Beijing 2022 - Your verdict

[FYI]

3 minutes ago, Olympian2004 said:

I still don't get why the FIFA World Cup is spread across four weeks while the Olympic Games with their considerably higher number of events are boiled down to two weeks.

I agree. Especially the Summer Olympics, which has so much more crammed into the schedule vs the Winter Olympics. The Summer Olympics should be at least another week longer. But then of course, that would add to the cost I suppose, particularly for security.

[BigVic]

Australia performance wise I'm happy with our performance. 1gold, 2silver and 1bronze which is our best Winter Olympic haul ever. NZ won its first 2 medals as what Australia did 20 years ago in Salt Lake City. 

[Sir Rols]

2 minutes ago, BigVic said:

Australia performance wise I'm happy with our performance. 1gold, 2silver and 1bronze which is our best Winter Olympic haul ever. NZ won its first 2 medals as what Australia did 20 years ago in Salt Lake City. 

Well, that was NZ’s first golds. They beat us in 1992 to be the first Southern Hemisphere nation to win a winter medal of any kind. 

[baron-pierreIV]

7 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

What about all the extra Panda mascots they ordered but now have to offload?

Then they'll take their place beside all the extra Izzy's and Gleve's--which end up in the bargain bins @ Dollar Store or some such place.  

 

Quote

skifreak said:  ) unfortunately not doable while covid is still going on, but I'd like to see all athletes remain for the duration of the games. The ones that finish in the first week usually jump on a plane and head home. Would be nice for them to stick around to the closing ceremony and cheer on the rest of their team mates and represent their country. 

Not always viable.  #1 - Those athletes might have other commitments in their lives, too. 
#2 - Those nations HAVE TO PAY for their stays at the Villages; and the IOC's subsidies for them would have already ended; hence it will be on their dime. 
#3 - The COJO sometimes depends on those extra freed-up rooms to:
-  house the football teams based elsewhere have now come to the anchor city for the semis or the finals. 
- new security forces brought in (to relieve the previous ones) or
- to house the mass performers for the Closing brought in from other parts of the country.  
So, those vacated rooms are needed by the COJO.  

[Faster]

13 hours ago, SkiFreak said:

Preliminary verdict before the closing ceremony in a few hours: sterile! Lifeless! I don't want to hear anything anymore about covid in Paris in two years so take your vaccines! Broadcasting was missing the cultural vignettes. The stands were missing the international fans and spectators. No team houses. Probably no sponsor pavilions, etc, etc. Just a bad time all around the world, including here domestically in Canada with the stupid freedom rally blockades and protests.

On the sports side of things, good performances. Although Team Canada fell short in the gold and it was our lowest tally since 1994 in Lillehammer. Final performances from some favourite Olympians like Shaun White and Charles Hamelin (however I do wish these guys went out with full venues cheering them on). No podium for us in men's hockey, but glad Finland took the gold. Some firsts for Canada like 4-man bobsled bronze and ski jumping bronze.

Glad the Olympics are leaving Asia for a bit. Here's hoping for more winter scenes in Italy in four years.

 

Peter Kirby and Lyndon Rush are not happy with you thinking this was Canada's first medal in 4-man. Kirby was the champion

12 hours ago, Olympian2004 said:

2) I beg to differ here, I think that the night time and the floodlights create a special atmosphere especially during the cross-country and biathlon events, when the athletes are skiing through a dark, snowy forest. And I think it didn't hurt the ski jumping either that it took place during night time. At least that offered us Europeans the chance to witness many events live.

3) I guess that shoving all sports events into the 16 days is unfeasible due to schedule constraints. I don't mind getting a first taste of the Olympic atmosphere (if there is any, unlike now in Tokyo and Beijing) already before the opening ceremony. What I would prefer, though, is an extension of the Games to three weeks. I still don't get why the FIFA World Cup is spread across four weeks while the Olympic Games with their considerably higher number of events are boiled down to two weeks.

