PunBB

Yikes!


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The Horrible Esthete Wrote:

robert goulet Wrote:Most Golds or Most Medals to determine the winning Olympic country....what is more reflective??? Discuss.

My guess is that all you Yanks will go with the "Most Medals" option.

Not me. It's all about the Gold, baby.

Silver and Bronze medals are nice "consolation" awards, but they just identify you as "First and Second Losers".

I'm with you on that one. Apparently the Canadian Olympic Committee disagrees though. The CEO was just on CBC touting Canada's 13th place finish in the medal standings. Of course, he made no mention of the fact that it's actually 19th when ranked by golds.

chris Wrote:Yikes!


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Wow, that's brutal. Sounds like he's facing a lifetime ban for it, and deservedly so.

The Horrible Esthete Wrote:There are nations whose amateur athletic programs have functioned as systemic component of an Olympic medal-winning machine for the sake of demonstrating some sort of national supremacy. It is a strech to say that US has ever been one of them.....

You're just plain wrong on that, Esthete.

Led Zeppelin classic 'too racy' for Olympics- It has been delighting fans for almost 40 years but Led Zeppelin's rock classic "Whole Lotta Love" has been deemed too racy by Olympics organisers.

By David Bond in Beijing and John Bingham

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After choosing the song for the closing ceremony on Sunday they decided that some of the lyrics would have to be omitted or re-written amid concerns that they could cause offence.

The song was chosen as the centrepiece of an eight-minute £2.5million British segment at the event in Beijing at which the Olympic flag will be officially passed to the London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Organisers of the London 2012 Games commissioned the band's guitarist Jimmy Page to record a new version of the song to be performed on top of a special red double-decker bus accompanied by Leona Lewis, winner of the ITV reality television show The X Factor, with David Beckham looking on.

But, according to London 2012 officials, Lewis - who grew up in east London close to the Olympic site - requested a change to the song's second verse because she was worried they would not make sense for a female singer.

In the original, recorded in 1969, frontman Robert Plant sings, "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love".

But in the version that will be sung tomorrow, however, Lewis changes the words to "every bit" of my love.

The band also agreed to a request from organisers to drop the third verse, which includes similar sexual innuendoes, to fit in to the eight-minute performance.

With an estimated two billion around the world expected to tune in for the closing ceremony, the British segment will throw the spotlight firmly on preparations for the London Games in four years time.

Celebrations are being planned at 30 sites across Britain to celebrate the handover.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather in the Mall as the skies above Buckingham Palace are turned the colours of the Union Flag by the Red Arrows display team.

The events, seven time-zones apart, will focus the eyes of the world on Britain's Olympic efforts at the end of the most success Games for 100 years. Last night the British gold medal tally stood at 18 with hopes for more success today.

In contrast to the Beijing organisers, who have been accused of creating a Games lacking in fun and Olympic spirit, London's creative team say they want the show to reflect Britain's deep cultural heritage and party spirit.

As the Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong passes the flag to Boris Johnson, the Greenwich pips will herald the start of the London section of the show followed quickly by a rendition of the national anthem - including, unusually, its second verse, performed by 25 children from the National Youth Theatre.

A London bus will then be driven into the arena, chased by Britain's Olympic gold medal winning cyclists Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton.

Shanaze Reade, the BMX cyclist who was set to win a silver medal in yesterday's competition before a spectacular fall, will have a scan on a wrist injury before deciding whether she can take part.

The top section of the vehicle will open up like a "lotus flower" to reveal a stage from which elevated platforms will lift Lewis and Page. A further platform will rise up to reveal former England captain Beckham, flanked by a violinist and a cellist dressed in Britain's official Olympic kit.

Beckham, who featured in England's disappointing 2-2 draw against the Czech Republic at Wembley on Wednesday night, will then kick a football into a crowd of athletes in the centre of the arena.

Tayyiba Dudhwala, a 10-year-old girl from east London, will appear alongside Beckham after winning a competition on the children's programme Blue Peter.

London officials explained they chose the Led Zeppelin number for its instantly recognisable guitar riff and because it would sum up London's desire to turn the 2012 Olympics into 'one big party'.

Dancers from the Royal Opera House, a hip hop dance troupe from South London called ZooNation and CandoCo, a group made up of able bodied and disabled dancers, have spent the last two weeks with other performers preparing for the show at an airfield an hour and a half outside Beijing.

Bill Morris, London 2012 director of culture, ceremonies and education, said: "This is not a distilled version of our opening ceremony four years from now.

"We wanted to keep it simple, make it youthful and diverse. It's entertaining and fun and it's UK and London, loud and proud."

Jimmy rocked it..I guess he figures if Plant can play with a younger hottie, why can't he?

chris Wrote:Yikes!


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The video is down, and I didn't hear of this....sounds like he did this on purpose, what happened?

d_alex_d Wrote:

chris Wrote:Yikes!


