Sir Rols

I’ve watched them all now (well, I fast forwarded through Eliasch, I don’t give him much of a chnce). My impressions… * Samaranch and Coe were probably the slickest. And I see in news reports it’s those two who seemed to be considered the front runners. Actually, I’m warming a bit to Samaranch - he was the most direct and seemingly open in a lot of his answers. He didn’t waffle as much into candidate-speak. * I know I give Kirsty a hard time, but she comported herself well enough. Was peppered with questions about Bach and women in sport. I still don’t see my evidence of leader qualities, though. * Watanabe’s funny. As wel as his 24-hour worldwide Olympics idea, he ups the ante with a plan to turn the IIOC into the World Sports Organisation, a mega global IF that will control all sports! You sure dream big, Mori! * The questions were mostly tame. The guy from Xinhua with his “what’s the biggest challenge for the IOC” for each candidate. Duncan Mackay and the guys from The Times and the New York Times were the most probing. I think it as the NYT guy who tried to put Samaranch on the spot, asking: “You’re talking about taking power away from the EB and giving it back t the members. Why didn’t you d something about it when you were on the EB?”. Glad they also probed a fair bit about lack of transparency and why was the whole candidate process so restrictive and secretive.

Hi Ken, nice to see the old crew pop in. Hope you’re well.

How low can that piece of sh!t sink. So now some poor black, Hispanic or woman in the control tower is going to get death threats Put it this way, I don’t think we’ll get drag queens, but we may get…

If you want to make a drinking game of it, you can fast forward to 55:00 and down a shot each time Kirsty glowingly mentions Bach

For anyone so inclined, here’s the post-presentations media Q&As

That’s terrible news after what was already a terrible tragedy

Confirmed, Sydney to host the Final, semis and third place games. Despite earlier looking like it would it out/miss out altogether, Melbourne will host some pool and Round of 16 matches. Brisbane has pool games and two quarter finals at Lang Park Sydney to host 2027 Rugby World Cup final as Melbourne settles for last-16 games

You’re one of that rare breed of members here who is only focussed on the sports and athletes at the Olympics, and doesn’t care much for the fripperies. I respect that. Come what may, I’m going to be watching the sporting action from LA too. As I did with Beijing. The sport is the meat of a games. I was pretty strident against the choice of Beijing from even before they were elected. As the games approached that choice became even more malevolent in my mind. And I was getting annoyed and dismayed by comments from some on the board that they were looking forward to the first decent ceremony in a long time. To me that was like getting excited that Goebbels and Riefenstahl had been appointed to direct ceremonies. I figured I couldn’t watch them, and stated that here. And that blew up into a spiteful flame war here. LA’s opening is still more than three years away, and at this stage I anticipate watching them all from the opening to the close. But if there are indications that the Government and Trumpists are going to heavily influence the tone and messaging of the ceremonies, I will have to carefully consider if I watch those ceremonies or not. To be honest, I don’t expect the ceremonies to be MAGA-fests. What I suspect, though, is the organisers and artistic directors might play it safe and shy away from anything that might cause a stir or be considered “woke”. Which would be a pity - I think Olympic ceremonies should be idealistic, aspirational and progressive.

Oh f*ck! I didn’t realise he was going to preside over the Sesquicentennial. This is gonna be cringe.

Interesting to see how the mainstream media cover the election… No transparency please, we’re the IOC: Coe makes his pitch for world sport’s top job “…an election so secretive and strange it would make a Vatican cardinal wince”. Ouch

Interesting. But aren’t the actual presentations - let’s face it, the only bits we’d be interested in - supposed to be in camera?

By the way, tomorrow’s the day the candidates give their live auditions. Not that we’ll get to see it. Hopefully there’ll be some leaks and tidbits coming out of it (apart from the bland press release or statement the IOC itself will issue or worse, a wrap up by Dubi).

Came across an interview with Eliasch (who I think is the longest of longest shots) in ITG, but it seems to be a re-write of an interview he gave to Agence France Presse and Al Arabiya. Most of it is the usual platitudinous homilies they’ve all spouted - unity, sport at the forefront, AI evolution yadda yadda - but some interesting, and eyebrow raising comments on Saudi Arabia: Eliasch was asked about the Gulf nation and whether he would be prepared to reschedule the Games for the winter, rather than in the summer when temperatures hit 40 degrees. "Well, if you look at the front page of my manifesto, what you see there is a picture of a globe with Africa, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. There is a thought behind that, they are place where we haven't been. We have been to South America, China and Australia - and of course Europe and North America. "We must not forget Africa, it is a place we need to go to and the Middle East, and not been to India either. Some people will say this will be challenging because of calendar issues, lack of infrastructure. Though with careful planning, I am convinced we can overcome every obstacle and deliver magnificent games," Eliasch concluded. On Saudi Arabia, who will host the 2034 World Cup, the 62-year-old, added, "We should encourage everybody to apply. In the case of Saudi Arabia, their commitment and dedication to sport is fantastic, and I remember years ago when they promoted the idea of actually including snow-based events. People said 'that can't be true', 'where do you find snow in Saudi Arabia?', but they actually do have snow and have mountains reaching 2,600 metres and have invested in building up ski resorts. "So, everything is possible, and if Saudi Arabia applies, we should take that very seriously."

