Soldato
Bought the Isle Of Wonders CD. It's awesome. Absolutely love And I will kiss.
Closing Ceremony & Olympic Inspiration
- Thread starter Firestar_3x
- Start date
She reminds me of a blonde version of Grace Jones. Also, why did she sing the same song twice...
Soldato
i couldn't watch it from madness out of sync catawalling to the models on stage (eh?) then seeing the pet shop boys (thought one of them was dead in the 90s) then george michael kinda saved the day with freedom only to make me turn off with his second song which was awful. Not really bothered about the spice girls or take that did I really miss anything?
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Sep 2005
- Posts
- 2,699
Who was the girl with Rebecca Adlington just after the ceremony ended? She was hot!
ps3ud0
Keri Ann Payne I think (Rebecca's best mate from what I read)
I managed to watch the remaining part of the closing ceremony (from the Rio segment onwards). It was actually okay and the phoenix was good as well as the Ballerina bits (mesmerising in fact). Choice of Take that music was good and choreographed with the fireworks was nice.
Fireworks finale looked spectacular from above. Must have been amazing viewing from inside the stadium (want a ticket now
)
Caporegime
What really make me think is that with the football about to begin this weekend, i think how pure the olympics are and the athletes all are. That girl (in Judo?) who won her semi final match and I think and said "I love you mum" is just so heartbreakingly sad but also incredibly sincere. All her training, her whole life, 1 moment, all for a medal. It makes me think that those footballers who has talent, get paid stupid amount, can have 20 years career ahead of them but instead do stupid things and get into trouble with the law and whatnot. What a waste.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Just as many athletes do drugs as footballers do stupid things. I entirely disagree with Kim Collins being thrown out for daring to want to be with his wife before a big stressful day, likewise loads of athletes missed out on the olympics because of political decisions, people liking certain athletes better or wanting to seem more diverse maybe, lots of non sporting reasons.
We've already had one gold revoked, and its very likely that in the next couple years another dozen medals will be revoked. The olympics is really no more pure than football or anything else. Likewise more people watch football so there is more money in it. Its 60 odd games a year per player if fit, olympics is once every four years, world championships, euro championships but ultimately there is what 2-3 big meets a year and lets be honest, almost no one watches them. Would it be better the money just goes to the billionaire owners than most of it to the players who actually put on the show?
Britains performance in the olympics was money, the difference between a guy who works a 10 hour day for not a great salary and tries to fit rowing training in around his job, and the guy who gets some funding so he can afford to not work and train 5 hours a day rowing as perfectly as possible and you have a guy who can't win vs a guy who can win.
Ultimately funding leads to success and EVERY host nation basically in all history has increased funding leading up to the olympics, every home nation starts to improve the second they win their bid, generally have a massive jump in medals either just for the home olympics but usually for the one before it also, then it trails off as funding disappears.
What's quite mental is our government spent some 12billion putting on the olympics, but spent 250mil or something in the past 5 years on funding the athletes, with another 250mil a year or so coming from lotto money. With 500mil commited (125mil a year for 4 years) for the Rio fund is actually an improvement of government only money.
But we'll likely see the usual dip from not having the home crowds, and lose funding after that to some degree and a faster drop off after that. The only country that doesn't really get that is America, and thats partially because the US(or somewhere US people holiday a lot) gets to host it so frequently.
I wonder what would have happened if we spent 2billion on athlete's for the olympics over 12 billion flushed down the drain on an NHS It project that ended up cancelled. The lack of funding worldwide in athletics and olympic style sports is really quite odd considering the money we do spend and the miniscule amounts we've given to athletes.
On to school sport, our sport at school was rubbish, it was horrifically low quality teaching, with teachers trying to get dozens of people who didn't give a crap about sport to do things right it was just a mess.
Sport should be taken out of school, funding teachers to teach EVERYONE sport is simply inefficient, when funding sports clubs will concentrate the money on those who actually love sport outside of school.
Why give 10 schools a million between them to basically run all sports for thousands of students of whom only 200 care about sports, take sports teaching out of school, put that money into a single sports centre, free for all some quality coaches with a proper salary who focus their time one on one with the kids who actually want to play sports.
America did this and has intergrated much of it into schools with highly competitive state championships in dozens of sports. The money still gets focused and the best athletes go to "sports" schools that focus on the sport they love. School X in indiana is a american football focused school and recruits kids that are good at american football and don't waste a lot of cash on anything else, another school does swimming so potential swimming stars go there.
This do all mentality in schools here with crap equipment spread funding and no interest from 95% of the students is completely wasteful.
Soldato
Watched the opening ceremony again today. Spine tingling moments for me were Ben Parkinson with the torch, forming the rings at the end of the industrial piece (And I will kiss is just an immense track) and the flame lighting.
I hope we will have a Bluray in full HD with high bitrate audio and no stupid Hazel Irvine etc randomnly commentating and ruining the flow.
We spent loads in tickets regret not going to more now
I hope we will have a Bluray in full HD with high bitrate audio and no stupid Hazel Irvine etc randomnly commentating and ruining the flow.
We spent loads in tickets regret not going to more now
-Large population
-Ethnic mix so good chance of having some people genetically predisposed to be good at certain events
-Powerful economy helping to drive good facilities, sponsorship/scholarship etc
Wish I'd gone to school like that where you could play football regularly, in general our PE lessons (early to mid 90s) were strictly regimented and focussed on running, basketball, gymnastics and a bit of volleyball. On VERY rare occasions we we get to play football but some years that didn't happen at all. Probably the only really useful thing I learned from it was about the importance of stretching before excercise, I didn't know about that until I went to secondary school and I still perform the stretches I was taught there now.