Rio 2016 Olympics Megathread

El Chapo

Kicks off on Friday with the opening ceremony. Boxer, Paddy Barnes will carry the Irish flag.

London 2012 was our most successful Olympics with 6 medals (1 gold, 1 silver, 4 bronze). Can we improve?

Again, we'll probably be looking to our boxers for most of our medals. Paddy Barnes, Michael Conlon and Katie Taylor will be there or thereabouts, although Katie did have a few hiccups trying to qualify.

It's a pretty poor track team this year with the exception of Thomas Barr and Ciara Mageen. Both are fine runners but it's hard to see them getting a medal.

We also have a men's hockey team, two badmintoners, a few horsey people, a woman sailor person, swimmers and of course the golfers.

Tune into RTÉ for Jerry Kiernan if nothing else, he's very entertaining and hugely knowledgeable.

C'mon Ireland!

JeffKenna

El Chapo wrote: »

London 2012 was our most successful Olympics with 6 medals (1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze). Can we improve?



C'mon Ireland!

I would have thought Atlanta was our most sucessful Olympics?

Can't be arsed watching the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday.
If I wanted to watch 700 people walking around in tracksuits, I'd go and spend the day in Ballymun.

mzungu

JeffKenna wrote: »

I would have thought Atlanta was our most sucessful Olympics?

Thread is going there already :pac::pac:

Barry Badrinath

Best of luck to them, I hope they do themselves proud.

Fcuk golf though.

Spoon pong has more merit being there than golf.

mzungu

I am just going to presume most are doping, and whomever comes in 6th or 7th will be the eventual gold medalist in a few years time.

failinis

I see the swimmers are getting ready

Marje

Would like to watch the opening ceremony for a while, wouldn't mind seeing the flame lit but don't fancy sitting up till 4am. It starts 23:30 on RTE2 and 23:40 on BBC1

kfallon

Looking forward to this and best of luck to everyone representing Ireland!

Pac1Man

Why wait until Friday? You go first.

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Mint Sauce

Opening ceremony on around midnight! Feck that! Dont care if it does feature samba clad Brazilan girls,

Junkyard Tom

A load of eejits running around the place and jumping over things.

Smondie

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Opening ceremony on around midnight! Feck that! Dont care if it does feature samba clad Brazilan girls,

The model is going to het mugged as part of the cermony! Can't remember her name but at least they're showing all sides of the country.

Ulysses Gaze

Smondie wrote: »

The model is going to het mugged as part of the cermony! Can't remember her name but at least they're showing all sides of the country.

Gisele is the model.

ArmaniJeanss

Olympic football tournament starts Wednesday with 6 games in the Womens tournament (Mens on Thursday), if anyone can't wait for Saturdays official sports start.
Not sure of TV coverage.

Fr_Dougal

Competition to see who has the best dealer.

mzungu

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Competition to see who has the best dealer.

I hear quite a few Russian doctors are now available for some handy freelance work.

Fleawuss

From the RTE commentators Absolut Vodka deliver me.

patmac

Must be one of the least anticipated games in a long while, used to love the Olympics but the Russian scandal and the way the suits dealt with it has taken a fair chunk of the gloss of it.
Throw in the golfers and the corrupt Brazillian government and it hard to get enthusiastic about it.
Will Probably get into it after a while, feel sorry for all the hard working clean athlete.

mansize

patmac wrote: »

Must be one of the least anticipated games in a long while, used to love the Olympics but the Russian scandal and the way the suits dealt with it has taken a fair chunk of the gloss of it.
Throw in the golfers and the corrupt Brazillian government and it hard to get enthusiastic about it.
Will Probably get into it after a while, feel sorry for all the hard working clean athlete.

Whats "clean"? None are just on water.

London 2012 swept us all up with hysteria, I'm so non plussed about this.

mzungu

patmac wrote: »

Must be one of the least anticipated games in a long while, used to love the Olympics but the Russian scandal and the way the suits dealt with it has taken a fair chunk of the gloss of it.
Throw in the golfers and the corrupt Brazillian government and it hard to get enthusiastic about it.
Will Probably get into it after a while, feel sorry for all the hard working clean athlete.

Agree. Although for me the gloss came off many years ago. But this Olympics does seem to be taking the absolute proverbial.

LordSutch

Will Bolt be able to pull off the double again?

100m and 200m.

Stheno

LordSutch wrote: »

Will Bolt be able to pull off the double again?

100m and 200m.

I reckon so.

The Olympic village apparently is in bits, and the main slip the sailing boats launch off collapsed today lol

Pherekydes

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

A load of eejits running around the place and jumping over things.