Problem with night is temperature. Athletes were hallowing about how cold it was to race in -10 and lower temperatures. Cortina is, on average, just above that. Whistler is around -4 on average. SLC is about the same in the mountains. Doesn't produce great performances if athletes dicks are being frozen off.

[iceman530]

my halfway verdict stands.  Stale.  Boring.  Synthetic.  

There were no "popcorn ready" moments for China (Russia provided that).  They were able to deal with the spotlight on them just fine to my chagrin.  But, I am happy they had to jump on a COVID Olympics grenade.  That was karma earned.  Any other country I would have felt bad for the same way I felt bad for Tokyo.  But, exhale, everyone, its over.  Hell, had some nice sporting events too.  Snowboarding was enjoyable, figure skating loaded with drama, and Finland winning gold in hockey was a great cherry on top.  Thats what Ill remember most about it I think.

Big picture?  Beijing did its job to "bridge the gap" of the great 2022 bidding crisis.  We should just be happy it wasn't Almaty.  For 2026, Italy threw down a great buddy move with that last minute Hail Mary.  Let's hope Sapporo grants us similar blessings, that way we can "do the double" for Sapporo 2030, SLC 2034.  That way we can consolidate and let the reforms kick in a bit more, and teach the IOC how to work the ground game a bit more, which they absolutely suck at.  All eyes on the Sapporo referendum next month......

[Chris_Mex]

19 minutes ago, iceman530 said:

my halfway verdict stands.  Stale.  Boring.  Synthetic.  

There were no "popcorn ready" moments for China (Russia provided that).  They were able to deal with the spotlight on them just fine to my chagrin.  But, I am happy they had to jump on a COVID Olympics grenade.  That was karma earned.  Any other country I would have felt bad for the same way I felt bad for Tokyo.  But, exhale, everyone, its over.  Hell, had some nice sporting events too.  Snowboarding was enjoyable, figure skating loaded with drama, and Finland winning gold in hockey was a great cherry on top.  Thats what Ill remember most about it I think.

Big picture?  Beijing did its job to "bridge the gap" of the great 2022 bidding crisis.  We should just be happy it wasn't Almaty.  For 2026, Italy threw down a great buddy move with that last minute Hail Mary.  Let's hope Sapporo grants us similar blessings, that way we can "do the double" for Sapporo 2030, SLC 2034.  That way we can consolidate and let the reforms kick in a bit more, and teach the IOC how to work the ground game a bit more, which they absolutely suck at.  All eyes on the Sapporo referendum next month......

Also, just daydreaming but if sapporo does great in 2030 or 2034 maybe we can dream about japan having a 2nd 2nd chance to host a regular summer games in the future. But one step at the time, first the referendum.

[fatixxx]

beijing indeed did its job dignified..

everthing went in a good planning..

everything went technical properly..

 

1// what i missed was: the chinese ceremony romantism and missed chances for a decent cauldron.

if not theyve could copy 2008 cauldron but then in icy-blue + i miss the cheering public at the seats at the background 

2// beijing 2022 gave us the savior games AND 3 games in asia without in count a continent rotation..

this 3 respectively games in an time-span of 5 years was too much too boring.. enough asian..

3// what i will remember is: the valieva-issue + finlands icehokey gold + the 3rd time shiffin-drama +

the night-live-events ski-jumping and cross country + the arials & snowbord (fun to watch) + the total medal clash between NORWAY vs ROC 

a lot of drama-sequences at short-track..  + state of the art venues + the undertitle-graphics

 

4// didnt watch OR better said, couldnt watch none sequence from the glidings and nor curling in the belovde ice-cube

5// our two precious belgian medals .. 1 gold & 1 bronze

 

My verdict/points; 75,3/100 

[fatixxx]

1 minute ago, fatixxx said:

 

3// what i will remember is: the valieva-issue + finlands icehokey gold + the 3rd time shiffin-drama +

the night-live-events ski-jumping and cross country + the arials & snowbord (fun to watch) + the total medal clash between NORWAY vs ROC 

a lot of drama-sequences at short-track..  + state of the art venues + the undertitle-graphics

 

correction >> a lot of drama-sequences at short-track.. + DRAMAS AT SPEEDSKATİNG TOO

[Alexjc]

With the world being a totally f***ed up place for now, I'll give the games the benefit of a "no score" pass. (I gave Tokyo2020 a Pass score since they did their best to put on something that will leave a "what if it was different legacy").

