very few of these athletes (male or female) have attractive bodies. their bodies are obviously very thick, muscular and disproportionate, specifically their back muscles. simply put, they look more like a cyclops sideshow freak than an underwear model. all the female gymnasts i have seen, like the 2 americans posted in this there, have been hideous.

however, there were a couple of german olympic whores photos from playboy that looked good.

who's watching paddling? honestly, this looks slightly harder than the pool events on nickelodeon guts.

Great match by the swiss Federer/Wawrinka in beating the Bryan brothers in the semis

lol we got robbed like 19192929 ****ing times when we played ure lot on davis Cup, I say this is justice , plus this was like our only medal we could win...we have a medal, weee!!!

LMAO...they should have just started bases loaded, 3-0 count while they were at it.

tuq - many of the events are live online at nbcolympics.com
But most/all of them are the raw-feed without any announcers.
Not sure for the swimming and other stuff though. If it's national telecast stuff they might make you wait for it to air on TV before you can view it on the internet.

I too am confused by their 'live' designation for some events.
Are you telling me that some of their swimming stuff in China is really happening at 9a-10a or so. China time is exactly 12 hours off of current Eastern Daylight time I believe.

I'm thinking that 'live' might be their weird way of saying that this is the first time it's been viewable anywhere in the U.S. (or in your region) or something.

Either that or perhaps they have live announcers actually at the place? A lot of the announcing has to take place from the studio for a lot of the games. they have just one set of cameras and wouldn't have room for announcers for a zillion different countries obviously.
So maybe it means they are covering 'live and in person' or something lame like that.

Regardless, I think it's incredibly wrong and misleading and pathetic of NBC to sell it like that.
Dude...if it's TAPE-DELAYED then you shouldn't be calling it LIVE. Period. No matter what their definition of 'live' is NBC is really freaking disingenuous about it.

Still though, the internet coverage of every freaking event I want to watch is fantastic.
They have the different stuff on all the various channels PLUS all the other games on nbcolympics.com and that really does kick ass.

As I mentioned earlier: I remember in 92 or 96 wanting to watch the freaking GOLD MEDAL soccer match. But since the U.S. wasn't in it and the Olympics were only on one channel then they didn't give it priority. They showed a few minutes of soccer at a time and then would cut away to 20-30 minutes worth of ping-pong coverage. Eventually they cam back to the anchor desk and mentioned who had won he soccer match (table tennis ran a little long I think).
That's how bad it was for anyone who wanted to watch pretty much ANYTHING that didn't have the U.S. participating in it.
So even with occasionally sketchy announcing and weird 'LIVE' designations all over the place I still think this year's Olympics are about 1000x better than they have ever been before.
This live coverage of everything on the internet was quite the experimental deal for them and it's unknown whether they will continue with it or not. If they determine that the internet stuff hurt their TV ratings way too much then they may scrap it (or charge a big fee or something) and I really hope that doesn't happen.

Through the first few minutes of the womens doubles badminton final I thought that it was men because they kept showing the chinese women and I was convinced that it was men. then I saw the Korean women and said, "WTF why is it men vs women??" then immediately after realized that it was the womens final.

Either way, another Gold for China.

I can't believe I'm still watching this stuff, its 1am there, so I know its all been played and I could easily go get the results, but I just want to watch all these meaningless events.

Last night was the first time I used the internet and it was awesome watching the US team vs Cuba in baseball. Between that and the Table tennis I watched it was cool just listening to the players and the crowd without any commentators. And you get the play-by-play and live commentary written in text which is alright IMO. At least there is none of that stupid filler that we got from the announcers.

Not to mention we don't have to listen to some ridiculous US homer like with the softball game vs Canada last night, seriously, how does that woman have a job?

Anyway, it would be a travesty IMO if the winter olympics in 2010 didn't include this internet coverage.

bob. the swimming finals broadcast nightly here in the US are indeed "live" in China. They are swimming the finals in the morning there. they went to a completely opposite schedule there to accomodate most of the US viewing audience live. the west coast is not receiving it live- but on the regular west coast delay like other TV programming. but the nightly sessions we are watching in US time for eastern and central US are as they happen over there in the mornings.



that whitewater course/park/stadium is awesome.

needle - I don't even turn on the text commentary usually.

I will settle in for an overnight or early morning of various baseball or hoops or soccer games or whatever and it's just nice background viewing without the announcers for me.

But for something like swimming or gymnastics I think the announcers help you figure out what's happening a bit more.


ape - I thought there might be something like that but I wasn't sure. Thanks. Good to know some of that 'live' stuff really is 'live' (except on the west coast...where they continue to insist that it's live').

Am I the only one that finds the archery competitions fantastically entertaining?

LOL, I didn't realize how ridiculous these rules were. It's almost as bad as my co-ed summer softball league where guys are out if they hit home runs.

Well, that rule is there in co-ed softball so the game is more fun and competitive instead of a homerun derby. Makes sense.