Ah, come on! They're only horses.

Gatling

Will anyone be cheering the first all refugee Olympic team .

Wont be tuning in to watch after the whole failed dealing with the State sponsored doing issues

mansize

And athletes from other nations who escape bans on "appeals"

Appeal missing the first test, after she missed the third...

And so many asthmatics..

Pherekydes

mansize wrote: »

And athletes from other nations who escape bans on "appeals"

Appeal missing the first test, after she missed the third...

First missed test was the testers' fault. And she passed a test the following day.

mansize

Pherekydes wrote: »

First missed test was the testers' fault. And she passed a test the following day.

She didn't appeal the miss until she missed two more.. Strange that.

mansize

Pherekydes wrote: »

First missed test was the testers' fault. And she passed a test the following day.

I a point of law... Her phone was on silent, family issues... It's like those lawyers you can get for drink driving convictions- wasn't in Irish - struck out!

mansize

Pherekydes wrote: »

First missed test was the testers' fault. And she passed a test the following day.

24 hours counts for a lot in Drug testing

BoJack Horseman

Had almost forgotten there was an olympics until we seen the olympic village looking like downtown Aleppo.

London was pretty good, but could not give a f*ck about it this time.
And the first week is always a killer.

Endless swimming and hyper-medal inflation.
F*ck Michael Phelps and his 16 gold medals for doing the one thing over & over again with minor technical differences.

price690

El Chapo wrote: »

Kicks off on Friday with the opening ceremony. Boxer, Paddy Barnes will carry the Irish flag.

London 2012 was our most successful Olympics with 6 medals (1 gold, 1 silver, 4 bronze). Can we improve?

Again, we'll probably be looking to our boxers for most of our medals. Paddy Barnes, Michael Conlon and Katie Taylor will be there or thereabouts, although Katie did have a few hiccups trying to qualify.

It's a pretty poor track team this year with the exception of Thomas Barr and Ciara Mageen. Both are fine runners but it's hard to see them getting a medal.

We also have a men's hockey team, two badmintoners, a few horsey people, a woman sailor person, swimmers and of course the golfers.

Tune into RTÉ for Jerry Kiernan if nothing else, he's very entertaining and hugely knowledgeable.

C'mon Ireland!

Katie Taylor, Michael Conlan, Paddy Barnes, Joe Ward and Michael O'Reilly are genuine gold medal hopes in the boxing. Thats a really fantastic thing to be able to say.

I think all 5 will medal, have a feeling Joe Ward will finally pip the Cuban at the 3rd time of asking.

Conlan will be a marked man, but he has a great shot, Paddy Barnes has more experience than anyone.

Its hugely exciting for any boxing fan, the talent we have is unbelievable.

Annalise Murphy in the sailing has a great shot aswell

Savage Tyrant

I love the boxing and the 100m and 200m... Those are the ones I'm really interested in.

I also enjoy watching the women's Beach Volleyball..... The men's beach volleyball though, not so much.

PowerToWait

El Chapo wrote: »

Kicks off on Friday with the opening ceremony. Boxer, Paddy Barnes will carry the Irish flag., two badmintoners, a few horsey people, a woman sailor person, swimmers and of course the golfers.



C'mon Ireland!

No mention of our incredible rowers. We have 5 in 2 boats including 2 brothers and a 39 year old mother of 3.

Rowing is also one of our decent medal chances. Give them a cheer.

razorblunt

I've read that Murphy the sailor has a decent chance of a medal but I refuse to get my hopes up to only see the boat done for a failed drug test 48 hours after winning!


My favourite event is the high dive, sitting there with a takeaway and full fat coke scoffing at the (minor) splashback from a lad who turned himself inside out and tied his shoes on the way down.

Badly Drunk Boy

El Chapo wrote: »

London 2012 was our most successful Olympics with 6 medals (1 gold, 1 silver, 4 bronze). Can we improve?

For the number of medals won, it was. 6 medals from 66 participants, 41st on the medals table. At the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, we got 2 golds from 8 participants, and 16th on the medals table.

I know it's a different set-up now, with more countries around to take part, but 25% is a great return.




Did you know that Ireland didn't take part in the 1936 Berlin Olympics out of protest? Nothing to do with the Nazis or anything (they were grand), just a bit of lingering messiness from independence, and Northern Ireland joining the British Athletic Federation, instead of staying with the all-Ireland organisation that already existed.

gandalf

Olympics meh....

mansize

Surely Atlanta was officially our most successful? We even finished ahead of GB in the medals table!!!

padd b1975

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

A load of eejits running around the place and jumping over things.

It's the Olympic motto-faster,higher,stronger.