China really didn't try to convince anyone this time...

 Anyhow for New Zealand, Golds, finally and a silver in there. Probably had a chance for a couple more but as I rant on...NZ winter sports really don't get a look in for funding and less so at the moment with the kind of Govt we have, at least until late 2023.

A great effort from the two kids of local families. Definitely A+ to both of them and a respectable B+ to the rest of the team. 

Just got to find a way to making the NZ team bigger for 2026. 

 

[SkiFreak]

Chek News from Victoria (BC) has a decent wrap-up, verdict article:

Chek News: After Beijing bubble bursts, can the IOC save the Olympics?

[Guilga]

Ok. Let´s go by parts.

Sports: They were the highlight, as you would expect. Of course, covid messed things a bit but you can´t really blame anyone but your local government and elites for that. The more radical sports (Free Ski, Snowboard) were real good, can´t forget Italy perfect mixed doubles run in curling and all the figure skating debacle, speed skating mahyem in short track, Germany really loving that sliding track with a spiral, monobob debuting, Canada steamrolling EVERYTHING in women´s ice hockey (except the USA, but not even them could stop the train), Canada and the USA failing in men´s ice hockey (hello NHL, can you get back here in the olympics?)(also, props to Finland), Norway being legends in biatlhon and Cross country, and many more. Also the steel mill power plant for big air (if i recall correctly, the organizing commitee was located there also). Special congratulations for New Zealand for getting these 2 golds, China for actually get high in the table (it would be an embarassment for the party if you all failed hard, since the whole point of this hosting was to farm that OFFICIAL WINTER COUNTRY STATUSTM) and Norway for topping the table in golds. 8/10

Global Politics: I actually expected more here, not gonna lie. For a games edition which brought so many deserved criticism against the human rights violations of the Chinese Comunist Party regime in the lead up, sadly they actually got away with everything in the end. It would be actually dangerous to do that actually, so i can´t blame anyone lest they have to go in a very suspiciousely and potentialy staged act (because we can´t get offical proof but COME ONE) like the shameful Peng Shuai is Totally Fine and Nothing Happened, our party bigwigs are totally true and kind kings Tour brought to you by Thomas Bach, olympic champion Fencing, 1976 in Beijing. I won´t count examples of logic human decency here, like the Ukranian plea for peace; this section is for things like a spokeperson of the games talking official party propaganda at a press conference or a litlle too much shots of Xi Jinping at the closing ceremony (and that one in the opening, right after Hong Kong entered the arena), JEEZ! Ah, yes! Can´t forget that they actually put a Ughyur athlete to lit the calduron... put the torch at the calduron. Given that Taiwan also had to content with CCP mess before the opening, the party got away with any criticism of the human rights violations, Xinjiang and Tibet in particular with HK, we can say the games went 10/10 for them. BUT, the real political reasoning for the hosting of the games was actually about that sports thing. But before going into that, since Putin decided to overshadow any mess that this games might had caused and the CCP got a out of jail card, have to give this a 5/10. 

Sport Politics: OH BOY, THE FUN PART! You know, that 300 million peeps at winter sports that China promised? With that in mind, let´s go back to the ceremony musical score, why was so many western songs in there? Of course, that might not be at random: perhaps, they are a form of validation? After all, the point in hosting these winter games was, in first place, in my book, actually make China a Winter Sports Country(trademark). The parade songs, kinda felt like a classical winter mega hits, right? A scottish music of farewell in the closing? The hint is in Bach closing speech; the games were about China becoming one of them...and in that, they actually succeded: they got nine golds after all. Even got world class atlhetes in some events. And if their claim is even remotely true (since anything from the CCP is debatable)... OH BOY, we might have a new power in the rise here. Socialist states always provide a amazing demographic for the olympics because of their lust for medals, and if that market is a billion people large, you just give what the kings want to just get in there. Bach was doing his job by liking their boots, actually; supporting these dubius claims means supporting a sucessful sport development program and a giant market to the olympics to dive in. Even a third of these supposed 300 million, if they exist, are going to make waters here. THIS WAS THE POINT OF THIS GAMES. Let´s see if the strategy worked in four years time. But that wasn´t the only sport politcal stuff in this games...

