Is Anyone Here ACTUALLY Watching The Olympics ???

Is Anyone Here ACTUALLY Watching The Olympics ???
All I'm watching is Football and Women's Beach Volleyball ! And what they did to this Little Girl is a sin to God !

Lin Miaoke who lip-synched at the opening ceremony over the voice of Yang Peiyi who was considered unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth Photo: GETTY/AFP Beijing Olympics: Faking scandal over girl who 'sang' in opening ceremony Chinese officials have admitted deceiving the public over another highlight of the Olympic opening ceremony: the picture-perfect schoolgirl who sang as the Chinese flag entered the stadium was performing to another girl's voice. By Richard Spencer in Beijing The girl in the red dress with the pigtails, called Lin Miaoke, 9, and from a Beijing primary school, has become a national sensation since Friday night, giving interviews to all the most popular newspapers. But the show's musical designer felt forced to set the record straight. He gave an interview to Beijing radio saying the real singer was a seven-year-old girl who had won a gruelling competition to perform the anthem, a patriotic song called "Hymn to the Motherland". At the last moment a member of the Chinese politburo who was watching a rehearsal pronounced that the winner, a girl called Yang Peiyi, might have a perfect voice but was unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth. SR: Gee I thought the Chinese were supposed to be more enlightened and humane than us Western Dogs...

With a population of 1.3 billion, you'd think they could find a cute little girl with a decent singing voice wouldn't you?

Didn't watch the openning ceremony, haven't watched any of the events, not planning to watch any of the events. If folk want to have this as a party every 5 years or whatever it doesn't bother me - I am, however, bothered at the thought of having to pay for it when they come and bug London. I am similarly minded TJ. Although I do like the Olympics usually, I don't think it should be in China and I'd rather it wasn't coming to London. But aside from the political and cost implications, it's a good platform for athletes to showcase themselves. Whether it's superhuman superstars like Michael Phelps or people most of us would never have heard of otherwise, like Nicole Cooke and Tom Daley. What I don't like to see is the increasing cynical commercialism (and politicalisation) of it, (bloody Coca-Cola and McDonalds are sponsors or both the Beijing & London games - what have they to do with sport?). In my view it should be all about the sports and the men and women competing. Nothing else.

I'm puzzled, BD. As a vociferous advocate of the free market, how else would you expect a global sporting event to be sponsored other than by public funding - of which you don't approve? Surely sport should pay for itself through advertising, corporate sponsorship and box-office receipts, like any other branch of showbiz? Fair point Sparty, and you're right, I do advocate free market-ism in most areas of activity, and include sport in that. I have no objection to sports people negotiating lucrative contracts with their employers and sponsors, I have no issue with tournaments such as Wimbledon selling the broadcast rights of their events to the highest bidder and slapping sponsors names & logos all over their venues. I suppose I make a partial exception for the Olympics though, because it was conceived with a different ideal, and until relatively recently held to it. I don't have any broad problem with the games having advertising, sponsorship, ticket sales, broadcast rights, etc. I just wish the organisers would be a bit more selective about who they accept sponsorship from. If Nike or Adidas were the main sponsors (they might be for all I know), at least they could be argued to have an involvement in sports. If HSBC or Vodaphone are involved then, ok, they're not sports companies but I 'd have no objection to them providing funding in return for exposure. But McDonalds and Coca-Cola? These are companies who's products are generally perceived to be not at all in keeping with sports success and athleticism in general. Having them as sponsors is cynical imo and detracts from what the games were supposed to be about. It's no more fitting to have them as sponsors as it would be to have Marlborough or Benson & Hedges imo.

I'm puzzled, BD. As a vociferous advocate of the free market, how else would you expect a global sporting event to be sponsored other than by public funding - of which you don't approve? Surely sport should pay for itself through advertising, corporate sponsorship and box-office receipts, like any other branch of showbiz? I suppose I make a partial exception for the Olympics though, because it was conceived with a different ideal, and until relatively recently held to it. ... ... But McDonalds and Coca-Cola? These are companies who's products are generally perceived to be not at all in keeping with sports success and athleticism in general. Having them as sponsors is cynical imo and detracts from what the games were supposed to be about. It's no more fitting to have them as sponsors as it would be to have Marlborough or Benson & Hedges imo. Every modern sport was conceived of in an atmosphere of fresh air, fun, fairness and fraternity. Most British football clubs were offshoots of church youth groups, paternalistic employers' gifts to their workers and self-help "keep fit" projects. Cricket had its origins in the safe and healthy "levelling" of the social groups on the village green. Lawn tennis, like croquet, was a game manufactured to improve the healthy bloom of English Gels. Even baseball was devised to ensure that the Young Blades of the Ivy League kept a Healthy Mind In A Healthy Body. The founder of the modern Olympics, Baron de Coubertin - a fervent Anglophile - based his ideals very much on those of English sport at the time. However, it's the opposing American strand of sport as showbiz (and, consequently, a way out of the ghetto) that's won the day and which, through globalization, has become universal. So why on earth should the Olympics be any different? As for MacDonalds and Coca-Cola, the linking of unhealthy products with sport through advertising and sponsorship is, as you suggest, a ploy with a long, creative and - in the short term, at least - successful history. The nanny state has already intervened to prevent football pitches from being ringed with posters for gaspers. I'm sure you wouldn't want namby-pamby liberals interfering any further. :wink: Spartacus

