Tag: ek Sports

Rocky Anderson on the Olympics–

From Up w/ Chris Hayes

Broadcast Schedule

This is the complete schedule for today.  It covers from 6 am to 6 am.

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

Upsets–

Spain gets bounced from Football.  Only the World and European champions.  World Champion Wieber does not Qualify in Women’s Gymnastics (Overall).

Olympic Coverage Criticism–

Smug American Elitism at the Olympics Opening Ceremony

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Saturday July 28, 2012 1:11 pm

It is a running joke that Americans learn geography or about countries outside the United States only when the US military decides to invade a country. Presumably, this is why NBC broadcasters Bob Costas, Matt Lauer, and Meredith Viera announcing the Olympics opening ceremony would be sharing trivia about each country, especially information that Americans might be able to understand even if they were terribly uneducated. But that should be no justification for the candor of the commentary during the broadcast of the Opening Ceremony, which was frankly an example of smug American elitism and often outright condescension.

For example, Bob Costas said North Korea’s greatest athletic achievement belongs to “dear leader Kim Jong-Il who, according to his official biography, carded 11 holes-in one, not over a lifetime but over the first round he played.

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This went on for just about every other country. “Churchill never met Idi Amin,” Costas said as Ugandan athletes walked in the stadium. An anecdote about Kuwait mistakenly playing the Kazakhstan national anthem in the film Borat was shared as Kazakh athletes made their entrance. He mentioned the animated movie franchise Madagascar as Madagascan athletes strode by the camera. And, of course, like a school boy learning the country’s name for the first time or a character in a Christopher Guest film, he said, “There are some countries whose names just make you smile,” as Djibouti walked by.

The comments were not limited to quips that fell flat. Costas’ introductions of many of the countries seemed to highlight the worst aspects of each country’s history or inadequacies in the country that Costas himself may or may not have experienced personally. He said, Egypt is in “a transition of some sort,” and added, “From military dictatorship to Jeffersonian democracy? Not quite.” He noted that Kiribati does not have regularly scheduled flights to Honolulu. He ominously reminded audiences that world leaders are keeping a “wary eye” on Pakistan. He described how Australia was “originally founded as a penal colony.”

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Coupled with the fact that NBC cut out the ceremony’s memorial of the 7/7 terror attacks in London and Saudi Arabia’s first female athletes entering, NBC’s presentation of the opening ceremony was appalling, hokey, and downright imbecilic. Broadcasters of the American idiocracy were in true form.

It is not like Americans are given much exposure to people or culture in countries outside of the United States. They are consistently indoctrinated with this idea from all politicians that they are citizens of the Greatest Nation on Earth. So, perhaps, it is not surprising that broadcasters on NBC would reinforce this predominant ideology of exceptionalism in our society. But is it too much to expect that NBC announcers would, for the few seconds that these countries go by, not offer smug or sneering remarks that call out the imperfections of each country’s current politics or past history?

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

Nightmares I tells ya.  Fortunately I have a lot to write while I can’t sleep.

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 6 am tomorrow.  I’ve done a full day because as you see the evening isn’t much, yet.  Also I have evening and afternoon appointments.

Now might also be a good time to mention that we’ll be providing coverage for Formula One Hungaroring at 8 am today for Qualifying and Sunday at the same time for the race.

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

Today’s Cycling event pits all the names you remember from Le Tour back on the road.  Wiggins is favored but that’s just sentiment, this race tends to favor a Mark Cavendish type.  No teams.

But these guys are professionals.

So they are.  Just like Men’s Basketball.  The Women are coached by Geno of UCONN.  Rafalca will dance today.  Phelps starts collecting his golds.  Badminton!  Rowing!  Table Tennis!  Fencing!  All those nerd sports you never see.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

It will be a hot time in the Olympic Village tonight.

Of course every Olympics begin with the Opening Ceremonies in which the host nation showcases its culture, its history, and terrifying lockstep unity.

I can’t believe that one of the choreographed pieces is a 40 foot high Voldemort attacked by 30 Mary Poppins.  This is why I seldom bother with Opening and Closing at all  Another thing to watch for is Barack Obama’s new :30 spot, if you care for that sort of thing.

“World Class Feats of Athleticism”

London 2012: Unfamiliar Olympic sports explained

David Hills, The Guardian

Saturday 21 July 2012 17.01 EDT

Whether it is Olympic badminton, beach volleyball, handball, shooting, Taekwondo, trampoline, fencing or BMX cycling, you need to know a foil from an épée, and endos from bunnyhops.

He left out Sailing and Wrestling in the lede.

Of course, these used to be ‘sports’ too-

When the Olympics Included Mud Fighting and Tug of War

By Bill Mallon, Bloomberg News

Jul 23, 2012 6:30 PM ET

In 1900, a series of obstacles were set up in the Seine River in Paris. Swimmers lined up for a 200-meter (656-feet) race in which they had to climb over a pole and a row of boats, then swim under another row of boats. That was the only time the 200-meter Obstacle Swim Race was contested at the Olympics.

