The one about the Olympic Games 2024

Do we have an Olympic Games Thread yet?  Searched.  Couldn’t find one.

Delighted to have bagged some Athletics tickets this morning at last.  Had BMX tickets in basket too but they had been bought by the time I got through the checkout process.

So that’s one evening filled.  There for a week with my wife who is spending several days watching Dressage.  I’ve agreed to one day of dressage.

Found getting a hold of tickets – without spending big! – to be some right bother.

Looked into renting a bike but the charges to get a bike delivered to versaille, where we are stsying, were eye watering.

Anyone else going across the water?

We managed to snag a few cheap tickets to the less popular games back in 2012.  It was an experience for sure.

I’m looking forward to the opening ceremony. Hundreds of middle-aged men with pastel shade jumpers draped around their shoulders doing synchronised shrugging. Awesome stuff.

Russian athletes being there and this truly awful story are not really aligned with the Olympic values:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c2v0j0j6nqlo

I feel sorry for the athletes that have trained for years to be at the same games as these people.

Was watching (bits of) the 2012 Opening Ceremony today. Still goosebump-inducing in places. Wonder what the French have got in store for us?

I’m in Paris, hoping to catch a glimpse of the road events. Not strictly Olympics related is that the increase in cycling ifrastructure is incredible.  Formerly busy roads have been reduced to quiet streets with half the lanes turned into bike lanes. And they are being used. Cyclists of all ages and all social groups are pedalling away. Near us is a complicated roundabout where vehicles of all descriptions meet with pedestrians, and although it seems chaotic it is working fine and nobody is dying. Why can’t we have nice things like this?

We had Kye Whyte and Emily Hutt down at our BMX track yesterday before they fly out this week. Lovely pair who engaged with the kids and supported our club on it’s 10th anniversary.

Why can’t we have nice things like this?

We do, pretty much, in London. Just not elsewhere.

TBF, there’s a great cycle route in Harrogate. Great as in it starts then stops then merges into unmarked lanes, onto footpaths and back off when there are trees in the way, then suddenly stops about 150m from the top of the hill (and the hill is the one used in the WC). Laughable.

Was watching (bits of) the 2012 Opening Ceremony today. Still goosebump-inducing in places.

There was so much negativity in the run up, how expensive, how shit it was going to be, etc. Then the Opening Ceremony started and everyone was like ‘WTF is this?’

and then…… boom. IDK at what point exactly, but something clicked and it’s still some of the most electric TV I’ve ever seen.

Was in Paris recently and spent a while in the morning watching the cyclists go about their business. Loads of them, all ages, bike types. Great to see/watch.

I’ve enjoyed watching the Olympics and Paralympics for years, but this year  I’m particularly keen on watching the archery, because for the first time in my life I’m able to do a sport that’s in the Olympics, and I’m using the same equipment as the athletes, just not as refined or expensive as theirs, same specification bow and technique, Olympic recurve. Nothing like the ability, though I’ve only been doing it for a year. We’ve got a full quota of six in the GB team, all in their teens, IIRC, so fingers crossed!

I see there’s a programme on Channel 5 this evening at 9:00 about the 1948 London Olympics (a London with still a lot of unfilled bomb craters) and where the “make do and mend” attitude adapted stadia, velodromes, swimming pools. The budget to do all this was very small.

and then…… boom. IDK at what point exactly, but something clicked and it’s still some of the most electric TV I’ve ever seen.

When the 1,000 drums and the Underworld kicked in!

I was the same, expecting the opening ceremony to be a massive cringefest, and while I can take or leave quite a bit of it, some of it was an absolute theatrical and musical masterpiece.

there’s a surprisingly large amount of tickets left, given how difficult it was to get any in the earlier rounds.

We’re in france anyway, I managed to get a pair of tickets for myself and my boy (8) to earlyish rounds of the athletics for 25 euros each.

The ticket sales have felt like a farce from the pint of view of someone wanting to buy them.

Tranche one sales were done in a way I assume was to sell tickets for lesser watche sports.  For example if you wanted 4x Athletics tickets, you’d have to buy 4x handball tickets and 4x archery tickets.  We couldn’t find any cheaper tickets for our choice of sports at this stage.

Then tickets have been released on random blocks.  Every Thursday there was meant ot be new tickets.

There hospitality tickets a ailable for just a out every session.  We looked into them.  As an example 3×3 basketball.  Ticket €85.  The same seat with hospitality €195.  What does hospitality get you?  Access to a lounge outwith the arena and a maximum of TWO drinks!   Jeezo!  And if you attend with someone who doesn’t take their drinks, they can’t be transferred.  Shove it.

I was a performer in the 2012 Opening Ceremony (hence my moniker) – I remember much of the media pre-event being quite disparaging of the whole thing, predicting disaster. It was only when the Opening Ceremony blew them away did they get behind it.

Was watching (bits of) the 2012 Opening Ceremony today. Still goosebump-inducing in places.

I think 2012 UK was actually quite a nice place. How far we’ve fallen since then. 🙁

I remember driving to London while the opening ceremony was on. Super quiet roads. Arrived at my Mum’s house (my Mum being fairly elderly with zero interest in televised sport) and she was so excited.

Quick, come and watch the rest of the show! The Queen parachuted out of a helicopter and it’s all amazing and there’s flying bicycles and…and…”

I was like “OK, Mum has finally lost it…” and then I had to go back and watch the entire show on full on iPlayer the next day. Wow.