I think I’m keener to watch this version Mexicans make Emilia Pérez parody poking fun at French stereotypes

Aren’t all their candidature docs written by ChatGPT or DeepSeek? I can’t think of any other reason all of them think an IOC priority is to embrace the opportunities of AI.

Hey, @Scotguy II, @Bear, anyone else? You guys still keen on a bid book comp?

Further to that. Personally, I’m very pessimistic about the state of the world at the moment. To the point where, at my age, I selfishly just hope it can hold itself together while I’m still around before it all falls to pieces. I’ve been in a prologed funk since the election - lots of dark political and geopolitical musings. I don’t want to have to personally boycott the LA games. I guess I’m still hoping that the organisers and California can still present it as a counterpoint to Trunps’s version of America. I’m not optimistic any more that’s achievable, but I can hope. I don’t know how the fact it’ll play out in an election year (well, we HOPE it’s still an election year) will affect those fears and hopes. But, yeah, if America’s current downward spiral just continues and deepens, like Beijing I feel I’d be a hypocrite not to ceremony boycott it. I set my own personal ethical Olympic benchmark in 2022.

We’re having run-ins, he’s got fingers in all pies atm. And we’re expecting a federal election in the next few months. You can imagine what’s in store Elon Musk calls Australian government ‘fascists’ over move to regulate online misinformation

I think we all wondered if it would survive. But he’s definitely aware of it. Anyway, it’s a great clapback to all those over the years who have made such accusations as: “You guys are hypocrites attacking China/Russia/Turkey/Hungary. What about America?”

Thanks @Guilga, that was a huge wave I woke up to this morning. There’ve been continuing intermittent attempts to spa, since then. I think we may get waves of them over the next few days. Everybody, by all means report them, but don’t post in their threads. @GBModerator, I’ve noticed in the latest few Temu posts, their posts are automatically hidden without needing to block them manually. Have you added an approval queue for new posters? Or geo-blocking some ip addresses?

Hmmm. I think it’s flawed to consider any of them “mega” games in that they challenged or transformed the hosts the way an Olympics does. More they reflected the cities that hosted them. Of course the likes of Manchester, Melbourne and Delhi - each capable of an Olympics (at least at those times) - would and did stage events commensurate with their stature and capabilities. Anything they staged would have looked “big”. None were stretched by the task. They also were in an era of peak games of any sort. The Olympics themselves were at the height of their prestige, growing into the behemoth they are today and having the world’s alpha cities - New York, London, Paris - all competing fiercely to host them. It was the final golden age for free-to-air broadcasting before streaming disrupted the media model, and as such these events were the jewels in the crown of prestige programming. The CWGs of the time reflected that era - not the pinnacle, but still a valuable and prestigious broadcasting asset. Then the mood started shifting. Public discourse - amplified by the social media phenomenon- began questioning more the value of such events. NOlympics and similar movements picked up steam and skeptical public’s and governments became less enthusiastic. Even the Olympics - especially the Winter Games - started finding it harder to attract willing hosts. And the CWGs, along with other lesser-tier events, were more exposed to the shifting attitudes. And there had always been discussion on the relevance of the Commonwealth Games, but these became more pervasive. And then there’s the Commonwealth itself - it’s not what it was. The ties that bound the Commonwealth have frayed in a more inter-connected and multicultural world. CHOGM used to be an important diplomatic forum, for example. Now its place has been taken by the likes of G20 and APEC. Member nations - from the Dominions like Australia and Canada to the former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean - began questioning more the legacy of British rule. And, of course, the Queen, who was respected and held in affection even by those without monarchist sympathies, has passed. She was a glue that held it very much together. Charles (who, actually, I think has proved to be a decent old stick) just doesn’t engender the same affection.

I feel for you. Just as I feel for all my American friends - none of them are MAGA-it’s. You guys must be feeling so disheartened, powerless and, yes, embrassed. I can’t count the number of messages I’ve had out of the US along the lines of “I apologise for my government and my countrymen who voted for him”. I know so many of you are decent people and i’ll always try to remember that. Ordinarily I’d say the government in a “democratic” wouldn’t have much influence on things like the ceremonies and tone. But this is Trump and the likes of Musk we are going to face. I think we can guess the pressure they’re going to bring to bear on anything they deem “woke”. And while I’d hope the artistic directors might want to make statements counter to the administration, they could also as well self-censor themselves to avoid conflict or indeed protect their future careers. Then there’s going to be how policies on things like gender, immigration etc play out against the requirements of the games. Much less if the Orange one is actually serious about his claims to the Panama Canal or Greenland. There’s going to be issues we just can’t ignore.

Pffft. Neither do we down here Australia doesn’t exist

In all seriousness, I think it’s a legitimate thread, in an appropriate section. We’ve long had a tradition of discussing the political aspects of various games. Both editions of Beijing and Sochi attracted lots of comment, and dedicated threads, on their problematic political issues. Ditto even the likes of London and Rio. As the Trump regime hardens, it’s going to be inevitable that it’s going to colour many people’s feelings towards the games. It’s really unfortunate that the Orange Blob may overshadow the games prep, but it is what it is. I’m not quite at @Rob2012’s stage yet, but if things continue the downward spiral I may well reach the point where I have to consider a personal boycott.

Should I move it to the Brisbane section?