Topic: 2016 Olympic Games Thread

I watched most of the six hour Men's Road Race. It was absolutely agonising — and I was just vegging out watching it. Absolutely brutal race.

Managed to watch some of the Men's basketball US VS China. It was a tad boring to be honest.

Caught a few of the Swimming competitions tonight. Out of the 4 races I watched, the US didn't win any of them, though.

That'll probably be it in terms of day one stuff for me.

Caught some of the cycling road race, it looked absolute hell, but made me feel a little better that I'm only running 10k today. I managed to watch some of the early-morning swimming too, little disappointed that we didn't get any medals (although Peaty did break the WR for 100m breaststroke)

I'll most probably watch more swimming, cycling, and gymnastics, maybe a bit of rugby sevens and hockey too.

@RR529: That lady from Hungary was incredible. I forget her name, but at one point she was like five seconds ahead of the World Record. It was amazing. She left the rest of the field in no man's land.

I'm really addicted to the hockey at the moment. Never really watched it before, but some of the skills are amazing. There's been some ridiculous goals already.

@get2sammyb: That was amazing indeed Sammy. I also enjoyed the woman's relay at the end very close between US and Australia. Looking forward to the men's tonight.

Man I just watched a bit of the Germany/South Korea Men's soccer game and I can't believe how well South Korea is doing!!. I was thinking Germany would roll right over them.

Today I watched a lot of the fencing. I thought it was dumb at first, but once I started to understand the rules and the competition intensified it really grew on me. There were some great battles for the medals, with a couple of unsuccessful but still exciting comebacks.

Also watched some of the tennis and judo. I really didn't like the judo.

Saw that woman cyclists crash, why on earth did they host the race on a road where it has little ditches for the riders to fall in? Some of the facilities I've seen so far have an air of amateurishness about them.

@adf86: While it was a dangerous track — and I wish the lady that crashed a speedy recovery — I honestly thought it was quite an exciting one to watch. Both gruelling and dangerous. Perhaps I'm just a sadist.

@adf86: A huge blemish on an otherwise exciting race. :/

@get2sammyb You were just ahead of me!

I don't deny that it was an exciting race and that sport of this calibre have an air of danger to them but this seemed very avoidable, which could have ended someone's career or worse.

@get2sammyb: I managed to watch the replay of Judo and enjoyed it alot, though it does help that I do have a rather extensive background in martial arts. Might squeeze in some water polo here in a bit.

Day 2

Women's Beach Volleyball - My favorite Olympic sport to watch. I started today out by watching a match I missed last night between a US pair (our "A" team) & an Australian pair (we won 2 Sets to none). Finished the day out by watching one of today's matches between the other US pair (our "B" team) & a Polish pair (we lost 1 Set to 2).

Men's Indoor Volleyball - Caught a match between the US & Canada in the afternoon (we lost 3 Sets to none). Can't say I'm a huge fan, though. Maybe it's just the canera angle, but the playfield looks too crowded with 5 players on each team (it looks too small for all of them).

Other - Caught the last few minutes of a Women's Rugby match between the US & New Zealand (they switched over to this after the forementioned Men's Volleyball game), that we lost 5-0. After that they once again switched over, this time to the last couple runs of White Water Kyaking (actually looked kind of interesting). Of course, later in the night I watched some of the Swimning event's (including Michael Phelps winning his 19th career Olympic Gold in the Team Relay), and the Women's Gymnastics qualifiers (the athleticism on offer is quite mind boggling).

Team GB finally got some medals! Adam Peaty is an absolute monster of a swimmer, breaking the World Record twice in the same competition, plus Jazz Carlin got a silver. Bit of a shock to see Djokovic get knocked out of the tennis so so early (as well as the Murrays and the Williamses going out of doubles) plus that crash in the road race looked horrible, but overall it was quite an exciting day. Can't wait to watch the diving today though.

Nice to see the host country get their first gold. Woman's 56k Judo in case you're wondering.

Day 3

Women's Beach Volleyball - The big event for me today was tonight's match between USA's "A" pair (with Walsh-Jennings) & a Chinese pair. The Chinese girls put up a good fight at the beginning of each set, but we ended up winning it 2 sets to none. I almost wouldn't have minded it if China won though... I thought Fan Wang was hot, lol. Earlier in the day I also watched a match between Australia & Venezuela that the Aussies won.

Women's Table Tennis - Caught a match between China & Hong Kong. The Chinese girl absolutely dominated the match.

Women's Rugby Sevens - The medal matches were today, and I used them as background noise while I did some chores this afternoon. I was able to sit down and watch the last half of the game between Australia & New Zealand. I actually kind of liked it (it's kind of like a game of football that almost never stops).

@RR529: I agree with ya on the Rugby part. I never seen a Rugby game before the Woman's Australia vs New Zealand match, and I thought why isn't this more popular here??? Lol. It reminded me of a combination of Football and either soccer or basketball. I liked the continuous play.

I might go back now and watch some of the other matches.

@tasuki when the Olypmics is over try watching some rugby league its got a decent fast pace to it. The teams are bigger and the actions is good, the English league is good and Austalia is as well. There is Rugby Union as well which is worth a look different rules to League.

@dryrain: I have thought about it. I also found out that the US has a pro Rugby League, granted it's only like 6 teams atm but my town is one of them so I might check them out at some point too.

This is one reason I like the Olympics, it introduces me to new sports that I normally wouldn't get to see.