Hi, friends!
How are we feeling about the Olympics starting soon? Normally I love the Olympics and it’s on TV all the time and I follow it all throughout and get really invested in the events. Also! Opening Ceremonies are normally so cool!!!
This year, I have basically no enthusiasm. I think it’s because I don’t feel it’s safe for the athletes still with covid. And Japan is having to be so restrictive with how things will have limited spectators, family couldn’t attend, etc etc.
I saw today that one of the alternates for the women’s gymnastic team tested positive and is quarantining. Coco Gauff and Katie Lou Samuelson have tested positive and can’t attend. A couple men’s basketball players are quarantining, too, but I think they are expected to be able to be in competition later on in the games. And that’s just the news I’ve seen about US athletes. I’m assuming it’s comparable for other countries’ athletes, too.
I just… there’s going to be so many athletes in tight quarters and like… is this worth your life? Plus there are going to be some people who refuse the vaccines and are going to make it a potential superspreader event.
I thought I read there was a Dutch coach for something that tested positive upon arrival even though they tested negative before they left. I can’t find the story though because the Olympics news is all “cardboard sex bed.”
And they’re also having a heat wave! Sounds like good times. Makes Rio look like a walk in the park.
Right? All they had to worry about was zika. And that was basically “don’t be in Rio while pregnant and you’re fine”
I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve seen several similar cases that always get reported on like “how is that possible?”, but it’s not that crazy for someone to test negative and test positive hours later. It could be very coincidental bad timing where the viral load wasn’t high enough on the first test, but on its way to being high enough. But way more likely – all the tests we’ve been using have lots of false negatives. Especially given the lack of regulation around the tests – some are extremely unreliable, especially the rapid ones.
I’ve heard anecdotes of people testing + in one nostril and – in the other 😄
hmmm…dont think we had a rona coach yet…. just a gymnastics coach accused of sexual assault…which he figured doesnt mean he doesnt get to go to tokyo..but the rest of the country disagreed
could be i missed the rona coach tho
anyways…far as i can tell they already have rona in the olympic village…so i guess itll be interesting to see who gets to compete before catching it
I’ll probably still watch it, even though I think it’s irresponsible and shouldn’t be happening. I enjoy the Olympics, and I’m excited about some of the new sports like climbing.
The bigger problem than athletes choosing not to get vaccinated is all the athletes (a majority, I imagine) coming from countries where vaccines still aren’t even widely available.
Yeah there was an American dude getting interviewed who was like “well I couldn’t risk the vaccination impacting my training schedule, and I’m here to represent American FREEDOM!!!!”
So, that dude is definitely high risk for breathing on everyone.
Wasn’t there an American woman athlete who wasn’t allowed to go because she refused to be vaccinated? How did this Hero of American Exceptionalism get away with it?
Without looking into it at all, I would guess it might be different sports having different requirements. Like maybe whoever is in charge of the US gymnastics team decided to require vaccines, but whoever is in charge of another team didn’t.
Gross. Way to represent America, asshat. I’m sure the 24 hours if symptoms that the vaccine might have given you would be so much worse than getting actual covid when you’re over there and unable to compete. Idiot.
That asshat is college-aged, too, so like he could have gotten the vaccine MONTHS ago. I can kinda see it for someone who might be in an age group where they just got approved so like losing a day or two of practice really close to the competition might be a risk.
I’ll watch unless and until it becomes unwatchable. It will really depend on how Japan handles their end of it and how the broadcasts are done.
After all the cheating, doping and looting of host cities,
WHY IS THIS STILL A THING.
Bloomberg proposed hosting at some point and had his Director of (Detrimental) Development draw up elaborate plans for an Olympic village and everything. There was so much opposition and outrage locally (including from me) that Bloomberg backed down, something he rarely did. The site of the proposed Olympic Village eventually became the very controversial Hudson Yards development.
Boston, too, successfully fought off an Olympics bid initiative, but as someone not very familiar with Boston I thought that seemed far more plausible. Which university has the best Olympic-size Olympic pool? That’s where the swimming happens, and the swimming athletes are housed in the otherwise unused dorms, because it is summer. Same with track & field. Problem was, I guess, all the spectators. There’s not nearly enough hotel capacity, and the former cowpaths would be further overwhelmed by car traffic, and the subway system, a little creaky at best, would collapse entirely.
That was exactly it – no one here wanted it because traffic is already an absolute nightmare. Plus Boston is a tiny city – pretty much everything would have been in surrounding areas, so like all of Massachusetts would have been a total mess.
I see very little benefit to being an Olympic city.
@bigdamnheroes agreed the economics make no sense
What I think they should do is pick a host COUNTRY
And then leverage different cities for different events. Like oh the US is hosting the summer olympics? Well have swimming events in Boston. Have gymnastics in LA. Have track and field somewhere like Des Moines. Volleyball in Miami. Etc etc.
This way there isn’t the need to build a bunch of facilities and shit like that, and you can spread out the influx of people to lots of different areas.
That’s not a bad idea. It would definitely decrease the burden.
Oh, in other fun Olympics news, did everyone see that the Norwegian women’s beach hand ball team got fined for refusing to wear the required bikini bottoms, instead wearing the shorts that the men’s teams wear? Quite a statement by the Olympics organizers.
I’ve been confused about the olympics ever since they switched from the both every four years, to this current alternating format. the younger people at work had no idea what I was talking about, so I tried to explain it was like the presidential elections, and only happened every four years, not every two.
They still looked at me funny.
I’m not very good at explaining things.
Anyways, I’m not much on sports, and tied in with all the bullshit and corruption and such, I don’t have a very good opinion of the IOC. There are some pretty impressive athletes, and it’s cool that some otherwise underrepresented sports/events get some screen time. I’m also confused about the whole “amateur” thing – I remember during the cold war, everyone would grumble about how unfair it was Russia would field athletes that were basically paid by the state to do nothing but train, and that they somehow weren’t “amateur” enough. But then, didn’t we send a bunch of professional athletes to the baseball and basketball events? and why is that different?
And then there is the whole COVID issue… this whole covid thing is infuriating and exasperating. we have supposedly grown adults going around saying things like “Fauci ouchie(sp?)”, and somehow feel me wearing a mask in public is somehow an infringement on their constitutional rights? The people of Idiocracy would refuse to be in the same building as these fuckwits.
I remember when the switched from a true Olympiad to every two years. When I asked why, one of my parents cynically replied “so the Olympics and the networks can make more money.”
I maintain the shift, with the bizarro doubling up of Winter Olympics in 1992 and 1994, is responsible for the whole Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan shenanigan.
oh shit, was it that long ago?
I am getting old…
We all are…
it’s arguably better than the alternative…
I’m still getting over the decision to hold the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the only spot in Russia where there’s a chance you’ll get temperate weather in February.
I was also underwhelmed by the Beijing Olympics. Not because of the athletes’ performances, but by the lack of color commentary about the host city. I purposely watched the marathon just so I could see what Beijing looked like, never having been, and even then the runners were shown running down what looked like deserted highways with clumps of two or three spectators every so often.
About a million years ago I had a favorite olympian, a russian heavyweight weightlifter, Vasily Alekseyev. Mesmerizing. I haven’t watched since he retired.
I’m out, which is a big deal to me. I grew up enthralled by the Olympics, but it’s gotten to the point where I don’t see the point.
Nice article on Defector about all the doubts.