Olympics 2008

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

And to me, frankly, all sport is but one stepped removed from punching your opponent in the face. The competitive nature encouraged in males by the indoctrination into the world of sport makes me ill.


Perhaps that's why I like gymnastics and diving best, where the competition comes from doing one's best just happening to be better than someone's else's best performed at a separate time or place, decided by another human being via imperfect means. I find this kind of stuff comfortably TWO steps away from punching each other in the face.



But it's still less admirable to me than the fella who hands a dollar to the homeless dude.



Sports. Feh.

Olympic philanthropy? Not exactly friendly to the instant replay, is it?

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Alex

Congratulations to Iceland, Bahamas, and Australia for taking the gold, silver, and bronze in total medal count, adjusted for national population. Sadly, the good old USA came in 29th but the evil Chinese came in a horrible 57th.

I've decided that to the degree I care about medal counts it is the number of physical medals (gross number of medals adorning necks from each country; e.g., winning the a basketball medal counts as 12 since 12 people get a medal) as a proportion of national population.
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And thanks to a four hour conference call I have to be on but don't have to participate in, a table of the results:

I'd be a little more interested in that list if I knew it was adjusted by representation at the games. Obviously countries with exponentially-larger populations are not going to be equally represented at the games, due to efforts by the IOC to be inclusive to nations with a population disadvantage. Sort of like Rhode Island being disproportionately represented in congress.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

I don't remember them mentioning the sexual orientation of all the straight athletes and I don't feel snubed. Why would you expect sexual orientation to be mentioned as part of the Olympics coverage?

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Bravo for them not considering it relevant to an athletic event

As SzczerbiakManiac said, It's because the sexual orientation of straight celebrities is mention, examined, promoted, and obsessed about continuously. The sexual orientation of gay celebrities – and gay sports celebrities in particular – is ignored and covered up. NBC went to great lengths to mention various straight Olympians’ significant others, but ignored Mitcham’s

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

I sort of agree with both sides. There are two ways that sexual orientation merit mention at the Olympics: 1) a quick cutaway to the partner in the stands without comment; 2) as part of a human interest story about obstacles overcome if, indeed, there were obstacles. However, I don't think editorial comment along the lines of "And you thought gay guys weren't athletic" would be any more appropriate than praising our black swimmer with "And Al Campanis said blacks lack buoyancy."

1) As long as it's the same level of coverage for both gay and straight athletes. No gushy human interest stories about straight romances if all the gay ones get is a quick cutaway.

2) no one is asking for that. Just visibilty.

[Morrigoon]

OHHHH... didn't realize that (didn't read the article)

[Stan4dSteph]

Considering he wasn't an American and wasn't expected to do much ahead of his upset, I'm not surprised there wasn't a big production piece on him.

[BarTopDancer]

Was there mention of his orientation during Australian coverage?

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by JWBear

As SzczerbiakManiac said, It's because the sexual orientation of straight celebrities is mention, examined, promoted, and obsessed about continuously. The sexual orientation of gay celebrities – and gay sports celebrities in particular – is ignored and covered up. NBC went to great lengths to mention various straight Olympians’ significant others, but ignored Mitcham’s

I really don't remember it that way. In fact the only relative they focused on that I can recall was Mrs. Phelps and that was just because they covered everything about Michael. I don't know if Misty and what's her name are a couple or have boy toys, Bolt? The only thing I saw about him was his excessive celebrating and lay back methods. Etc....

Obsessed about it?

[Morrigoon]

Misty and ol' whats-her-name are both married. There was a whole thing about ol' whats-her-name losing her wedding ring mid-game and the Chinese combing through the sand to return it to her.

[Stan4dSteph]

Kerri Walsh lost her ring. She talked about it last night on Letterman.