Winter Olympics

They would never make the Olympics, but they had a lot of fun. Youngest son and his partner's teenage daughter, (she's 23 now). They could manage the blue runs, (after a lot of practice over a few years) her mum stuck to the nursery slopes

 

My eyes are completely square having been glued to The Olympics since they started. While I love gardening, sport is my 1st love having been a major part of my life when I was younger and I was lucky enough to be gifted at most sports I attempted . Apart from skiing a couple of times and managing to break my leg the 2nd time..did I say I was quite talented at sport?! and having a few shots at Curling I have no experience of the different winter Olympic disciplines but greatly admire the athletes taking part. To be really good at any sport takes huge amounts of dedication and determination. To be able to bring forward your very best when it matters the most is a huge credit to all who manage to do so under the extreme pressure of expectations.
For Lizzy Yarnold and Laura Deas to have the nerve to produce their best exactly when needed is a testament to their temperaments. Yes maybe they are probably also slightly bonkers whizzing down a hard ice track at around 80mph with their chins about 6 ins off the ground, I for 1 would never have had the guts to do that and doubt there are many who'd fancy it.

 

So true!

I stuck to five a side football, some badminton, an awful lot of squash and now golf in my later years. I like watching some winter sports, but wouldn't have ever thought of trying it.
Of all sports on TV, I like watching Diamond League Athletics and the other big athletic events and track cycling.

Our youngest son played tight end for an amateur American Football team for ten years.
You can now hear his knees click as he goes up the stairs!

Digressing. I was amused over the nonsense about the objections to "scantily clad girls," at F1 races, boxing and industrial shows. A female ex-prime minister of Canada, even suggested female newsreaders shouldn't wear dresses which exposed their arms. What next? Covers round table legs as were popular in Victorian times?

What are they going to do about "running knickers" in athletics, which most of the female runners prefer? I've always said, it'd be bra and pants, if they didn't have to have a top long enough to pin on their number with the event logo.

 

Ah! Good old BBC commentary team.

We've just been told that to Chinese competitors, "A silver medal, is second place."

Who'd have believed it?

 

In Rio 2016 Helen Skelton got in trouble for wearing short skirts during the swimming coverage. It was a lot of fuss about nothing. They were’nt even that short. I think at times certain camera angles may have been misleading. It was pointed out at the same time that Mark Foster was wearing short trousers.

If there were no attractive female presenters on tv I would have nothing to look at on YouTube.

My mum objects to the sponsored glamour girls at darts matches. I do find that a bit out of place.

Keeping topically, winter sports outfits don’t leave much to the imagination either. Watching those ladies coming down the skeleton run with their bottoms in the air was quite off putting. I would ban it all if I could.



G.

 

As for swimming coverage, the "headline maker" was the well endowed Sharron Davies, it was "nipplegate," at the Athens Olympics. She was then banned from wearing soft bras under her tops that left nothing to the imagination, ever since, they only show her head and shoulders when she's interviewing swimmers.



She was in more trouble in Beijing.


Sharron Davies defies the great BBC Olympic cover-up ... and shows off her amazing legs | Daily Mail Online


I've always felt sad for her as she's still denied a retrospective 1980 Olympic Gold medal for her participation in the individual medley, behind Petra Schneider, who has admitted even in a TV documentary that she was on drugs. The IOC has a cut off date for drug taking punishment by loss of a medal. The problem is that going back several decades so many Russian and East German athletes took drugs, there'd be hundreds of medals withdrawn.

I've no time for Helen Skelton, "the thirty-four year old Blue Peter teenager." What does she know about "anything?"
After five years in that, as with others, you can take the presenter out of Blue Peter, but you can't take Blue Peter out of the presenter.

But she will attract the BBCs target audience more than the far more knowledgeable Sharron.

 

There was no mention of Derek Redmond in that article. How many children do they share? It was sad when he pulled up during the (92?) Olympic 400m final. He could have been a medal contender. He pulled a muscle half way round and his dad came out and helped him hobble the rest of the race. Sad memories indeed.


I agree I would rather hear expert analysis from experts. Not all ex professionals make good pundits though. There have been some cringe worthy contenders over the years. The ones they roll out for football tournaments particularly.


G.

 

Two kids with Redmond. She married her third husband a British Airways pilot in 2002, had another child after IVF in 2007 at the age of 43, they divorced two years later.

Made me think, our daughter had her fourth child at 43. She was very methodical person, they were all planned.

 

So now I know.

Watching the women's figure skating (as I would!)

I noticed all the coaches sitting with their contestant waiting for the score, had a large pink rectangular badge on a ribbon round their necks, which read "Kiss & Cry."


The badge was their pass for the "Kiss & Cry" area, which is the actual name of the scoring box.

It's the box where skaters await the judges' scores, and it's named after what skaters might do when those scores finally arrive.

 

Sadly, our girls lost out in the curling bronze medal play-off, despite being streets ahead of the Japanese when it came to eye make-up, who had nil points, for no make-up at all.

Being serious, our girls were out-maneuvered, by better tactical play and accuracy, as were our men.

This is now a truly global sport and the days when our teams can expect to do well against "inferior competition," are over.

 

We got a Bronze over night in snowboarding, we now have the most medals ever achieved in the winter Olympics.

 

For a nation that only gets for the main part "sleet." It's "not too smelly."

Norway have 38 medals so far.

 

Personally, in this day and age, I think saying we dont get much snow is a bit of a cop out.
These people have quite a lot of money thrown at them, presumably they can travel to find snow, and most probably do.
So to say we dont do very well at winter sports because we dont get much snow is laughable.

The only part I will admit to is that in some countries the kids are almost born on skis.

 

I agree Pete, we have plenty of grass but cant play football cricket golf etc etc .

 

The UK does sitting down sports . Cycling , rowing etc , we need to develop the athletes with large buttocks