html

I happen to agree with this insightful writer. NBC is less interested in showing viewers the sporting events, than they are in "packaging" their coverage with pre-produced "soft-focus" side-light reports about the athletes' backgrounds and personal stories. It has worked for them in past Olympics, but apparently American sports fans are getting smarter, and they would rather see more of the events covered, and less of the side stories. Ratings for the opening ceremonies was the lowest in 24 years, and ratings for the Olympics overall have been down.
I suspect a lot of viewers are tired of these pre-packaged heart-gripping or tear-jerking side-stories like I am.
NBC has 5 or 6 different networks covering the Olympic events, so maybe they should just dedicate one network full time to the Oprah Winfrey-style backstories, and leave the other networks to do the actual sports.
 
the official Rio 2016 web site is horrible - can't find anything - next to impossible to see all the teams in their group standings,
and have to download if you want to see results or box scores..

Sadly, the NBC Olympics site isn't much better but in case anyone interested - ESPN has easiest to view results...
 
There is an MVC connection to tonights' EPIC women's 100 breaststroke win by Lilly King, her dad Mark, was my teammate on the ISU track/CC teams in the mid 1980s. Great family, I can not even imagine how proud they are of their daughter, just a great story!
 
isufan said:
There is an MVC connection to tonights' EPIC women's 100 breaststroke win by Lilly King, her dad Mark, was my teammate on the ISU track/CC teams in the mid 1980s. Great family, I can not even imagine how proud they are of their daughter, just a great story!
Click to expand...

The Lily King 100m breaststroke gold medal really does have an interesting back story. She is just a freshman at Indiana University competing in her first Olympics. Her main competition was Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova, who was the reigning world champion in the 100 meter breaststroke. But the Russian has been caught multiple times in the past using banned performance enhancing drugs, including once for anabolic steroids. She has been suspended a couple times, including a 16 month ban after her steroid cheating. She was one of the innumerable Russian athletes who were recently caught using a different PED, meldonium, and was suspended for this Olympics as were numerous other Russian athletes in many different sports. But in a mysterious reversal which was never explained, her ban was rescinded and she and a few other swimmers were allowed to compete despite the proven PED use.
Lily King, and most of the other swimmers were upset that a known cheater was allowed to compete, but King won the event clean.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/olympics/article94523947.html
 
I should have also added, Lilly King's mother, Ginny, swam for, and graduated from, Illinois State, so both parents were MVC grads. #MVC
 
anyone watching this all out brawl between the Brazil & Columbian soccer teams?

If they had the basketball rule about anyone else getting involved or coming from the bench- then the entire Brazilian team would be ejected.
 
One more Olympic soccer note- US Women's National Team goalkeeper Hope Solo, who was criticized for sour-grapes comments after the favored USWNT lost to Sweden. She called them cowards for not allowing the US women a better chance to win the match.
Yesterday, the US Soccer federation suspended her from the team, and cancelled her contract-
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...occer-suspends-hope-solo-six-months/89308542/
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/u-s-so...g-message-with-solo-suspension-024543832.html
 
I believe they only have two upcoming scheduled friendly exhibition games in the next year, and the World CUP & next Olympics are 3 & 4 years away,
so suspending Solo now will have little impact....she often sits out the meaningless exhibition games..as she did against Puerto Rico and Columbia this past 6 months..
Unless she retires, just as soon as some meaningful game comes along, she will likely still be the best they have and they will "re-instate" her.
 
tornado said:
...
so suspending Solo now will have little impact.........she will likely still be the best they have and they will "re-instate" her.
Click to expand...

