Ignoring the Olympics (mostly...)

[sierra_le_oli]

Gold gold gold gold gold. The headlines sound like the lyrics to dwarf songs lately. Though I have no idea what the medals are for as I haven't been watching the coverage. It's purely out of disinterest and lack of time, and nothing to do with any high-minded notions of punishing China. Just as well, or I'd be obliged to boycott the London Olympics

Comments

Re: Ahh, English football...

[bellinghman]

The English football teams can't take part in these Olympics because England is not taking part in the Olympics at all. The team currently doing so well is the British team, which isn't the same thing at all.

In theory, a joint British football team (which could comprise members from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) could take part, but then FIFA would get all bolshy and start insisting that we couldn't have individual teams any more in the Euro and WOrld Cups. So on the whole, we don't.

I think it no great loss. The Olympics are about those sports for which it is the ultimate competition. Football and tennis have their own championships which are much more highly valued, and as a result, the sportsmen taking part in the Olympic matches for those sports aren't really concentrating in quite the same way.

Re: Ahh, English football...

[knell]

Also, it'd be really boring if the Olympic coverage just turned into World Cup coverage, as it were. It's the fact that you actually get to *see* a lot of sports which get very little coverage elsewhere that makes the Olympics fascinating to watch - I bet a large chunk of the population, for instance, wasn't aware of Britain's current absolute dominance in the world of track cycling until last week.

Then again, I'm something of a purist - Olympic sports should be ones which rely entirely on totally objective results, such as the fastest time or the first across a line. Things like artistic gymnastics are really artistic competitions, and unless ballroom dancing and other things which are subjectively scored by judges are in the Olympics, I'm not sure why they are.

Then again, sierra-le-oli - Theo Bos and the other members of the Netherlands team have come pretty close to dethroning GBR in some track events, most notably with Marianne Vos' gold in the points race. I have noticed that the Dutch supporters seem notably less insanely oranje than

Re: Ahh, English football...

[knell]

... and hey, this is the price the UK's football governing bodies pay for having something no other country has - four national entries in internationals rather than the one which every other country has.