Favorite Olympic Events / Other Comments

[BadgerinATX]

What events are you most looking forward to during the upcoming olympics?

I love beach volleyball so I'll be pulling for May-Treanor/Walsh and Dalhausser/Rodgers. I like Nicole Branagh, but Elaine Youngs irritates me. Gibb and Rosenthal are alright to watch.

Other sports that I'm looking forward to that I really understand (know the rules for):
M/W soccer
M basketball

Sports that I'm looking forward to that I really don't understand (don't know the rules for):
water polo
kayak
diving
shooting

Other comments:
Why are gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and trampoline considered different events?

I don't like the idea of medal counts since a country can win several medals in something like swimming/gymnastics, but a soccer team can only win one medal.

I'm really curious to see if the air pollution affects the endurance athletes. I could see it having substantial impacts on athletes w/ asthma. For non-asthma sufferers will it be the equivalent of playing football at Mile High Stadium or is this being overblown?

 

[TexonLongIsland]

team pursuit cycling is damn fun to watch

 

[accuratehorn]

I'm sure we are all looking forward to watching Dong Dong elevate on the trampoline. He is the favorite, you know.

 

[JohnnyM]

I love the Olympics. I'm a bigger fan of the WO, but I like the SO and will watch an inordinate amount.

I like:

Swimming

Diving

Gymnastics (but only the original ****, not the ribbons, trampolines, etc)

Soccer in HD has turned me into a fan of soccer, so I'm looking forward to this

T&F is ok, I like the track more than the field, but it gets boring as **** watching, IMO

Cycling is fun, kind of like the short track speed skating that I LOVE

Volleyball and Beach VB, although the eye-candy can't compare to the Six Man tourney in Manhattan Beach that I was just at this weekend

Baseball and Basketball I can watch enough throughout the year, but I watch the later rounds.

 

[Bluepies]

In no particular order:

Soccer
Beach volleyball
Track, but not field. Decathlon, however, is badass. I wish they'd remove a throw or two and add a swimming event.
Non-dancing gymnastics

In winter:
Hockey
Slalom Skiing

I like Summer a lot more than Winter. Winter is too equipment-dependent and has too many fringe sports. Summer Olympics has more events that your average Joe can and might do just about any day. Not a whole lot of people bobsled on the weekends, but plenty of people run, swim, play soccer, etc. It's hard to appreciate an event that is nothing like anything I will ever do, so I can't tell how good the athletes really are.

And when figure skating is the most-watched event, well, that kind of speaks for itself. I really don't like events where the winner is determined by a panel of judges. For gymnastics, I make an exception. It's not artistic, it's just really freakin' hard.

 

[dallas_the_tiger]

I dig just about all of it.. Track & Field, Soccer, Basketball, Gymnastics, swimming/diving.... I'm an olympics junkee.. Plus this year, I'm really looking forward to watching this Texan...

 

[Napoleon]

This year it is ALL ABOUT SOCCER!!!

I will probably also pay attention on here to see who won what in swimming.

I just don't care as much as normal... although NBC has been beating the Olympic spirit out of me since ~mid-'90s.

I will NOT be watching gymnastics. Nor track this year...

Basically Soccer and only soccer this year. And since I'm in Argentina, I'll be able to watch the games in their entirety.

#1 is the USA team.

#2 team is the World Cup level team Argentina is calling their "U-23 Squad".

 

[Knoxville-Horn]

Soccer for me as well. I'll watch some of the other events, but I'm really only truly excited in the soccer.

 

[lostman]

Softball anyone???

I like almost all of the team sports though (basketball and soccer mostly), swimming, and the apparatus in gymnastics. Don't much care for the rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming. We are going to try to see some of the TaeKwanDo while we are there. That might be cool.

 

[TXBabe97]

Priority: Swimming, diving, water polo, gymnastics, beach volleyball (all sports I have competed in, however lousily, at various levels). Also, lots of Longhorns in swimming and diving!Secondary: Track (more Longhorns), basketball, triathlon
I will also try to catch bits and pieces of the women's pentathlon, because a co-worker's daughter is on Team USA and that is pretty awesome.

I also really like what Sanya Richards said about defying the atheist edicts about opening displaying faith in triumph while in China.

Badger, here's the Cliff's Notes version of rules in the sports you don't know:

Diving: You get 11 dives, 5 "required" and 6 "optional." The "requireds" are kind of like the compulsory events they used to require in figure skating -- front, back, reverse, inward, twist. Where you shine is in the optionals, where you select the hardest and coolest dive combos you can perform. This is also where you see the armstand positions off the platform.

Like in gymnastics, there are judges. Each dive you perform has an assigned degree of difficulty (DD). Judges score the dive, knock out the high and the low, add the remaining up, and multiply by the DD. This will result in what will seem like "high" point totals, often over 700-900 for the top divers. I think the only time I ever saw a 1,000+ point meet was Louganis.

You get docked points from judges for various performance infractions such as, poor entry/too much splash/not "ripping" your entry, too much push off or too little height from your takeoff, getting caught "cowboying" your tuck position dives (even though everyone does it, you're judged from how tight your tuck looks from the side), etc. So it's like gymnastics and figure skating but much less controversial because I think the standards are pretty much well-accepted throughout the diving world. Do not be surprised to see some major Chinese judging bias in this meet -- they pride themselves on their divers big time, plus their divers are all about 4'6" and weigh 60 lbs!

H2O polo:: Kinda like soccer in that the positions and roles are similar, except you have fewer players and they're called defenders and attackers, etc. You play four 5-minute quarters, so it's really fast-paced, aggressive and action-packed. A lot of the action goes on underwater, but if the ref can't see any infractions above water, he can't call a penalty. (If that rule has changed, I don't know.) It's a really fun sport to play, but you get your *** kicked.

And for the ladies, might I mention that this sport has some incredibly hot guys? Here's Team USA:The Link

 

[TheGallopinGoose]

Handball

 

[accuratehorn]

I like the glamor events of track and field, the sprints, hurdles, I like the Olympic marathon, the decathalon. Really, a lot of the events in the Olympics are sports I don't watch otherwise-like boxing, although the scoring is often controversial. The cycling road race is usually disappointing, but the other cycling events can be fun to watch. Following the UT connections, check. Baseball, softball, soccer. There is even motocross this time, I believe.
It's the Olympics, it's almost all of some interest.
Sometimes the human interest stories, overdone though they may be, interests me in some competitor from PagoPago or somewhere, and I find that event more worth watching.

 

[IsThatATitleist?]

Soccer by far the favorite.

Interested to see what Basketball is going to do.

Track, swimming, yadi, yadi, yada after that.