Winter Olympics
- Thread starter vhcat70
- Start date
. 1 gold with more to come hopefully. Have a dirty old man crush on her.I'll be on the look out for her when I'm there in June. Yikes!!!Meet Estonia speed skater Saskia Alusalu....
Horrible night for the U.S. So many favorites failing to medal. Nathan Chen busted his ass HARD. Our skiing phenom couldn't even medal in her best event and poor poor Jacobellis just can't win the Olympics. That girl has been goosed by God. We choked in skeleton and had the Aerial world champion not even qualify for the finals. Zero medals on the day. Tonight should be better though. Go USA
They cheat themselves out of dental hygiene. Damn Brits. The whole lot of em
The benefit is that if they have a wreck while flying face first at 80 mph nobody will notice a change in their smile.
I think if they added a Pewter Medal for 4th place, the US would be ahead in the overall medal count. Gotta suck to spend four years working and sacrificing and enduring pain to go to the Olympics and finish fourth, especially for those who were expected to succeed.
(Long post)
I was curious how much it actually cost South Korea to host the Winter Olympics and found out it was $13 billion. That is 2nd most ever for a Winter Olympics behind the $54 billion Russia spent for it in Sochi. It was estimated at $7 billion when they were trying to become the host city, but ended up nearly double that. They spent over $100 million just on the stadium that hosts the opening and closing ceremonies and likely will tear it down after 4 uses from what I read.
Hosting the Olympics is getting so costly that many cities are dropping out of the chance to host it. Some go into major debt over hosting them. Many of the facilities are demolished or left abandoned afterwards. Here are a few pictures of some of them.
Sarajevo bobsled track
Sarajevo ski jump
Beijing beach volleyball facility
Athens canoe and kayak facility
Athens softball stadium
Rio aquatic stadium
Rio golf course
Just a few examples I found with plenty more out there. Doesn't include the buildings that were demolished afterwards as well. It sure doesn't seem like these host cities think this stuff out very well in advance. At least Sarajevo had the excuse of war that probably contributed to their facilities being neglected.
Everything that is built should have a repurpose for it afterwards. Like Atlanta moving the Braves to the new stadium. They could probably turn other facilities into pro sports facilities or maybe let major colleges nearby use them. The aquatic places could be turned into water parks. They could make housing (apartments/condos) out of the buildings used for the athletes and tourists to stay in during the Olympics.
They must all be banking on the economies of the cities taking off during and after the Olympics. South Korea hasn't sold as many tickets as they had expected and they just aren't a country I see with a large amount of tourists visiting. Being next to North Korea probably doesn't make them as attractive of a vacation destination. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future they only have a few different countries host the Olympics and just keep reusing facilities.
I was curious how much it actually cost South Korea to host the Winter Olympics and found out it was $13 billion. That is 2nd most ever for a Winter Olympics behind the $54 billion Russia spent for it in Sochi. It was estimated at $7 billion when they were trying to become the host city, but ended up nearly double that. They spent over $100 million just on the stadium that hosts the opening and closing ceremonies and likely will tear it down after 4 uses from what I read.
Hosting the Olympics is getting so costly that many cities are dropping out of the chance to host it. Some go into major debt over hosting them. Many of the facilities are demolished or left abandoned afterwards. Here are a few pictures of some of them.
Sarajevo bobsled track
Sarajevo ski jump
Beijing beach volleyball facility
Athens canoe and kayak facility
Athens softball stadium
Rio aquatic stadium
Rio golf course
Just a few examples I found with plenty more out there. Doesn't include the buildings that were demolished afterwards as well. It sure doesn't seem like these host cities think this stuff out very well in advance. At least Sarajevo had the excuse of war that probably contributed to their facilities being neglected.
Everything that is built should have a repurpose for it afterwards. Like Atlanta moving the Braves to the new stadium. They could probably turn other facilities into pro sports facilities or maybe let major colleges nearby use them. The aquatic places could be turned into water parks. They could make housing (apartments/condos) out of the buildings used for the athletes and tourists to stay in during the Olympics.
They must all be banking on the economies of the cities taking off during and after the Olympics. South Korea hasn't sold as many tickets as they had expected and they just aren't a country I see with a large amount of tourists visiting. Being next to North Korea probably doesn't make them as attractive of a vacation destination. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future they only have a few different countries host the Olympics and just keep reusing facilities.