The Olympic rule is there because they want to get the game over with as quickly as possible with complete disregard to the fact that the games are a serious competition and they've completely made up rules that change the entire outcome of the game.

yeah tbh I'm fairly sure the west coast is just getting a repeat of the earlier broadcast-so all those live labels are already on the screen from earlier. they probably aren't trying to be tricky or anything- it's just not accurate for someone looking at it on the west coast.

in MN we were getting nearly complete repeat broadcasts overnight also for the first several days with none of those labels taken off- so I'd assume they just hit rewind and play for the west coast with perhaps some allowance for editing to rework some things they weren't completely content with the first time around. It would be interesting to find out if the west coast is getting some live afternoon events that the rest of the country isnt that way.
I now get a late night wrapup show with mary carillo - maybe an hour or so only instead of the multiple hour rebroadcasts like I was the first few nights.

go canada, yay 0 medals great worrk

xaston- I have only been able to be around to see a little bit of it. it's pretty entertaining - but then again I'm the guy that likes biathlon broadcasts during the winter olympics.

the whitewater events are super entertaining to me also.

doubt it but at least they didnt win womens all around

ok msnbc just showed a coke commerical w/ bill frist. **** COKE

yeah i have been making that mistake frequently.

The basketball channel, soccer channel, USA, Msnbc, and cnbc air at the same time throughout the US. IIRC, the morning and evening NBC broadcasts are tape delayed in the West, but the afternoon show is at the same time.

I'm a sports nut, and don't believe in mixing sport and politics, but I have to say I am getting more turned-off the Olympics by the day.

So many reasons for this:

> The Chinese attitude to protest and anything else that dilutes the "message" of glorious China and their perfect Games. The control freakery and dishonesty are getting so creepy they are now spoiling the sport for me.
> This is best evidenced by the absolutely disgusting dishonesty of the young girl singer at the opening ceremony who wasn't pretty enough for the cameras, so they made a prettier girl mime. I think both children were 5 or 6. The real singer will forever consider herself the girl who was not pretty enough. Ok, it's not a huge deal, but for me it perfectly sums-up the fakery we are seeing so much of. For what it's worth I thought the fireworks fakery was defensible, but it was still dishonest. Why not just admit that the TV presentation was enhanced? It would be easy to sell that line by saying it was the best way to convey the true nature of the ceremony on TV. But no. They decided on faking it and lying. Yuk).
> This dishonesty is also seen in the balls they've made in the ticketing arrangements. They claim all venues are full and yet it's clear they are not. They have had to bus in fake supporters. As a result, the atmosphere at some events has been awful. Yet again, this feeds into China's need to pretend that everything is perfect, when it's not.
> The IOC's obnoxious attitude, and utter refusal to criticise China in any way whatsoever. They also refuse to answer questions at press conferences and refuse to stand up for journalistic freedom. The IOC is just beneath contempt, and I don't know why the world accepts them as a righteous outfit. They are corrupt, lying, controlling, bullies and charlatans. If I had to pick one single criticism above all that sickens me, it's this one.
> The uneven treatment of western protestors and Chinese ones. The Westerners are well treated and flown out of the country. The Chinese protesters? Who knows.
> On top of everything, Beijing looks like an unspeakable shi*thole, and the venues seem dreary as hell. It's as though they totally forgot about this in their eagerness to build quickly and spectacularly, when really it's the backdrop of the host city that is a very major factor. It's like a birthday party where you forget to invite the birthday girl. You stand there in your party hat thinking - the food and drink look good, but there's something missing...
> Latest depressing antic: the Spanish tennis teams group photo. Google it if you haven't seen the story. What the f*** is wrong with the Spanish and racism? Seems scandalously tolerated in that country (Lewis Hamilton and various black footballers can attest to that). This isn't China's fault of course, but it adds to the sourness that is rapidly spoiling it for me.

Looking back, those creepy "minders" for the Olympic tourch we a harbinger of things to come. I think they had some eurphamism for these guys ("Light Bringers" or some crap) when it was obvious as hell they were military or special forces. Again, it's fakery, isn't it? Pretend happiness and harmony.

Most horrible of all, China's apparent belief that Westerners can be fooled by all this dishonesty. I imagine all the bull**** ordinary Chinese people are asked to believe and agree with in public. Keep up the facade, even though everyone - liars and lie-ees - knows it is such. Then I imagine these same people sitting around their dinner tables at night quietly talking about what they really think. It's very sad. Do the Chinese really think the rest of us are willing to play this game?

The first words in this thread were: "I love the Olympics". Me too. But not this one.

My GF and I were discussing her 5head during the team competition.

She just has a very high hairline. I'm sure she looks much better with her hair down, but obviously that isn't an option while doing gymnastics.
I imagine when she doesn't have her hair in a ponytail it isn't noticeable at all.

I think it's a variation of the one they did for the Super Bowl.

spaniards are extremely racists fwiw