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Off Topic Tokyo Olympics

Discussion in 'Queens Park Rangers' started by sb_73, Jul 20, 2021.

  1. sb_73

    sb_73 Well-Known Member

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    Excited yet?

    Nah, me neither. Feel very sorry for all of the athletes involved though, what a weird situation to have trained years for.

    Hopefully as it gets going the enthusiasm will build.
     
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  2. Sooperhoop

    Sooperhoop Well-Known Member

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    I'm sure when a few golds come our way there'll be a bit more interest but you get the feeling many of the competitors would rather not be there...
     
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  3. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    Should have been cancelled ages ago
     
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  4. Staines R's

    Staines R's Well-Known Member

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    I can hardly contain my indifference
     
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  5. Didley Squat

    Didley Squat Well-Known Member

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    How do they wear a mask under water whilst swimming?

    Are more points awarded in high diving to a diver whose mask barely moves and stays the straightest?

    If a boxer gets his mask knocked of, is he disqualified?

    Do you get gold for knocking off a mask with a Siberian side kick to the head in karate?

    So many questions remain unanswered.
     
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  6. sb_73

    sb_73 Well-Known Member

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    GB Women’s football team kicks off with a 2-0 win over Chile. Both teams took the knee. US, usually nailed on for a medal, hammered 3-0 by Sweden.
     
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  7. Quite Possibly Raving

    Quite Possibly Raving Well-Known Member

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    Never been one for the Olympics personally. Just a bunch of sports that aren't good enough to build a proper following in the main, with some odd exceptions like boxing or football where the Olympics aren't really the main event.

    Very grumpy old man view that normally gets me ridiculed, but there we go.
     
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  8. IwasanotherwatfordR

    IwasanotherwatfordR Well-Known Member

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    I’m with you. People being paid to do their hobby.
     
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  9. Wherever

    Wherever Well-Known Member

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    Well I agree.
    Too many non sports involved that require adjudication, diving, gymnastics, horse dancing. A sport is when somebody runs the fastest, scores the most points or does something quicker.
    If synchronised swimming is a sport then why not include ballet, portrait painting, cake baking, pulling faces and farting.
    Too many sports that do not need the olympics (as mentioned) football, plus tennis, golf, I’d keep boxing as it’s a good platform for amateurs.
    Far too much swimming, ffs 100m, 200m 400m and relay. In four different ways of swimming. Why swim backwards, butterfly is just wrong, just have one freestyle race to determine who is fastest. All those races normally one American wins them all anyway.
    Too much cycling, why go around the track 5 times following a cartoon character on a moped just to sprint the last lap, pure madness.
    Then you get all the nobs going if Yorkshire was a country we’d have come 10th, if Scotland was independent we’d have come 6th. You wouldn’t have because you wouldn’t have the backing of a larger sponsor.
    Why have all the cheating countries athletes competing under a neutral flag, if Russia has state sponsored doping then ban the lot so any “clean” athletes can chose to stay in that country or move on.
    Then they have sports only a few countries play, baseball softball, this year, why wasn’t cricket included in 2012 along with darts or cheese rolling.
    Not an Olympic fan, though will support team GB
     
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    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
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  10. Steelmonkey

    Steelmonkey Well-Known Member

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    Couldn't agree more <applause><applause><applause>
     
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  11. IwasanotherwatfordR

    IwasanotherwatfordR Well-Known Member

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    Farting! Never saw myself as a potential Olympian before.
     
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  12. sb_73

    sb_73 Well-Known Member

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    ….I quite like it. Although due to the time difference I won’t be watching much of it.

    I was a big cynic about the London Olympics, siding with our old friend Brixton who pointed out the massive disruption that it caused, especially in his industry (taxi), but once it got underway I was hooked. Enjoyed the Rio one as well. Earlier incarnations I think I watched highlights of occasionally, not so fussed.

    But not too excited about this one yet.
     
