I hate to say it, but I’m diggin’ the Olympic Games more than the Tour de France. Especially this year’s Tour.
I’m not sure the reason, but I am really enjoying watching all the sports this year. I’ve been watching rowing, volleyball, fencing, you name it, I’ve watched it. I’m usually not too much into watching water polo, but I watched it for 30 minutes yesterday. I’ll actually watch just about anything. I tend to shy away from boxing mainly because I don’t really like to see people smashing each other in the face and someone else judging them to do it. I actually have to dislike most subjective sports. By those, I mean the sports that are only judged by other humans. I might dislike them because of the scoring, but I still watch them.
The Tour de France this year was boring. Sorry, but after the fact, that is a fact. I think the cycling road race at the Olympics was just as good as any single stage of the Tour, and it had 20 stages to 1 for the Olympics. The 5 man team max made the race much better. The time trial at the Olympics was fairly predictable and moderately boring too. They need to do something to spice up the coverage some.
I’ve had this idea for a long time. If I had a ton of extra money laying around, I would collect Olympic medals from all the Olympic games. A gold, a silver and a bronze medal from every Olympics since 1896. It probably would have been much easier and cheaper to do when the Eastern Block was still behind the Iron Curtain. There were a lot of Olympians with multiple medals that could have used some Western currency back then. Wouldn’t it be cool to have an Olympic Gold medal for the Tug of War from the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis? I think it would be great.
I’ve only touched a few Olympic medals in my life. Roy Knickman’s bronze medal from the 1984 TTT was the first one. Let me tell you, it is a very cool thing. It must feel great having earned it. I’m sure Taylor Phinney is bummed about his two 4th place finishes this year. Both his mom and dad both have Olympic medals. He gonna have lots more chances to get one, so that is good.
Did you have a chance to catch the British Team do qualifying in the Team Pursuit? 3:52 and change for 4km. A World Record ride. It was pretty seamless. It is a beautiful thing.
I didn’t realize that the Americans that win medals got paid for their medals by the US Olympic Committee. $25000 for Gold, $15000 for Silver and $10000 for Bronze. I’m not sure what I think about that. I guess it’s okay, why not? I heard about it when I heard that a Senator from Florida was introducing a bill to make the $$$ tax exempt. I’m not sure what I think about that either. I guess it’s okay too.
Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed watching the Olympics and the track and field hasn’t even started. Should be fun next week.
If you have an extra $25000-$35000 sitting around, you can start you medal collection right now on Ebay. These are from Athens. Extras.
Other countries pay their athletes as well, thats nothing new that you receive $$$ for medals.
In smaller countries where there may be only 1 person who wins a “Gold” that person is King or Queen for Life like in the ancient creek days. North Korean 56kg man lifing 3 times his bodyweight +1 pound in the clean and jerk , very impressive. I don’t like the human judges either , but that’s the way in artisitic gymnastic….the girls and boys are very cool unbelievable performances….Gabby had to wait last night staring at the scoreboard and then there was Gold…..
Fun to watch….The different sports also reveal the different bodytypes and different abilities human’s have to perform…the Kings of the Games will still be the Decathlon Men…..
Superspeed in cycling on track is cool too,
Men’s usboys in Basketball are of course also superathletically gifted….156 point’ s and smiling….that’s total control..hopefully it will not be a boring final with total domination…
Waterpolo Girls, those are some big strong girls…don’t mess with them….Enjoy a cold one while watching others sweat…..nonetheless it is better to break your on sweat!
In the Sydney 2000 Gary Newbon missed the Gold Track medal by hundreds of a second ! Ron his father told me , that he was more upset about missing the additional bonus , rather than the colour ! Those days it was $A50000 for gold , $25000 for silver , so it was a significant amount .
Met Davis and connie throughout the preparation on Box Hill and also at Hampton Court ! They were just as proud of the 4th , it was as if Taylor had taken a medal !
Rode with Simon w. in Richmond Park after leaving the ITT route , makes the third Olympics that i have enjoyed meeting him .
steve ,olympics viewing pleasure is all about where in the world it is being held ,,,in 88 i loved it cos everything was in prime time here in australia .. l.a. 84 sucked for us ..but apparently the seoul tv rights were way down on la coz no us prime time ..rio gonna be good for you guys too …here now its all really late at night ..track cycling STARTS at 0100 am (forget it)and free to air coverage on the only channel doing olympics is abysmal..now the tour YUP the tour ..here we get every stage full tv coverage live every stage …guess which i prefer ?
When a time trialer wins the Tour it is always boring, only climbers make it interesting, VanGarderen, Froome and Hesjedal should make it more interesting next year.
A few more details on the bonus money for U.S. Olympic medalists:
– USA Cycling rewarded gold medalists at the London Games $100,000 in bonus money (silver and bronze medalists get $75,000 and $50,000, respectively). Dubbed the “London 100K Challenge,” it is the richest known Olympics financial incentive program offered by any cycling organization in the world.
– This is on top of the bonus money provided by the USOC, which Steve references above.
– Members of the men’s road and time trial teams were not eligible to earn money from the program due to commitments to their professional teams.
– Members of the men’s and women’s road race team divided evenly any bonuses for which they are eligible, and the women’s team pursuit members – Dotsie Bausch, Sarah Hammer, Lauren Tamayo and Jennie Reed – will individually qualify for the 2013 USA Cycling Podium Program and divide evenly all additional bonuses earned by winning an Olympic medal.
The green jersey race was really exciting to watch up until Goss got relegated and lost out on 30? points. After that it was a one man show.