Solo was, by far, the highest paid member of the US Women's National team. And she wasn't just suspended from playing, her contract with the USWNT was cancelled. So her pay will drop from around $150,000 per year to zero. I think that is a pretty significant impact. Plus, she earns several times that amount yearly in commercial endorsements and sponsorships. Now that she has embarrassed herself and US Soccer and been kicked off the team, she will certainly lose all that.
And this was not the first time she has been suspended or caused great embarrassment for US Soccer (just Google Hope Solo and legal issues). I think this was probably the last straw and finally gave the US Soccer people a reason to do what they wanted for a long time and move on without her. It was obvious in these Olympic games that her skills are not what they used to be, and by the next World Cup in 2019 or the next Olympics in 2020, there will surely be other women with superior skills. I am sure there will be appeals and maybe lawsuits, but barring some issue that violated her contract, I don't see them reinstating her.
 
kind of what I would have expected...

the NORTH KOREANS are competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics...and there's not a lot of North Koreans in any of the sports...
but one speed skater - just tried CHEATING by tring to intentionally trip his Japanese opponent...

https://i.imgur.com/OGcPal7.gifv

and the guy didn't just do it once....he actually did it TWICE - so it appears his only intent in this race was to take down the Japanese guy
https://nypost.com/2018/02/20/north-korean-skater-disqualified-after-shocking-crash-dirty-tactics/
 
USA not doing real well in the 2018 Winter Olympics so far. Just 8 years ago, the US set an Olympic record with 37 total medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics_medal_table#Medal_table

And just 4 years ago at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the US accumulated 28 total medals. Not since 1998 has the US had fewer than 25 total medals.

With only a few days left in the 2018 Pyeongchang, South Korea Winter Olympics, the US has 13 total medals so far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Winter_Olympics_medal_table#Medal_table

Of their 13 total medals, the US has 5 Gold Medals so far, 4 in Snowboarding events, and one for Alpine Skiing, 3 Silver, and 5 Bronze.
The skiing, sledding, and figure skating events have been a disapointment for the US so far, and one of the last hopes for Gold in the skiing events, Lindsey Vonn just finished with a bronze medal in one of her events with one more on Wednesday. The women's hockey team will play in the Gold Medal game Thursday, and the men's hockey team plays tomorrow in the quarterfinals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_at_the_2018_Winter_Olympics#Medalists
 
The US picked up one more medal overnight, a gold medal in a women's cross-country skiing event, the first time any American woman has ever won a medal in a cross-country skiing event.
The US now has a total of 14 medals (6 gold, 3 silver, and 5 bronze) and are tied for 4th in total medal count.

The US men's hockey team was eliminated from medal contention with an overtime quarter final loss to the Czech Republic. This was not a surprise as the US team was weakened by the NHL's decision not to allow its players to leave their teams to play in the Olympics.
 
but wouldn't that hurt the Czech team just as much if not more?
The top 10-15 Czech hockey players in the world all play in the NHL as well - but they wouldn't have as much depth of other players like the US migh thave..
 
Not nearly as much.
Virtually every top American hockey player in the US plays in the NHL or is in lower leagues but under contract with NHL teams. That left an extremely small and mediocre-quality pool of talent to build the US team with.
That is not true with the top players in Europe. The European countries competing in the Olympics, like the Czechs, have a lot of very good players playing in high-level professional leagues like the Russian KHL, the Czech Extraliga, Swedish Hockey League, and many other pro leagues in Europe. And Canada was not affected nearly as much by the NHL ban because they have an infinitely deeper talent pool of amateurs and non-NHL pros to build their team with.
The talent level on the US team is just not very good. The team is made up of a collection of washed up older pros, career minor leaguers who never got NHL contracts, and 4 young college guys who haven't signed pro contracts yet (who were the best players on the team).
https://www.sbnation.com/2018/2/21/17035036/usa-czech-republic-hockey-score-results-olympics-2018
 
A bigger factor is that all the US players come from different teams, different leagues, and virtually none of them have played together before or even been on the same ice with each other...

That is not true for the current teams from Czech and some other nations, who grew up playing together and who have played a bunch with each other...
Maybe having really TOP talent can overcome other factors - but nobody has their best talent...heck, Russia is hurt the worst since arguably
the three best offensive players in the NHL (and likely in the whole world) are Russians (Ovechkin, Kucherov, Malkin) and they don't get any of them on their Olympic team..
Instead, familiarity with your teammates is a very essential part of a good hockey team, and the US guys are lacking there.
 
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