    #12
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
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  13. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    Didn't they have painting in the first Olympics
     
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  14. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    here you go @Wherever

    Between 1912 and 1948 the arts were part of the Olympic Games. Photo: VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images. The Venice Biennale is colloquially known as “the Olympics of art,” but did you know that between 1912 and 1948, painters, sculptors, architects, writers, and musicians participated at the real Olympic Games?
    Painting for Gold Medals: When Art Was an Olympic ...
    upload_2021-7-22_6-56-1.png
    news.artnet.com/art-world/early-olympics-art-events-594437

    Painting for Gold Medals: When Art Was an Olympic Discipline
    Painters, sculptors, and poets competed alongside athletes.

    Henri Neuendorf, August 5, 2016

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    Between 1912 and 1948 the arts were part of the Olympic Games. Photo: VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images.
    The Venice Biennale is colloquially known as “the Olympics of art,” but did you know that between 1912 and 1948, painters, sculptors, architects, writers, and musicians participated at the real Olympic Games?

    According to the New York Times, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the IOC, from which the modern Olympics emerged in 1896, believed that sports and the arts were inextricably linked.

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    Jean Jacoby’s Corner, left, and Rugby. At the 1928 Olympic Art Competitions in Amsterdam, Jacoby won a gold medal for Rugby. Courtesy of the Olympic Museum Lausanne.

    “He was raised and educated classically, and he was particularly impressed with the idea of what it meant to be a true Olympian—someone who was not only athletic, but skilled in music and literature,” Richard Stanton, author of The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, told Smithsonian Magazine. “He felt that in order to recreate the events in modern times, it would be incomplete to not include some aspect of the arts.”



    However, the idea faced opposition from the get-go, and it wasn’t until the Stockholm games in 1912 that medals were awarded in artistic disciplines.

    The resistance was understandable, as sporting achievements can be measured in easily-understood metrics such as time and distance, but judging the arts is undeniably subjective.

    The arts competition also suffered from the guiding parameter that the works created had to be associated with sport, limiting the entries to tiresome imagery of athletes and odes to sporting achievement.

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    In 1912 Walter Winans became the only Olympian to win medals in both arts and sport. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

    Additionally, the requirement of amateur status in the early iterations of the games barred professional artists from entering the competition. Consequently, the artistic greats such as Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo couldn’t compete. The resulting works were inevitably, well, amateurish.


    According to the Huffington Post, the Olympic art events were finally struck from the competition in 1948 amid dwindling interest. Arts medals were removed from the official Olympic records and the events were demoted to a non-competitive exhibition running for the duration of the games.

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    Walter Winans’s An American Trotter won a gold medal for sculpture at the first Olympic Art Competitions, held in Stockholm in 1912. Courtesy of the Idrottmuseet i Malmö.


    If nothing else, the art Olympics makes for some fascinating trivia. Did you know, for instance, that Walter Winans, a Russian aristocrat with American citizenship, was the only Olympian to win medals in both the sporting and arts competition? In 1912, he won silver for team USA in the shooting event “Team Running Deer—Single Shot” and gold in sculpture for his work An American Trotter.

    At least we still have the Venice Biannale.
     
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  15. Wherever

    Wherever Well-Known Member

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    Well why not if they have spinning ribbons as a sport, this has more meaning, well found. I guess we have the Eurovision Song Contest, if Jedward can compete then some on here can be Olympians, there you go IwastheotherwatfordR
     
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  16. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    Arts medals were removed from the official Olympic record


    we could start a campaign to have the medals reinstated into the official record

    or not
     
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  17. Wherever

    Wherever Well-Known Member

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    Im in
     
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  18. IwasanotherwatfordR

    IwasanotherwatfordR Well-Known Member

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    I’m inspired. Gonna crack open a beer and have a couple of pickled eggs to begin my training regime. Mrs Iwas in for a treat.
     
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  19. Wherever

    Wherever Well-Known Member

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    Behind every good man….
     
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  20. qprbeth

    qprbeth Wicked Witch of West12
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    I was going.
    Trip of a lifetime... See the end of the athletics and sports climbing ( my daughters sport) followed by 2 week holiday round Japan.

    Obviously not now.

    So really sad...
     
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