2020* (2021) Summer Olympic Games

As a kid, I noticed that American TV coverage did its best to pretend that Olympic shooting competition didn't exist. Like it was too controversial to show at all, given the divisiveness of gun politics even back then. Winter biathlon seems to have gained a bit of coverage respect since, but I don't now watch anywhere near enough of any Olympics to know what coverage these are given now.

Accurate shooting requires much more athletic fitness than most non-shooters give it credit for. Especially biathlon, where repeated instant context switching between full adrenaline rush and finest motor control calmness are essential.

 

Most Olympic games had their roots in martial pursuits which is why, even in their present form, shooting has been present in every modern Olympiad, IIRC.

I absolutely LOVE the Zen-like aspects of pistol shooting, although my skills have atrophied greatly over the years.
These days I maintain proficiency in order to carry SAFELY rather than purely as a desire to put steel on target.
I have never really considered shooting to be especially athletic, but I will admit that after some DCM matches I did feel a little drained.

Biathlon OTOH is an intensely athletic endeavor, and I have the greatest of respect for anyone who can approach proficiency at that sport!

I've attempted sprint and shoot at self defense distances as a means of dealing with adrenaline dumps, and.......it's quite humbling.
NOTHING that I would attempt at a public range even if it WERE permitted.

 

never was a fan, but i really enjoyed the snowboard like track racing they did. crazy and exciting. felt bad for the american who crashed though, i hope he fully recovers. i think i'd rather fall on snow/ice and slide

 

Olympics is its own weird deal. I've long viewed it as a portable corruption engine with an accessory athletic recordkeeping system.

But it's mostly about giving real estate moguls in the host cities a chance to redevelop neighborhoods that have proven legally resistant to change. You pretty much never want it to come to a city you like.

I won't deny that there is a political element to it, but speaking as an industry insider?

Biathlon is expensive to cover.

10km of fiber to backhaul each of the camera feeds from the target positions plus spotters and FOP coordinators at each target stop, guys on snowmobiles to shuttle crew out and back... power and comms build-ups for each target stop... it adds up fast. The sport itself basically suffers the same economics problem as rally racing and the iditarod: the course is so large that proper coverage without gaps is prohibitively expensive relative to the audience.

When I work Alpine, we have somewhat shorter camera feed runs and the same course can be used for many more disciplines, and has a generally bigger following. It just barely works, economically.

Meanwhile you can get 7/8 of America's grandpas to fall asleep in front of the women's figure skating quarterfinals, and that counts in the ratings game. We can do that with host feeds plus 5 handhelds all in the same arena building and no mountaintop transmission heroics.

 

Outside biathlon, the athleticism doesn't show in terms of calories expended just during the actual match. Those is hidden in the preparations and cross training needed beforehand, in order hold up the arms during the match with the fine motor control needed for world class accuracy.

These are the main reasons I pay far less attention to Olympics anymore. The 2010 Vancouver Olympics were nearly in our backyard, but we didn't go because the whole thing seemed designed to fleece as much from everyone's pockets as possible. And the scandals over the 2002 Salt Lake City corruptions seemed driven by monopoly interests who wanted to horn in and replace the old guard monopolists.

 

we love the competition and amazing athletes. pay no attention to politics or what have you, that would just spoil it, like anything else in life.

track and field has been incredible. the jamaican runners are out of this world!

 

molly seidel of wisconsin wins olympic marathon bronze. third american woman to ever win an olympic marathon medal.

and only her third marathon ever!

it doesn't get much better than this

 

Curious to hear what they give Chopra for the javelin work. 1st Indian gold in the sport, and 1st gold in any since Beijing '08.

It looked awesome up close.

 

Nope, no pins. It should be understood that I've long been a lightweight in the pin trade, but apart from that the trade activity was dramatically reduced from earlier events. I saw exactly one "swap guy" working the curb outside the stadium. He was there almost every day, but always just him and a customer or three. Nothing like before. In London the trade lot looked like a slow motion rugby match.

Even some of my co-workers who are historical champions in the trade were only wearing a few.

The souvenir stores were lightly stocked with mostly terrible stuff. Nobody wanted the boxes of stadium-shaped tea cakes

Some of the sushi was quite excellent. Due to the pandemic-control emergency orders a certain amount of my meals had to be delivered from local restaurants using apps like uber and doordash. I found that it was easiest to search for food I wanted using english search terms which would be found on the menus that had english translations. These were almost always the ones offering non-Japanese cuisine.

So while I did have a few great fishing expeditions, I had a marvelous time with the local editions of chicken vindaloo, turkish doner, korean bbq and sichuan hotpot.

 

Having never been to sichuan province to sample the real deal, I'd have to agree: I believe what I ate was an approximation at best.

A family member lived in Chengdu for a few years and claims to know the real deal when she tastes it. We've attempted it at home in Pennsylvania with some flown-in seasoning kits and earned her stamp of approval. Those little peppercorns really add a wallop to the broth. Can't always get the right veggies from the pan-Asian market in our town but we try. They're reliable for tofu sheets and quail eggs at least.

I still very much enjoy that dish but the one I'm really trying to master at home is Uyghur-style lamb cumin.

I also had some excellent tacos de bistec show up on an e-bike a couple of weeks ago. They need to work on the tortillas but the rest was grand. (Oh that Japanese beef!)

 

velodrome was exciting. spectacular crash in a women's race, i hope no long term injuries.

double gold in golf, that was unexpected.

chinese divers are incredible

modern pentathlon caused a stir. i had no idea they borrowed horses

 

for all the concern, these olympics came off without a hitch, weather being the biggest problem

 

It's a heck of a lot easier when you exclude all the fans.

 

very true.
they are allowing 1,800 people in, according to tv announcer