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The video is down, and I didn't hear of this....sounds like he did this on purpose, what happened?

He was disqualified for taking more than the alloted time for an injury. He got mad and kicked the ref in the face.

hmm? seems like the natural reaction. Good for him :nooooo

A variety of very cool photos...

http://stuff.thdesign.be/forum/varia/OS.html

"You're a total medal c**t" hock:

Check it out about 48 seconds into the video...

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NBC's Tiki Barber should be fired

By Phil Perrier LA Daily News

There it was on the AOL news, "Did Tiki Barber call a female co-worker the `c' word?"

"Say what?" I snorted.

So I played the clip over and over. Not so much because it was unclear, it was clear, very clear. I played it over and over because hearing that word casually tossed out amid vapid morning-TV banter is so hard for the brain to process.

The way it happened was former New York Giants star turned "Today Show" talker Tiki Barber, along with Brian Williams and Jenna Wolfe, were doing a report from Beijing, and talking about the total medal count of the Olympics. It appeared that Barber and Wolfe were disagreeing over which is more important, total medals versus total gold medals.

Wolfe said to Barber "So you'll argue with me about it, but Brian Williams... ooh!" To which Williams said "It's about the total medal count." And then Barber said to Wolfe, at close proximity, "You're a total medal c-."

Also shown was an earlier report with Barber and Wolfe alone (without Brian Williams, that is), in which Wolfe joked that she had been wearing Barber's Super Bowl ring all week. Barber pointed out that he did not have a Super Bowl ring, which Wolfe quickly laughed off.

Barber however, was not laughing and said "Your such a - " Then he apparently thought better of finishing his thought.

Thus the stage is set, Barber perceived Jenna Wolfe as needling him for never winning a Super Bowl. Right before he unleashed the vaunted c-word, Wolfe ribbed him about arguing with her but knuckling under to Williams. This on top of his already-bruised ego about the earlier Super Bowl ring affront. Barber simply could not let it go. He had to snap back and he did.

Barber has since denied using the word, claiming he said to Wolfe "You are a total medal count." Fine and dandy, were it not for the fact that it makes absolutely no sense and is not true.

But don't take my word for it, go to the nearest computer and Google "Tiki Barber c word," and listen for yourself.

All of which leads to one conclusion: Tiki Barber must go. If Don Imus loses his job for calling female athletes "Nappy-headed hos," then Tiki Barber has to lose his job for calling a female co-worker by the single ugliest epithet in the English language - on the air!

What other outcome is even coherent? Is the head of NBC supposed to sit Tiki down and say "Tiki, I'd really rather you not call your women co-workers c-s, on the air ... pretty please."

Every self-respecting woman in America and every man who has ever had a wife, mother or sister should e-mail, call or write NBC and say "Tiki Barber must be fired immediately or I will stop buying the products advertised on MSNBC and NBC." (Feel free to cut and paste that.)

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You can see her eyebrows raise immediately after he said it to her, then he proceeded to awkwardly grin like an idiot. The tension and awkwardness afterwards was very strong. Tiki should absolutely be fired for this. It serves him right too. He's always been a cocky, arrogant, self serving asshole. Somehow I don't think he will be fired for this, but hopefully now his reputation will be irrevocably damaged.

skippy the wonder dog Wrote:

The Horrible Esthete Wrote:There are nations whose amateur athletic programs have functioned as systemic component of an Olympic medal-winning machine for the sake of demonstrating some sort of national supremacy. It is a strech to say that US has ever been one of them.....

You're just plain wrong on that, Esthete.

Rationale?

Oh, please. Pull your head out of the sand.

You're glad to accept that the US has an effective athletics system that produces top athletes, and that the US is able to outperform other nations with similar and greater population at the Olympics -- until someone suggests that demonstrating the ability to do so is the aim of the system.

Then you start writing bullshit about bake sales -- because it suits you, ideologically, to pretend that there is no system and that the lack of a system, in fact, is what produces the superior results. Which, incidentally, is exactly what the system aims to demonstrate.

The fact that there is no single entity directing the US amateur athletics system does not mean that a system does not exist and that the system doesn't have goals or aims. Hold all the bake sales you want -- success at the Olympics is the product of serious money. Money for infrastructure, for example -- swimming pools and track stadiums don't build themselves. That money comes from players who are investing in ... what? Money for endorsements. That money is available ... why?

Well, because athletes are role models and heroes, right? And they're role models and heroes ... why?

Come down to the root of things, and there's only one answer.

I think that the point of Esthete's comment was that the money and support that goes to American Olympic efforts is oriented towards producing results and not justifying the existence of the current government or the supposed superiority of the American way of life, like you see with Russian or Chinese governmental support of their amateur athletic programs. Sure, we take national pride in our athletes' achievements but you don't see the US government pouring money into Olympic programs to get medals and use the results as propaganda for political purposes.