Loved them both. London was very British. Paris was very French. As it should be.
2024 Summer Olympics (Paris)
- Thread starter Samid
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Loved them both. London was very British. Paris was very French. As it should be.
For Indonesia the highlight, personally, was winning gold for the first time in weightlifting with such aplomb, setting a new Olympic record in the men's 73kg event. Weightlifting has a strong history in these shores and to see it take centre stage having been in the shadows of badminton for decades is a welcome change. Bringing home the highest prize in men's speed climbing was also another highlight but our gold medal winner in the event is an absolute freak of nature, so no real surprises here.
Incidentally badminton was by far and away our biggest disappointment. For only the second time in Olympic history we missed out on a gold medal across the five events and only came home with bronze in the women's singles event. Unlike your pride and joy Axelsen our men's singles shuttlers were utterly horrific, with both Ginting and third-seed Christie crashing out in the group stage.
It's a shame both of Indonesia's best lifters are in the same weight category. Two genuinely world class lifters.
For Thailand the biggest highlight is our girl 'Tennis' who got back to back golds in Taekwondo and in the process cements herself as our greatest ever olympic athlete. We also got our first ever medalist in badminton with a silver in the men's singles. Too bad the guy who won it is a Liverpool fan and a royalist. Three medals in weightlifting making it our most successful event all time and one bronze in boxing which traditionally was our most successful event but is now second and not looking too great. Not many negatives but our boxing program has started to lag behind and needs an overhaul.
I've read a couple of news sites that Indonesia really want to bring the games home in 2036 in their new capital city. Do you think the bid has any chance or is it just politicians talking hot air?
You're Thai?
Abdullah barely missing out was a cause for slight concern knowing that Juniansyah is the less experienced of the two lifters but boy, did he perform! Taking my red-tinted glasses off for a moment I genuinely think his successful lift for a new Olympic record is up there with the very best moments of Paris 2024.
I don't know much about Tennis or taekwondo for that matter but as for Vitidsarn, if it was not for Axelsen channelling his inner Wong Peng Soon, Rudy Hartono and Lin Dan all rolled into one in the latter stages of the tournament he would have taken gold. A stupendously good shuttler and he was absolutely immense throughout.
Southeast Asia overall as a region did particularly well this edition, I feel. Obviously us with two golds, you guys with a gold and few silvers, the Philippines with also a couple of golds and even Singapore got in on the act with a bronze. In typical fashion Malaysia could have done a lot better and at this point parallels can be drawn between its Olympic athletes and the England football team -- failing to cross the proverbial finish line at crucial times has indeed become a worrying quadrennial habit for them.
I could actually see it happening if, and only if, the move to the new capital is a foregone conclusion -- which is currently not the case.
I don't know if Southeast Asia has a chance for 2036 purely for geographic reasons and the fact that Brisbane 2032 will be relatively close and in similar timezones. I think most likely candidate is Istanbul that has bid unsuccessfully for decades now and offers a good location.
Or the Middle East. There's very few countries or cities that can justify spending that much money on an event of two weeks, even if it's the Olympics. Brisbana already was the only candidate for 2032 and I believe they have most of the infrastructure already available.
I mean you’ve got cities with the infrastructure that don’t need to spend tens of billions to organize it, but that’s another story.
IOC is a tiny bit less corrupted than FIFA, who already awarded WC 2034 to Saudi Arabia and will again have to push the competition by few months, fecking wankers hope they choke on their blood money. Can’t see IOC doing same shit and hosting Summer Olympics in December - it will be Istanbul who never hosted the games yet
The beach volleyball on Venice Beach and the swimming events inside SoFi stadium should be awesome.
You’re not the only person who thought he was a Punjab kings fan
You should watch it, there is no way you can watch it and then say these are not athletes on par with the best gymnasts.
And as far as I'm concerned I cannot get behind Los Angeles being coerced into picking a sport the vast majority of LA residents have never even heard of let alone play or care about (cricket), no one except rich private school brats play (lacrosse), people only play when when drinking at BBQs (squash), and a "sport" only traditionally played as practice for tackle football.
I guess the hope is Flag Football does for American Football what Rugby 7s does for Rugby.
Cricket is maybe on the IOC's priority list - of only because India has been more or less invisible at the Games and presumably that's not great for expanding broadcast revenue.
Lacrosse is a bit of a mystery though - unless they won the place in a raffle
Maybe there's some reason why Breaking couldn't be a special pick again after it debuted at Paris?