Sport Politics part 2, Valieva and the mean adults: This. JUST THIS CASE ALONE, make a 10/10 sport politics score. You can´t discuss Beijing 2022 without talking about the case where the best skater of all time, because of the adults in the room, broke down in the ice, giving more irreparable harm to her than any dopping suspension could. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU FOR RUINING THIS GIRL DREAM: her coaches(one of them i want to get a good ban after they investigate all this crap so Sambo70 can get the boot it deserve for figure skating sake), CAS(thanks for the free meme, hope you can find solace in your conscience after the irreparable harm you helped make trying to avoid it in first place), RUSADA(for being RUSADA and give a suspension only to revoke it, and the way too late results even if it would take a while anyway since COVID and testing outside the country stuff), and the Sochi 2014 mess for making this all possible in first place. After all, it´s the culmination of this case; the light suspensions of CAS and IOC, letting they compete with a Totally-not-me flag, winding up uncovering a case of potential child abuse that messed things up so much that the team event didn´t even had their victory ceremony yet (torches as replacement, yay)and the individual women´s event had to change it´s rules just they could still have a official result later regardless if Valieva really get´s convicted (if she did gotten a medal, it would even be the same affair as the team event). Both events still going to have their results in a provisional stage until this mess is uncovered in full, hopefully. If the mess get´s too deep to not punish a extremely long list of people or hardcore messes are found...it is going to be hard to defend Russian participation next games of the olympiad. For real. AND FOR MORE DRAMA: The IOC have no fear anymore to cut apples too rotten to their taste; Boxing, Weightlifting, Modern Pentathlon — EVEN FOR THE IOC, THESE CEASED TO MAKE THE CUT, two of them for having federations too bad for the goddammed IOC! If Eteri and the gang get´s away or the light gets too much in figure skating dark sides, the IOC can actually cut it. BUT, it is a marquee event of the winter games; if they go through with it, it might kill the trobled brothers of the summer games. THAT can kill the winter olympics. No kidding. It would be like the summer without gymnastics, it´s a non-starter possibility. If the mess increases, the winter games might get´s in the deathwatch for this. The overall sport politcs score, with this case and China winter rise, it´s a actually deserved 18/10. No kidding.

Ceremonies: Actually they weren´t that bad. (The finale of the closing though? Awesome callback to 2008 with the rings, THAT rings, and bringing the snowflake song back with You and Me, all with a magic moment to bid farewell to the flame. Nice!) Granted, it´s best enjoyed with some NEEDED cultural commentary which my local broadcasters (in pay tv, sportv- part of the globo group which is the (almost)always home for all the games here in Brazil(well, way more in summer but they did fine here) on tv be at free-to-air or pay tv) thankfully had given well. Overall it´s a 8/10, but i have to talk about the calduron. Come and see, the world´s smallest flame! Have to say, i laughed when i first noticed that that was our calduron for the games but i grow found of it? A small flame of peace in a snowflake full of countries is not a bad idea. Of course, that small flame is amusingly funny but not bad, after all. The calduron actually is a 7/10, in particular the rotating outside versions with all the extra structure around.

