Viewing Thread:
"Olympics... OoOoO"

Olympics 2008 thread...
Full Olympics Medal Table from the BBC.

GB's roll of honour (again from the BBC).


I've been quite impressed with the opening ceremony - I watched most of it live this afternoon and I'm watching the highlights as I type this.

I hope 'we' can pull off something as respectable in 2012!!!


The BBC say 4bn people will be watching!
I was surprised to see Sara Brightman had got in there singing the Olympics anthem (good for album sales!).

I did a Google and some Chinese sites say she is from the USA! :¬(


Let's hope it's a good one - it's certainly started rather well...


Search Freeola Chat

Stupid Pixie wrote:
> El Viking wrote:
>
> Also, it's not just the footprints that were faked at the
> opening ceremony by the looks of things.
>
>
>
> The Chinese also paid thousands of people to stand at the edges
> of the outdoor cycling events to cheer people on in Chinese. They
> did it because they couldn't get enough spectators to watch of
> their own accord.
> I wouldn't want to watch cycling either, the action would be
> over for you in seconds. :)

It was also raining. Who goes out to watch a sporting event in the rain?

Medal wise, we're meh, ok i guess, but we need to double our efforts. Oh and did anyone see the doubles badminton match with GB vs China. That was very, very tense. One point i simply switched it off because it got too tense.

Oh and the mens weight lifting the columbian attempt was at first very funny and then very tragic. He was crying by the end of it because of shame.

Well not really, the first kid was kinda fugly.

The girl singing in the opening ceremony was only miming as well as the actual singer didn't look 'good enough'!
BBC article

All seems a bit daft...




Search Freeola Chat

El Viking wrote:

> Also, it's not just the footprints that were faked at the
> opening ceremony by the looks of things.
>


The Chinese also paid thousands of people to stand at the edges of the outdoor cycling events to cheer people on in Chinese. They did it because they couldn't get enough spectators to watch of their own accord.
I wouldn't want to watch cycling either, the action would be over for you in seconds. :)

Well there is about 1.4 billion people living in China or some figure like that so must be higher than 6 billion for the world.

Luetchyboy wrote:
> tnc wrote:
> [/i](9 billion watching)[/i]
> Wow that's more than the earth's population, not even contending
> the fact that however many billion are living in poverty with no
> access to t.v.


Perhaps some people recorded it and watched it more than once! ;¬)

Initially the BBC estimated that 4bn people would be watching.

Others are reporting 1 or 2bn - whatever the figure it was a LOT - but perhaps not 9bn :¬)

Reuters report that perhaps 15% of the worlds population watched - 1bn.

I thought the world population was around 6 billion but looking around (the internet) the latest estimate seems to be 6.6bn. With nearly 1 in 5 people on the planet Chinese! wow...



Search Freeola Chat

tnc: It's still officially a Communist state, with the trademark totalitarianism and so forth, but I think the role of the free market is a little bit of a deviation from Marx... maybe it's more accurate to describe it as a socialist state (It's certainly not a social democracy.)

Also, it's not just the footprints that were faked at the opening ceremony by the looks of things. [LINK=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4512250.ece]Clicky[/I].

tnc wrote:
[/i]> (9 billion watching)[/i]
Wow that's more than the earth's population, not even contending the fact that however many billion are living in poverty with no access to t.v.

It makes me feel like a bad person as the issues between China and Tibet, with the "Candle In My Window" protest, is one I'd like to show my support for, to some extent. The trouble is, the Olympics are one of the sporting events that I really enjoy 90% of and judging by the coverage of the opening ceremony (9 billion watching) I have to question whether "doing my bit" and not watching it would actually make the slightest bit of difference. Not least because the tv would still be running it in front of other family members. And China isn't going to take notice of my stand, the stand of anyone in my area doing it or quite probably the protest full stop. And after the Olympics I have some faith it'll be addressed politically a lot more forcefully, now that a few million pounds isn't on the line. Not that I hold my hopes up for a success story with human rights issues in a Communist state..

I wont be watching because I just don't like the way the chinese have gone about chucking people out of there homes and not helped them with new ones or given them money to do so as far as I am aware... so the olympic buildings can take place... hmm maybe its just a small minority as i'm sure some will say, but hey I'm sure it is a great olympics.. I will follow it on the bbc website only when I see British people win medals and then I'll check out the vids etc.