Also in 1900, cricket was contested for the only time at the Olympics. The match was purportedly between French and British teams, but the French contingent was actually composed of British expatriates working in Paris at the time. Croquet also was played in Paris, then replaced in St. Louis in 1904 with a variant known as roque. Roque was named after croquet, by dropping the first and last letters, but played with smaller balls and much tighter wickets. Roque was hailed as the Game of the Century in 1904, but only four Americans competed and today it is essentially defunct.

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Tug of war was quite popular, being held in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920, before falling from the program. Lacrosse was contested in 1904 and 1908, and in 1904, a Mohawk Indian team from southern Ontario placed third.

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In 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924 and 1936, polo was an Olympic sport, falling from grace only after Berlin in 1936. It was the last sport to have been discontinued, until baseball and softball were ousted from the 2012 games. They are to be replaced in 2016 by golf and rugby sevens — a smaller, shorter variant of rugby union. These two sports won out over karate, squash, roller skating and ballroom dancing. — but neither will be new to the Olympics. Golf was contested at those unusual Olympics of 1900 and 1904, and was on the program for both 1908 and 1920, though it was canceled both times. Rugby tournaments were held in 1900, 1908, 1920 and 1924. The U.S. won gold twice, in 1920 and 1924 — which is why when the sport returns in four years, the defending champions will be those great practitioners of the game, the U.S.

The Joy of Six: Discontinued Olympic sports

Scott Murray, The Guardian

Friday 6 July 2012

The plunge for distance was essentially the long jump for divers. Contestants would plunge into the drink from a standing start, in order to propel themselves underwater as far along the pool as possible. Their total distance would be measured at the point they came back up for air, or wherever they’d got to after 60 seconds beneath the surface, whichever came first. Plungers weren’t allowed to propel themselves through the water – after the initial dive, they had to remain motionless.

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There were plenty of gun-based oddities back in the day. At the 1900 Paris Games, slavering maniacs paid upwards of 200 francs for the pleasure of bringing down real live pigeons from the air with their pieces. Leon de Lunden of Belgium took the cash prize of 2,000 francs for his unmatched total of 21 murders.

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At the unofficial 1906 Games in Athens, a duelling pistol contest was held, which saw contestants firing at dummies tarted up in frock coats and top hats. The bullseye was situated on the thorax. Bang! Right on the windpipe.

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Running target (1972-2004) saw a life-size cutout of a boar cross a 10-metre gap in two-and-a-half seconds; contestants had to shoot it in the ring (please behave) 30 times, then another 30 times at half speed. The precursor to this event was the running deer; you can fill in the gaps.

In Equestrian competition we have seen such events as Long Jump, High Jump, Hunter and Hack, and Four-in-Hand Mail Coach.

My doggie friend is still quite pissed that Softball has been replaced by Golf.

Our good buddy Mitt didn’t strap Rafalca to the roof of his Bain Capital Gulfstream to drop him off, he’s not even going to visit; but he did use his Salt Lake City cred to win the hearts and minds of his United Kingdom hosts.

David Cameron hits back at Mitt Romney over London 2012 doubts

Owen Gibson, Olympics editor, The Guardian

Thursday 26 July 2012

Romney said the fallout from the G4S security fiasco and a threatened strike by immigration officials were “disconcerting” and questioned whether British people would get behind the Games.

“Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin. It is hard to know just how well it will turn out,” said Romney.

But Cameron, who was due to meet Romney later on Thursday, said: “In terms of people coming together, the torch relay demonstrated that this is not a London Games, this is not an England Games but this is a United Kingdom Games. We’ll show the world we’ve not only come together as a United Kingdom but are extremely good at welcoming people from across the world.”

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Asked whether the Games and Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, which will be watched by a predicted 1 billion people, offered an opportunity rebrand the country, Cameron said: “We don’t need to rebrand Britain. Britain has a great brand. I hope people will see all the things they like about Britain’s past, our history, our contributions to world development. But I also hope they will see a very open country and one that has an enormous amount to offer for the future.”

Olympic Games already have their share of controversies

By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Some 36,000 troops, police and hired contractors will stand guard at Olympic venues and on the streets of London and other cities. After the private security firm G4S acknowledged last week that it wouldn’t be able to furnish all of the 10,000 contractors it had agreed to, British officials called up additional service members to fill the gap.

The foul-up compounded what for many Londoners is beginning to seem like a long, costly summer, which began with a lavish diamond jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II and has coincided with ever bleaker economic news: The Office for National Statistics reported Wednesday that the economy had shrunk by 0.7 percent from April to June, a far worse contraction than had been forecast, deepening a double-dip recession that’s the severest in decades.

Meanwhile, the cost of staging the games has risen to several times the initial projection, exceeding even the infamous budget-busting standards of the 1996 Atlanta games. London’s now are expected to end up as the most expensive ever, at a cost of more than $14 billion.