Lawn tennis, like croquet, was a game manufactured to improve the healthy bloom of English Gels. Well, I'm all in favour of giving healthy girls a bit of a bloom Sparty. S'funny though, we seem to have swopped positions on this thread. Here's me condemning the filthy capitalist globalising mega corporations and their corruption of a higher ideal. And here's you saying, yeah well, it's the market innit! what can you do eh? :lol: The irony hadn't escaped me, BD! :wink: But, in spite of the determined efforts of certain FBers to brand me as an almalgam of Marx, Stalin, Trotsky, Pol Pot, Mao, Osama bin Laden, Fidel Castro, Peter Tatchell and George Galloway, :wink: I am now and have always been a Mixed Market Man who believes that the public, private and charitable sectors all have their roles, who has worked for all three at one time or another and who is convinced that none of the three has a monopoly of wisdom, any more than has any one political party. While, you, for all your Libertarian pro-*test*-('")ations, know darn well that even a market-driven economy needs a bit of soul, compassion and - occasionally - direction. So, yes, curiously enough, we may sometimes surprise each other! :wink: Spartacus

But, in spite of the determined efforts of certain FBers to brand me as an almalgam of Marx, Stalin, Trotsky, Pol Pot, Mao, Osama bin Laden, Fidel Castro, Peter Tatchell and George Galloway, :wink: I always imagined you as more of a Lenin figure myself Sparty ;)

Just around the hair and beard, BD. :wink: Spartacus

Love the input from you lot.... This should bring us back on topic ! Angry Swede throws down medal, quits BEIJING, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian threw down his greco-roman bronze medal in pro-*test*-('") on Thursday after his bid for Olympic gold was ended by a decision denounced by the Swedish coach as “politics.” Abrahamian took the bronze from around his neck during the medal ceremony, stepped from the podium and dropped it in the middle of the wrestling mat then walked off. “I don’t care about this medal. I wanted gold,” he said. A bitter Abrahamian, silver medalist at Athens 2004 who had high hopes of top honors in the 84kg competition in Beijing, announced he was quitting the sport. “This will be my last match. I wanted to take gold, so I consider this Olympics a failure,” he said. The Swedish wrestler had to be restrained by teammates earlier when a row erupted with judges over the decision in a semifinal bout at the Chinese Agricultural University Gym with Andrea Minguzzi of Italy, who went on the take gold. Abrahamian shouted at the referee and judges then went over to their seats to speak to them up close. He angrily threw off the restraining arm of a team official then turned and left. Swedish fans booed loudly as the judges filed out of the arena. Abrahamian said nothing to waiting reporters but whacked an aluminium barricade with his fist as he left the hall. Abrahamian later said he believed his loss to the eventual gold medalist Minguzzi was “totally unjustified.” The wrestler said his friends “called me just 20 minutes before the (bronze) competition, begging me to compete.” “I decided that I had come this far and didn’t want to let them down, so I wrestled,” he said. Swedish coach Leo Myllari said: “It’s all politics.” Myllari did not say if he intended to lodge a formal pro-*test*-('") over the decision by referee Jean-Marc Petoud of Switzerland, judge Lee Ronald Mackay of Canada, and mat chairman Guillermo Orestes Molina of Cuba. LINK SR: Such a mature attitude !

Love the input from you lot.... This should bring us back on topic I wasn't aware that we'd gone off-topic. The thread is about whether anyone is watching the Olympics. Surely discussion about the over-commercialisation of the Games is at least as relevant to the topic as is the ethics of making one little girl lip-synch to the singing of another? Or as an individual competitor having a hissy fit? Spartacus

I meant it as a joke... God Strewth..... Another thing that always brassed me off is that Nancy Kerrigan only took home the Silver Medal back in 1994 during that Soap Opera between her and Tonya and she got LOADS of $$$$, Commercial Endorsements, and A Disneyland Ride where she made a total ass of herself... Michelle Kwan who did a LOT BETTER earlier and took home the Gold got a few paltry deals and a pat on the back... Seems to be a bias towards people of certain complexions where the USOC is concerned if you catch my meaning ....

Another thing that always brassed me off is that Nancy Kerrigan only took home the Silver Medal back in 1994 during that Soap Opera between her and Tonya and she got LOADS of $$$$, Commercial Endorsements, and A Disneyland Ride where she made a total ass of herself... Michelle Kwan who did a LOT BETTER earlier and took home the Gold got a few paltry deals and a pat on the back... Seems to be a bias towards people of certain complexions where the USOC is concerned if you catch my meaning .... I think you mean Kristi Yamaguchi, Kwan hasn't won an Olympic gold medal. But what has this to do with the USOC? If Kerrigan was offered more lucrative commercial deals than Yamaguchi, then that was down to the companies that were doing the offering was it not? You could argue that Yamaguchi didn't get the deals because she is Asian and Kerrigan is white, and that may be true, or it could be that the publicity and sympathy surrounding to the attack on Kerrigan played it's part. The truth is probably a mixture of the two.

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