jawnbc

Am gutted for Latvia, but bravo Slovenia!

The athletes have to be staged a couple of hours before the parade, then are queued up and standing for probably a minimum of 2 hours. If I were competing in the next 2 days I would absolutely skip it.

Oh what a difference a lunchtime start makes for viewing an Olympic marathon Opening Ceremony: Speeches were the only obvious yawn part for me--especially the OCOG head saying everything in broken English followed by Portuguese. He should've tried French rather than English. Bach's speech was OK and his French was pretty good (fur ein Auslander). The national narrative was staged well. Music overall was good rather than awesome: if the general axiom is OC for the global audience and CC for the home crowd, some of this would have worked better in the CC. The acting President getting booed was both unfortunate and totally predicable. Every recent OC has had a statement element of some controversy. The green message might not reflect all of Brasil today, but hopefully Brasilians will look back on the OC as a turning point on global warming. Athletes entrance was very well done! Loved the tricycles and escorts and the volunteers with the big pink arrow ponchos! It was well paced and the last two groups brought it to a perfect emotional crescendo. Yay refugees! Yay Brasil! Yaaaaay!!!!!! Finally, the final torchbearer choice was inspired--perfect, really. And the cauldron really is breathtaking. My score: 8.5/10.

They'll announce something Thursday or Friday. But think they should be banned from Rio entirely.

I volunteered at Vancouver 2010: volunteer uniform distribution. But I also had a previous paid role at Vanoc in Workforce, so know the volunteer journey very well. Not on here very often anymore. Feel free to email me: jawnbc gmail.

I love Budapest. In fact, I'm going back again in June. Marvellous city; lots of hawt men too (but too much smoking). Even if Budapest has a decent plan, Orban is reviled by traditional, Western European elites. His being evolved will kill their chances, like Erdogan did for Istanbul.

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY PUPPY YOU PREVERT!

I live in Auckland. I love the OGs. But having them here makes no sense--and there would not be much of an appetite for it.

The cover story on this site makes a very clear argument for why Beijing was advantaged over Almaty. Worth a read.

You've calmed down? Really? Just to be clear: assuming neither is doping, the athlete who wins deserves to win. There are no barriers to athletes from dozens of countries to train as hard. In the sports with a technical element (sliding, skiing, etc) when countries like Canada and the US started investing in the technical and athletic sides of the equation they've excelled. Austria's tiny and does very very well. Ditto Norway. And in fact Japan and South Korea have expanded into new winter sport successes in the last half decade. So I don't really buy this "oooh the communists are advantaged" argument. It's 2015, not 1975.

Look, we're happy for you. Those of us who've experienced the Olympics in our countries understand how awesome that is. Congratulations. Those of us who hoped after the ludicrous awarding of Sochi 2014 hoped that with Pyeonchang and Tokyo things were getting back on track. But this entirely selection has been a series of disasters. Neither choice was a good one for the movement. But at least Almaty is a proper mountain city. With extensive experience hosting WINTER sports. Beijing doesn't have that, except for figure skating.

Fucking eejits.

Lausanne for YOG. No surprise there.

BBC World just cut in for the announcement...and then cut out because of the fussing about.