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Competition got under way Wednesday, but a women’s soccer match that involved Colombia and North Korea was delayed by an hour after North Korean players were introduced on a video with their faces next to the South Korean flag.

The BBC reported that the rather dramatic mix-up – the neighboring countries are still technically at war, having never signed a treaty after a cease-fire took effect in the 1950s Korean conflict – occurred at the studio that produced the pregame video. The Christian Science Monitor pronounced it perhaps the worst blunder by a host nation in the Olympics’ 116-year modern history.

If you are someone who think we are just ‘Exceptional’, you might be interested in this article from The Guardian– London 2012 Olympics: 30 American athletes to watch out for.

Other than that they’ve tried to keep most of the spectacle ‘secret’, no spoilers, but you will find because of the time difference Opening Ceremony is already done.  Thank goodness NBC has tape delayed it for 7:30 pm.

Repeat at 2:30 am.  Regular events start tomorrow at 5 am.  Formula One Hungaroring Qualifying on Speed at 8 am.

Football… lots of football… fields of football… a tremendous amount of football…

Today is Men’s Football.  All Men’s Football, all the time.  Live from 7 am to 6 pm, repeats after that on Vs. (NBC Sports) from 6 pm to 5 am.

And again from 8 am to 7 pm tomorrow.

Which is also Opening Ceremonies so everyone has the day off except me.  There will be coverage, but don’t expect it much before 7 pm.

Today’s Schedule

We have to take our possessions and flee. I’m very good at that. I was the men’s freestyle fleeing champion two years in a row.

And will someone please explain to me how many As there are in Morocco?

Welcome to the Olympics.

Today the games start with team sports that require round robins which take a lot of time.  Specifically today we have Women’s Football (including Team USA, the favorites) on MSNBC and Vs. (NBC Sports).

I’ll probably publish twice a day, 6 am – 6 pm and 6 pm – 6 am which seems to be how NBC is dividing it.  The point of these pieces is so you can watch the events you want and comment on them, get the results of the previous day’s activity, and occasionally live blogging might break out (go Badminton!).

If things get too hectic I may re-think.

G4S trainee: ‘Most people failed the initial x-ray exam. But not for long’

The Guardian

Monday 23 July 2012

But when all else fails, the instructor said, there’s no harm giving someone a good thump.

And he explained how best to do it without getting in trouble with the law. “You can hit them first. This is known as a preemptive strike. If you were to strike someone, use an open hand. This has the same power as a punch but it doesn’t leave a mark.”

The instructor had more advice. He suggested we should be very careful talking to the police.

“You’re not convicted on what you did but on what you say. Be very careful about making statements. I have two solicitors. One of them I’ve used for 20 years, he gets everyone off. Some of my dodgy friends. You need someone like that to hold you by the hand.”

…

Everyone seemed to be cheating and the instructors weren’t doing anything to stop it. By the end of the day the vast majority passed. The few who haven’t are told they’ll be reassigned to other roles.

The next day we have a different instructor who congratulates us on passing the x-ray exam but quickly makes us all feel a bit guilty: “Everyone is here on their own ability. If you’ve cheated to get here, you’re playing with peoples lives.”

G4S security guard protecting Olympic footballers at top hotel ‘stole mobile phone from colleague’

By Alex Horlock, Daily Mail

PUBLISHED: 09:42 EST, 24 July 2012

Warwickshire Police Federation has expressed major concerns after two security guards were arrested at the renamed City of Coventry Stadium last week when officers discovered they were illegal immigrants.

Fassal Mahmood, from Windmill Lane, Smethwick, was yesterday charged with the theft of a mobile phone at Chesford Grange Hotel, near Kenilworth, which is hosting international football teams.

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Warwickshire Police confirmed the 20-year-old has been bailed and will appear before Leamington magistrates next month.

He has been suspended from work.

This humiliating shambles: MPs aghast as G4S chief insists on taking £57m management fee

By Stephen Wright, David Williams and Chris Greenwood, Daily Mail

PUBLISHED: 03:52 EST, 17 July 2012

Mr Buckles was under intense pressure to quit his £830,000-a-year job after members of the select committee ridiculed him and his company’s performance.

Yet although G4S shares have fallen 17 per cent, wiping £700million from its market value, he maintained he is the right man to lead the world’s second-largest private-sector employer.

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Mr Buckles repeatedly said the company still intended to claim its £57million management fee for work over the past two years, even though it cannot provide anywhere near the number of guards it had originally promised.

‘We’ve managed the contract and we’ve had management on the ground for two years. We still expect to deliver a significant number of staff to the Olympics.’

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He said there are 4,200 G4S staff working on the ground on the Olympics and the minimum the company will deliver is 7,000 – 70 per cent of what they were expected to provide.

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Mr Buckles said he told Locog on July 3 that his firm had experienced a shortfall in staff over the previous weekend, in part due to its scheduling system not working properly.

Who says sports are not political?

Today’s Schedule

Vs. repeats all the games from 6 pm to 12:30 am and again from 12:30 am to 7 am.