Bonus: Thanks OBS for granting all of your bonanza for free in Brazil this time, be it on Youtube(and the figure skating chats full of fellow brazilians) or in the Olympic Video Player site. Eternally thankful for the fun ride, i sure enjoyed it all! Now, IOC; EVEN YOU ARE DOING PLAY TO EARN GAMES NOW? NFT PINS?? NFTS AT ALL? THE PEOPLE AT THE SUSTENTABILITY PROJECTS SINCE 94 WERE ALL CLOWNS? Jokes apart, Olympic Games Jam is still going to be updated post games, somehow lounching DURING the event and not before to actually get in the hype. Let´s see if the producers of the nWayPlay game will deliver any of the roadmap. Altough this somehow managed to be the one olympic video game that i have no courage to play, even after seeing gameplay, with that play to earn side irking me. But that may be just me. At least you can snatch some right-click-swags here:https://nwayplay.com/marketplace At least you can buy these with dollars. By the way, FREE PIN FOR EVERYONE!!
https://assets.nwayplay.com/olympics/nft/0c5d3207-ffe0-4a8c-a500-f08a2a106185_core_graphics_beijing_2022_rare_turquoise_horizontal.mp4

And a bonus cuteness for you all:

Hope you all can find joy in this panda bear who remind us that DOORS, NOT EVEN ONCE. It could even be a cool signature, maybe with a creative montage to go along.

Also, have to put my Olympic Fantasy exploits at the Olympic Fanzone:

This is my open to enter league that i created. The name, Pro-Vaccine League is a nod to a similar theming that i had going on the fantasy and bracket leagues at Tokyo 2020 Fanzones, easily this games best legacy along with moments(now spon by Visa! Also, it´s going to have a Visa Award vote for the games best moment in the site soon). Of course, Trivia is actually Lausanne 2020 YOG legacy, another of the fanzone cornerstones of fun. Love it.

These are Fantasy´s global top 4 in overall ranks. For trivia, i don´t have any points since i always missed the live trivia times, but i can show their final rankings:

Now, for this games, the IOC had the idea of badges, to show archievements. Let´s say it kinda gave me a olympic title, albait tied?

Also, the Quiz Master badge involves get a perfect score in any quiz. Since all quizzes were replayable during and after their time in the limelight for the trending quizzes and their live shows for the live quizzes, it means that you can(or could, still can by today) grind a quiz that you did well and just answer the questions that you failed before right, i found this by doing. It´s seems this was a allowed exploit, or should i say speedrun tech? Anyway, the global results. 

Tied with four other people, i am a OLYMPIC CHAMPION, FANZONE GLOBAL RANKING 2022! I can challenge Thomas Bach for the IOC crown now!!

Jokes apart, the final scores:

Sports: 8/10

Global Politics: 5/10

Sport Politics: 18/10

Ceremonies: 8/10

Final Scores: Adding up all these gives a solid 39, divided by 4 we have the score of... 9.75, which is a tad too high for this games, but you have to consider that the Valieva drama was that big of a deal to inflate the Sport Politics score that much. So 9.75/10 it is. Snowflakes, Snowflakes that´s a wrap, and to celebrate the end of the first half of the Beijing 2022 games (the paras is in March, don´t you forget!), let´s take a listen to the spiritual sucessor of You and Me...

Next time: Paralympics, Putin vs Ukraine, we still dealing with covid, Fifa and the 2022 world cup organizers along with the catari laws and elites doing their best to upset the CCP at the Human Rights Violator of the Year award. But for the olympic flame, the next destination is Paris, hopefully in 2024, celebrating the games 2800th year in existence since ancient greece. Hopefully, it will last for far longer than that. Ah, the winter games are making a centenary there too? At least the Winter YOG will take us back in Gangwon, Korea to at least make us renember to celebrate. But for now, You and Me, we are family and we bid farewell for now! Snowflakes, sonwflakes...

 

[baron-pierreIV]

/\/\  Guliga, TOO MUCH info.  People here have SHORT attention spans.  

Want to know where Zhang Yimou & team got their idea for the Snowflake/cauldron?  

From Philippine Christmas lanterns . .  .
 

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by baron-pierreIV

[baron-pierreIV]

More on the tanked TV ratings IN CHINA --  

TV Ratings For The Olympics In Communist China Continue To Be Complete Garbage (msn.com) 

Am surprised that the west could get those numbers because if China had its way, it would probably say their country was watching 90% of the time!! 

[FYI]

Xixi probably ain't gonna be too happy with his citizens for that. So much for the "300 million Chinese winter sports enthusiasts" Bach kept uttering about.

