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Thread: The Olympic Games: Time to Stop

  1. #1
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    Default The Olympic Games: Time to Stop

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    by Mark Rippetoe

    The Olympics has turned from a celebration of human physical performance that once transcended global politics and popular culture into a propaganda event for the dominant interpretation of global politics and popular culture. It is no longer about athletics and who wins the athletic competition...

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    Quote Originally Posted by stef View Post
    by Mark Rippetoe

    The Olympics has turned from a celebration of human physical performance that once transcended global politics and popular culture into a propaganda event for the dominant interpretation of global politics and popular culture. It is no longer about athletics and who wins the athletic competition...

    Read article
    I like it....your article that is. I hate NBC and the coverage has degenerated in sync with the culture...(How about that coincidence!)

    There have been many attempts in the last century to propagandize at the games.....eg Hitler, Putin, and now Kim Jun Ung. The media always willing to comply. Kim sister being feted, while all the time a murdering regime grinds on while she is propaganda minister. They are "good" in NOKO, they have gun control and universal health care.... and by God, populaton control.

    Anyway, my wife and I , sitting here in SoCal....really do love a one every four years "fix" of curling. When they cut it out of the last olympics, we were pissed. They even have breaks in the action for "thinking time".

    Do I love golf....yes!. Do I need to watch it in the Olympics? NO!

    Hockey sucks...because women's hockey sucks (as does women's basketball and tennis). Mens hockey does not suck , but it does in the Olympics given no NHL participation.

    I'd be happy watching wrestling, weight lifting, skiing, and track and field. As much as snowboarding events are exciting...more judging shit. What do they call it....NASCAR on snow. Do normal people really ride a sled, head first, down an ice track with 5G forces for fun?

    Did I say I hate NBC and their leftist propaganda? ONly thing worse is the complicity of the crony capitalists who bascially say in their ads.....look, just do your thing , whatever it is.....just buy our shit.

    They can all die out...with the NFL.

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    NBC claims they are a capitalistic organization which attempts to maximize profit by broadcasting things that will garner the largest audience so that they can sell the most advertising. They say that people always complain about the lack of coverage of their favorite sports and the over-emphasis on personal interest stories, but that the complaints are not representative of their viewers.

    What evidence do you have that they are wrong?

    I still remember intensive coverage of Pirmin Zurbriggen's goats rather than actual Olympics skiing. This was in 1988. Personal interest stories are hardly a new problem.

    The Olympics as propaganda event has been going on for a very long time. The 1936 Olympics are frequently cited as an example.

    On an anecdotal level (which is not meant to be evidence of any broad trend), I watch the events I'm interested in by internet feed, as do most of the people I know who are actually interested in the included sports, while those who are more interested in human interest drama or just being distracted watch TV.

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    I understand your sentiment, but I think you're 82 years too late to be complaining about the Olympics and propaganda:

    YouTube

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    Right. It's an old problem. I guess that means we just accept old problems and eat our popcorn.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    Right. It's an old problem. I guess that means we just accept old problems and eat our popcorn.
    Of course not - just pointing out that this is hardly a recent phenomenon (and I think a lot of your ire is really directed at NBC's coverage rather than the actual competition).

    But then I stopped watching the Olympics decades ago. I guess it depends on how much effort you're willing to put into maintaining and enhancing your own personal BS filter. It was just too much damned work for me.

    Off topic aside: I do remember when I was a kid (maybe in '66 on the 30th anniversary) watching an interview with Jesse Owens about the 1936 Olympics and Hitler's refusal to shake his hand after Owens humiliated his "Aryan supermen" competitors. Owens just smiled and said it didn't bother him a bit because "I'm here and he isn't."

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    I don’t have cable these days so most of my Olympic watching has been on muted bar TVs while grabbing beers at ski resorts. I always enjoy the Winter Olympics more than the summer games, but there are interesting moments in both. I think much of what is emphasized has to do with how it “looks” or rather how exciting or how well it makes for TV entertainment. I like firearms and have even done some competitive shooting in my day. The biathlon is an incredibly difficult feat, but it just doesn’t make for great TV. It’s not even really much of a spectator sport. For that matter, nor is XC skiing or ski mountaineering, both of which are absolutely incredible displays of athleticism with insane anerobic outputs, but it’s not so impressive on TV, nor are either really great spectator sports since you can’t observe the whole course and, for TV, the event is long is visually somewhat mundane.

    In snowboard circles, the consensus seems to be that the IOC needs snowboarding more than snowboarding needs the IOC. Snowboarding events are governed by a ski federation so there is resentment that they don’t get their own unique federation and that the snowboarding events are often poorly designed and under powered as a result. There is also criticism of the fact that, despite snowboarding having its own events, which are massively popular (arguably more popular than skiing events), snowboarders have to participate in ski federation sanctioned events in order make it to the Olympic teams since the IOC does not recognize any of the competitive snowboard organizations. It may be just a matter of time before Olympic snowboarding no longer attracts big name pros who can make more money and perhaps attract more sponsors competing in pro circuits rather than bothering with the Olympics. Some of the criticism are that these athletes are honed at the expense of, say, Red Bull and Burton, yet the IOC sucks up all of the monetary results of (extremely popular) Olympic events. Think about it: Shaun White trained on Red Bull’s dime (which was basically a blank check), became a household name and won the Olympics multiple times, but the IOC had the most to gain from him as an individual and that Red Bull sponsored training.

    In the end, I think most of the valid criticisms are “TV Problems” and “IOC problems” more so than actual sporting event problems -those (sporting event) criticisms sound much more “grumpy old man” than anything else, especially given the historical contexts presented in previous posts and the games long absence from history before being revived.

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    Is there any other option for watching events outside of NBC coverage? I know there is coverage on NBC's website, but I mean aside from that as well.

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    If you search, the individual NGBs probably have a raw feed available somewhere on the web.

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    I streamed a bit of skiing the other day -- I think it was NBC but still commercial-free. I'm a cable-cutter, these days.

    Just a comment -- "Women's" gymnastics was not always a children's sport -- remember Ludmila Turischeva, back in the good ol' days? There was a grown woman who was a beautiful gymnast. (I suspect Nadia Comaneci had a lot to do with the forces that have resulted in only cute little girls being allowed to play.)

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