Olympics Thread

Americans who have a right to political dissent, yes.

Yeah, because everyone's rushing to defend him. He's definitely not experiencing a rightful and near-universal condemnation from his own country. If that were the case, there wouldn't be a double standard to complain about!

Okay, I'm guilty of egging this on a little bit myself. Now, however, I am stepping in with a moderator hat: this is a Sports thread. If we're to talk politics (and I realize that the Olympics is commonly politicized) take it to a General Politics thread. Either that, or both sides can forget it, it's Americatown.

After thinking about it some more, protocol for the Canadian anthem is something like this:

1. Nothing.
2. If you must do something, sing, loudly and badly.

Personally I don't sing it because the concept of national anthems is stupid.

now I get why you think trump will win

Also, as someone who has a job where a requirement is to salute the flag, you are getting way too worked up about this. Gabby Douglas is good at a sport and the Olympics is where she can show she is one of the best at what she does. She just happens to live in America, she does not have to be patriotic about it, she just has to be good.

How can you tell? Any medal ceremony I've ever watched on NBC is a closeup of the American medal winner with zero acknowledgement after the initial shot that anyone else is on the podium.

Anybody up for discussion of olympic logos?

eyeondesign.aiga.org/milton-glaser-analyzes-olympic-logo-design-through-the-ages/

I disagree with many of his points, and I feel that Sydney has the best.

I can't resist the simple, wonderfully dated elegance of the Tokyo 1964 logo.

I like it and looks great as a suitcase sticker, but I really wish the map didn't make america look so fat.

Yeah and the other japanese ones have been so great, so it perplexes me that both versions have looked so dated and that I expect more forward thinking design out of Japan. This one was floated and I think it's the best and a tragedy that it's not used. (The flowers are the seal of the royal family)

I feel that Montreal 76 and Mexico 68 are pretty bad and the symbolism just does not stand out at all (the black parts of Mexico are a conjoined 68).

LA 84 looks generic, but it still really works probably because Saul Bass worked on it.

Atlanta is probably my second favorite of the summers (the colors are odd but they work), and London (plus '36 berlin) are my least favorite.

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I also feel that Calgary 88 works well and that his reasoning is stupid (and I get a maple leaf vibe from it). and that Seoul is kind of bad. Barcelona is nice but it gives me papyrus font vibes and that's no bueno.

And one that I'm surprised I don't remember is Torino 06, but it looks like it's for generic cheap electronics. And Sochi '12 looks like the GTA font.

I was thinking that the 2002 salt lake games logo is rose tinted by living through it, but really it is great. Interestingly in the past forty or so years when cities make a bid they submit a logo for that's pretty much one time use, and this was is SLC's.

His commentary on Berlin seems like kind of a no duh...Berlin – "The Olympic rings become subordinated to the eagle and bell forms." By the host's priorities for the games I'd say that one is a success


Seconding that I think the Calgary one is pretty great, especially for the generally fucking awful design of the era


Nagano is definitely a fave too.

You know, a lot of people are complaining that pros won't be able to compete in baseball at Tokyo, but I like it! Have all college players. It's much more in keeping with the original Olympic mission, and it'll be totally unpredictable.

It really puts it in perspective when you can say with total honesty that these players come from an organization MORE corrupt than the IOC. Like, I read your post and my first thought was, "God, will they even be allowed to keep the money?"

I’m honestly kind of surprised they even made a commitment to 2028 at all, given that even if Cheeto-in-chief is gone it’s unlikely the US will ever abandon its borders paranoia/harassment of outsiders. I’m also surprised because a friend-of-a-mentor knew both the IOC and the BIE (the group that does world expos) well, and a lot of people there just don’t like the US getting things on principle, a bit like the Nobel Committee (thus Chicago’s Olympics bid was even more doomed than everyone thought).

Given the shift of the Olympics back to developed countries which have hosted it before I actually don’t think it would be a bad idea to just permanently fix it in one place some permanent infrasture. Paris would make sense as the original hosting place and also somewhere where the stadiums would get a lot of use in off-years. I think Athens might be the best choice given the amount of infrastructure already there and it’s location right close to the center of the World Island, plus the whole Ancient Olympics connection. A friend is actually a fan of LA being a permanent location as a sort of nexus of the Americas and Asia which isn’t too much of a hassle for Europeans and Asians. Plus we do have most of the infrastructure here already—although people have already been making the “Olympics = gentrification” argument I actually don’t think it would be that true because the Olympics would basically be plug-and-play. And during the 1984 Olympics traffic actually wasn’t bad, mainly because of a sort of backfire effect where people wouldn’t make trips because they anticipated Olympic traffic being horrible.

If I'm not mistaken Britain did pretty well too. They'd probably want some eastern hemisphere hosts as well... How well did Japan do with Nagano? Should we keep the hilarious money pit Sochi park open too?