I was working on the London Olympic track cycling and the atmosphere in the velodrome was incredible. Like no other track event I’ve ever seen. Same races, same riders as any World Cup / Championship but off the scale crowd noise!

Danny Boyle did a great job on the opening ceremony. I think there is actually a TV programme about it somewhere.

STW was equally nonplussed on the run up to it with things like “spazzed out sheep” being mentioned. I just remember it being bloody brilliant.

Tranche one sales were done in a way I assume was to sell tickets for lesser watche sports.

Yeah, we’re going to water polo as well as the hockey and athletics we wanted to see.

I don’t mind seeing something new, some of the best events we went to at 2012 were “lesser” events.

I heard something on the radio, about the tickets and also accommodation issues; the context was that the BBC travel guy was taking his wife for a bargain weekend in Paris because they’ve so overpriced rooms, that there are thousands unfilled and you can now grab them for buttons. I just googled and 2 nights close to city centre in an apartment type room for about £140/ 2 adults

Here’s a bit more from 2012! Get a bit emotional every time I rewatch, TBH. I hope as a country we can get back to how we felt about ourselves at that moment.

(IOC grinches mean you have to click through!)

Pretty excited about the Paris games though. Been a long time between ‘proper’ Olympics.

I’ve no qualms going to see something new either but I’m not paying over the odds for something I might not even enjoy.

Same races, same riders as any World Cup / Championship but off the scale crowd noise!

We took the kids to Wimbledon for the Olympic tennis. I’ve been lucky enough to go to Wimbledon itself, and like you say it was chalk and cheese.

Wimbledon was all stuffy shirts, strawberries, elderly ladies and etiquette. Great as a British sporting centrepiece, but very of it’s type.

Olympics was kids running around on fizzy pop and sweets, players being accessible giving sweatbands away and signing hats, mexican waves (divisive), chanting and so on. As a joyous place to be, wonderful.

If I had to choose between them I’d go Olympic version every time.

I totally agree with the nostalgia of 2012, when despite all the negativity in the run up, the whole country was won over after the opening ceremony and it seemed like a “where were you when” moment. Honestly feels like the peak of UK national pride during my lifetime, downhill since.

For a nice recap, I enjoy Charlie Brooker’s summary starting from 26:40 here:

You can even see the mood change here. We were a proper bunch of sneering miserable gits until the rings got forged and flew into the air during page 4 and we decided it was alright.

Then by page 5 once the queen had jumped out the helicopter it was the best thing ever.

Danny Boyle risking embarrassing the nation… the opening ceremony thread

One of the horsey folk is out because of a video ‘showing an error of judgement’. *Grabs popcorn

not just any, Charlotte Dujardin. Joint most decorated female British Olympian.

Does that mean Laura Kenny gets at least another four years as ‘joint most decorated’, with the added appeal of not beating up horses?

 beating up horses?

up or off?

Lots of over hyped prima donnas ,how green is this event?

up or off?

All we know is that she ends up with a perky dancing horse at the end of each ‘error of judgement’.

Bizarre that you can be considered Britain’s joint best female Olympian for sitting on a horse while it’s dancing. Hardly equivalent in terms of athletic prowess to track cycling (or kids sack race come to that)

😉

Lots of over hyped prima donnas ,how green is this event?

It’s the greenest one ever, of the later era at least. Others will have been greener because they were basically walked to by some Greek people, or they were before people could fly to participate. And probably not as green overall as the last one because Covid. But greener than others. The derny bike will be e-, probably, the transport will be e, they even cleaned up the Seine which is consequently both greener and not as green as it was.

What is your metric for greenness?

What is your metric for greenness

Not ruining the planet through climate change and biodiversity loss is always a good ball park!

The video of dujardin is 4 years old.  She shouldn’t have done it.  Obviously.  Its not acceptable.  And everyone knows there are cameras everywhere these days.  Plain stupid.

But sitting on this video for 4 years then “investigating” in the lead up to the Olympics is shoddy.  It was fairly well distubuted in horse circles back when it surfaced.

@tom-b there’d be no organised sport beyond your neighbourhood if that were applied across the board

Anyone know when or where the start sheets for the road TT will be published? I’ve looked on the official site but it’s a bit … French ;-(

But sitting on this video for 4 years then “investigating” in the lead up to the Olympics is shoddy.  It was fairly well distubuted in horse circles back when it surfaced.

she should have owned it & dealt with the fallout at the time then instead of doing nothing and (presumably) a competitor “leaking” it at the worst possible moment.

there’d be no organised sport beyond your neighbourhood if that were applied across the board

Possibly, possibly not.

Anyway, if we can’t get past mistreating animals for sport, then wider issues a probably even further down the agenda.

The first 45 minutes of the 2012 opening ceremony were incredible (after that, it’s fast forward to Mr Bean and don’t bother with the rest).

Love the Olympics – always a great opportunity to obsessively watch fantastic sports like handball that you won’t see again for another 4 years. Gymnastics is always great (last time I discovered rhythmic gymnastics as well, which is actually ace – somewhere between traditional gymnastics and circus performance, but the standards are ridiculously high). Can’t beat the athletics either (triple jump, pole vault and hammer are my favourites). Boxing is also great.