Can't we just focus on Tara Lipinski's butt please.(Long post)
I was curious how much it actually cost South Korea to host the Winter Olympics and found out it was $13 billion. That is 2nd most ever for a Winter Olympics behind the $54 billion Russia spent for it in Sochi. It was estimated at $7 billion when they were trying to become the host city, but ended up nearly double that. They spent over $100 million just on the stadium that hosts the opening and closing ceremonies and likely will tear it down after 4 uses from what I read.
Hosting the Olympics is getting so costly that many cities are dropping out of the chance to host it. Some go into major debt over hosting them. Many of the facilities are demolished or left abandoned afterwards. Here are a few pictures of some of them.
Sarajevo bobsled track
Sarajevo ski jump
Beijing beach volleyball facility
Athens canoe and kayak facility
Athens softball stadium
Rio aquatic stadium
Rio golf course
Just a few examples I found with plenty more out there. Doesn't include the buildings that were demolished afterwards as well. It sure doesn't seem like these host cities think this stuff out very well in advance. At least Sarajevo had the excuse of war that probably contributed to their facilities being neglected.
Everything that is built should have a repurpose for it afterwards. Like Atlanta moving the Braves to the new stadium. They could probably turn other facilities into pro sports facilities or maybe let major colleges nearby use them. The aquatic places could be turned into water parks. They could make housing (apartments/condos) out of the buildings used for the athletes and tourists to stay in during the Olympics.
They must all be banking on the economies of the cities taking off during and after the Olympics. South Korea hasn't sold as many tickets as they had expected and they just aren't a country I see with a large amount of tourists visiting. Being next to North Korea probably doesn't make them as attractive of a vacation destination. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future they only have a few different countries host the Olympics and just keep reusing facilities.
Most people don't understand the rules anyways.
The women's curling team just won an entertaining match against the OAR. Came down to an extra end (their overtime) and the U.S. had an easy clear shot right down the middle and only needed like 3' away or closer and they win. They ended up throwing it to light and had to have 3 of them brushing the ice like crazy to get it there and they won by maybe an inch. Nearly a major choke job.
Hockey team is down 3-0 to Russia at the 2nd intermission. I think they could play until 4:00 this afternoon and we wouldn't score 3 goals. We gave up a really weak goal with .2 of a second left in the 2nd period.
Let's face it - the USA is laying a giant rotten egg at the Winter Olympics. That'd be fine. No one really cares. But all the swaggering and boasting and loud commercials leading up to it built around glamorizing people who have been the worst chokers seem really embarrassing now.
Nothing will top Dan vs Dave.
ESPN has a radio 30 for 30 about that. It was pretty interesting to listen to at work.
I was trying to figure out if Jacobellis was THAT one. And yea, she is. Just wonder where she would be today if she didn't try to showboat on the last jump and fell on her ass. Snowboard gods cursed her for life.
A few Olympic thoughts...
1) Everybody is wearing orange bibs! It's hard to tell which country the athletes are from. I thought in previous Olympics they at least had small flags on their uniforms?
2) So many of the race events are decided by hundredths of a second. I'd like to know more about the technology involved: skis, snowboards, skates, sleds, waxes, uniform aerodynamics, brands of equipment, etc. With competition so close, do these things make a difference? Are they regulated?
1) Everybody is wearing orange bibs! It's hard to tell which country the athletes are from. I thought in previous Olympics they at least had small flags on their uniforms?
2) So many of the race events are decided by hundredths of a second. I'd like to know more about the technology involved: skis, snowboards, skates, sleds, waxes, uniform aerodynamics, brands of equipment, etc. With competition so close, do these things make a difference? Are they regulated?
Why the F does NBC have a British woman hosting the American broadcast of the Olympics???
They make a hell of a difference. I can only talk about skis, and not a whole lot about that.
Ski wax can determine how easily a ski can glide across the snow. There are different types of ski wax so you need the right type for the conditions.
There are equipment limitations that I didn't know about until the commentator mentioned it last night. The more curvature the ski has along its sides, the easier it is to turn. There is a limitation to how much curvature a ski can have. This can make a tremendous difference in slalom events, not so much in a downhill or Super-G.
There are rules on how slalom courses must be set up. Skiers from other countries have complained that the Austrians have too much influence in the course setups. Austrians win most of the medals in alpine skiing so it's not surprising.
Like any other sport, they want the person to decide the outcome rather than the technology.
I like that woman. She does a better job than Tirico, and is much nicer to look at. I love a British woman's accent so much that I downloaded a British female voice to put into my GPS receiver.