Having said that, it can be difficult to attribute even one of those to a lot of events.

padd b1975

mansize wrote: »

Surely Atlanta was officially our most successful? We even finished ahead of GB in the medals table!!!

*Raises morning snifter of Jameson to toast Michelle*

valoren

The highlights for me at each Olympics.

The road cycling time trial and the team pursuit, Sprints on the track.
The medley relays in Swimming.
The 4 * 100m relay, the 400m and 800m finals in Athletics.
The marathon.

DEFTLEFTHAND

mansize wrote: »

Surely Atlanta was officially our most successful? We even finished ahead of GB in the medals table!!!

4 tainted medals though.

I just looked up the British Olympic team from 1996 and my god did they have a brutal year. They only won 15 medals in total with just the one gold. I'd say that disgraceful showing spurred them on to create the programmes which have yielded them such phenomenal success at recent games.

VinLieger

price690 wrote: »

Annalise Murphy in the sailing has a great shot aswell

razorblunt wrote: »

I've read that Murphy the sailor has a decent chance of a medal but I refuse to get my hopes up to only see the boat done for a failed drug test 48 hours after winning!

She has a shot but its gonna be nowhere near like the early runaway success she had 4 years ago. This year the field is a lot stronger and shes a heavy weather sailor and Rio has notoriously light winds which are really not her ideal conditions. Hoping she does well but its gonna be tougher than London.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Just tuned in the 6 BBC Olympic channels on my freesat box. Can't wait and won't miss a thing now.

mansize

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

4 tainted medals though.

I just looked up the British Olympic team from 1996 and my god did they have a brutal year. They only won 15 medals in total with just the one gold. I'd say that disgraceful showing spurred them on to create the programmes which have yielded them such phenomenal success at recent games.

Cycling- it's like they honed in on an unpopular Olympic sport with a shed load of medals!

velo.2010

I was wondering about the lack of interest towards the games. Time difference, maybe, but Sydney and Beijing had a greater time difference yet there was still a buzz leading into those games form what I remember.

I think its a growing trend of apathy towards big marquee events. Kids are not as interested in sitting down at a particular time to watch a race for 10 seconds when they can catch up on any programme they want at any time. There is too much distraction elsewhere for the Olympics to hold folks attention for long enough to care.

We got lucky with the proximity of the London games and it rubbed off on us. We won't have that again. I can't see the current Olympic model lasting more than 2 or 3 more games. Events will eventually be split around various cities over the course of a summer.

Who knows? Maybe Dublin will get to host some part of the Olympics in future!

Mint Sauce

Blair Scrawny Hawk wrote: »

Just tuned in the 6 BBC Olympic channels on my freesat box. Can't wait and won't miss a thing now.

Sure its not just a generic FTA Box, switched on mine last night to be greeted by 15 red button channels. Currently watching a very dull Sweden v S Africa women in an near empty stadium.

PowerToWait

mansize wrote: »

Cycling- it's like they honed in on an unpopular Olympic sport with a shed load of medals!

That's basically it. They targeted cycling and rowing. And specific events within those.

They also got very proactive in talent scouting with programmes like 'tall and talented' where they advertised widely for that body type.

Worked well for them.

rainbow kirby

Will be watching as much as possible! Went to a few events in London 4 years ago. Hubby is off to Rio for the second week and has tickets for athletics.

Athletics, swimming, cycling, triathlon and gymnastics are my usual choices but will end up watching pretty much anything.

metaoblivia

PowerToWait wrote: »

That's basically it. They targeted cycling and rowing. And specific events within those.

They also got very proactive in talent scouting with programmes like 'tall and talented' where they advertised widely for that body type.

Worked well for them.

They've made significant advances in gymnastics too. 16 years ago, they'd be lucky to qualify a team to the Olympics. Now both of their men's and women's teams are expecting to medal in the team competition this year (as they both did at last year's world championships) and they have medal contenders on several events.

The upshoot is that Ireland is benefiting from this. Both Rio Irish gymnasts - Kieran Behan and Ellis O'Reilly - were trained in the British system. Gymnastics Ireland has also implemented a new training/scouting system similar to the British system and brings over British coaches to help train their young gymnasts. Ireland's most promising young gymnast, Rhys McClenaghan, travels to Britain frequently to train with their national team. He just won Ireland's first European championship medal a few months ago. He's too young for Rio, but will probably be in Tokyo four years from now barring injury. And if he keeps up his pace, he'll have a real shot at a medal.

Check out his pommel horse routine - the kid is only 16 years old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS7tLlkJH8o

Smondie

They are setting up a pretend embassy and sending a garda over, for any citizens travelling