As far as I know 5 slots were entirely up to the host committee. Apparently the ICC lobbied (bribed?) LA committee pretty heavily to select cricket but for me that's absurd because it takes up a "local' pick and LA has zero connection to cricket. If IOC wants cricket then by all means put it in but not as a local selection of the LA committee when it has zero connection to the host city or even the host country. Tokyo and Paris both selected culturally relevant sports but it looks like LA was just selling their slots to the highest bidder. Lacrosse has no real connection to LA either. I've only ever heard about it from elite private schools and picking that rubs me the wrong way because its not even a sport any middle class kids in Los Angeles participate in let alone low-income. Its known as one of those rich kid sports that private schools use to get kids into elite colleges because there is far less competition. And I really don't get squash being an olympic sport at all. I guess people in LA do participate in it but never heard of it being competitive.
Honestly, breaking and skateboarding are far more connected to Los Angeles cultural history and should have been picked as locally relevant instead of two of the above.
How on Earth do you play squash at a BBQ? You lot barbecue at sports facilities over there?
You're right I was thinking of badminton. I never heard of people actually playing squash now that I look it up.
Wait, are you a Punjabi Thai? or is the Pubjabi dude false? Might be one of the coolest combinations!
As a "local" pick, LA should consider bringing back pistol dueling where you fire at each other like a real man - it would be a nice throwback moment as it was already a sport once, in London 1908. The French won. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_dueling_at_the_Summer_Olympics
As a "local" pick, LA should consider bringing back pistol dueling where you fire at each other like a real man - it would be a nice throwback moment as it was already a sport once, in London 1908. The French won. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_dueling_at_the_Summer_Olympics
I'd be okay with this more than cricket, lacrosse, squash or flag football if I'm being real.The former. I'd say it's the best combination for a food lover in the world. Second place might be an Sicilian Japanese person.
LA should have picked surfing, skateboarding, bmx, rollerblading and foot bag.
I think the Lacrosse scene has changed. We have had a pro lacrosse team for years, and many public high schools - including the local one by me - have boys and girls lacrosse teams.
https://www.insidelacrosse.com/recruiting/highschool/state/CA/24
https://cifss.org/sports/lacrosse/
I'd say 2nd best food combo.
Best - Italian + Thai (I joke I'm Ithalian) and then Thai + Punjabi.. Anyway back to the olympics but Thailand is beautiful. Had a lot of fun there this summer.
Yeah it's amazing except for the politics and the people in charge.
Yes
Nice to meet you too buddy.
Shocking incompetence by CAS. They also rejected the US's appeal because they said they can't hear an appeal based on new evidence.I would tell the IOC they can have the bronze back when they give us our fecking gold medals for basketball from 1972.
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I was just asking him because he's from Indonesia and more than anything I was curious about the whole idea of a building a brand new city and then also adding the sports infrastructure on top. Seemed unrealistic to me.
Istanbul seems absolutely the best candidate to me but with the Saudi's ambitions on the sports/tourism front I wouldn't doubt them throwing so much money at the IOC that their knees might go soft.
That GMT+2 time zone really worked for Paris. LA will just not hit the same, my CAT region will be compromised.
You forgot Flying Disc.
Hot dog eating contest
I don't mind it as I missed a lot of daytime sports with Paris. In past olympics the time change meant I was watching different sports first thing in the morning/ evenings.
I would tell the IOC they can have the bronze back when they give us our fecking gold medals for basketball from 1972.
Facts. That bronze medal would be in a safe deposit box by now. CAS can go do one.
That's fair but I still don't feel like lacrosse is ever an "LA thing". It's not a top 10 sport in the CIF and culturally its still non-existent - unlike skateboarding or breaking which have 40+ years of relevant history to Los Angeles. And even if some public schools have lacrosse teams look at the list of top rated lacrosse high schools: https://www.maxpreps.com/ca/association/cif-southern-section/lacrosse/rankings/1/
That's still full of expensive private schools and only public schools from very wealthy areas like Agoura Hills and San Clemente.
Probably because it wasn't on the megadrive version I had.
All true. Maybe we can select Ultimate Frisbee! Now there’s a California vibe.
Is Frisbee Golf still a thing? Saw it on World of Sport about 40 years ago.
If that’s Ultimate Frisbee, then +1!
It’s still played but only by paedos.