[Karenina]

3 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

More on the tanked TV ratings IN CHINA --  

TV Ratings For The Olympics In Communist China Continue To Be Complete Garbage (msn.com) 

Am surprised that the west could get those numbers because if China had its way, it would probably say their country was watching 90% of the time!! 

That article was about NBC's ratings...  

But, overall verdict on these Olympics...  Thank God they're over.  Venues were bland and unimpressive.  The brown hills during the first week and the industrial site re-vamp for the Big Air venue were depressing.  There was nothing charming or intriguing about these Olympics.  The ceremonies were underwhelming - the only exciting thing was the Milano-Cortina handover segment.  Bach and Xi got exactly what they deserved with this and the sooner that blowhard Bach is tossed out by the rest of the IOC the better.  Won't happen, I know, because we've got three really good hosts coming up in the next 6 years, but a gal can dream.

[Guilga]

17 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

/\/\  Guliga, TOO MUCH info.  People here have SHORT attention spans.  

Yeah, you´re right! It really was a wall of text, even though that was an enjoyable ride to make. So, i will summarize here (also, loved the lanterns at the video!);

Sport: 8/10, overall good even if Covid messes things up. (talking about sport proper here, not the atmosphere, which couldnt be helped for obvious reasons.

Global Politics: 5/10, expected more chaos but the CCP actually got away with it. Sad. This could rise up because of this case, though

Sport Politics: 18/10; China hosted this games to become a new winter sport nation(trademark) and they, at least institutionally, made it but the Valieva dopping case was truly a unforgettable case, be it for good or bad reasons, with ramifications that could do a lot of damage for Figure Skating, Russia and even the Winter Olympics themselves. It broke the scale for a reason.

Ceremonies: 8/10; Calduron funny but alright, 7/10

Total score: 9.75 

 

[fatixxx]

21 hours ago, Guilga said:

Ok. Let´s go by parts.
 

best @Guilga 

i want to thank you warmly for this technical good and rich comprehensively sum/text about your view of the closing ceremony.

i read your opinion almost with 2 or 3 breaths..

i find it very instructive the views of other/different users over the globe. 

especially the views of latin-american users gives me a lot of new ideas about your perception versus what we feel in western-europe

the wall-text about the opening ceremony-view of user @Nacholympic from chile inspired me also, both performances impressed me

obrigado / muchos gracias and best regards. fatih. 

[PikyoK]

My verdict on the closing ceremony and a comment on the games.

[SkiFreak]

A couple good wrap-up articles from the Calgary Herald:

Calgary Herald: Scott Stinson: The Olympics were strange. May there never be another Games like it (Feb 20, 2022)

Calgary Herald: Scott Stinson: The IOC looks forward to next Olympics, but tough memories will linger (Feb 21, 2022)

[iceman530]

In the IOC's mindset:  WE SURVIVED.  MINIMAL EMBARRASSMENT! MOVING ON!!

[Nacholympic]

I’ll give my verdict from two sides: one as a spectator and the other one as an Olympic fan…

My verdict as a spectator:

-          As in every Winter Olympics, I can see the games only as a spectator, never waiting for my country to win a medal. In Chile (as all Latin American countries) Winter Olympics is an event which doesn’t centre the attention of the media, since it is view as an event that happens totally “outside of our frontiers” and we can enjoy it as exhibition sports (like attending a play on a ince-rink) but never with the feeling or the eagerness to watch our countries to win an event. Indeed, media don’t give too much attention to them. As a matter of fact in my country, Chile, the Winter games have been broadcasted since Albertville 1992 in full (I don’t have in mind, or even in old archives, media coverage of previous games) and most of them with highlights and not in full. I know there are some other countries like Brazil which gives a full coverage of them. Indeed, Chile skipped the coverage of 2 games: Sochi, which was covered by a minor TV channel and PyeongChang which didn’t have any transmition at all. It’s now with Beijing that National TV in Chile, by channel TVN, broadcasted live, for the first time, both ceremonies. Something that never happened before and, I think, it’s due to the massive success of Tokyo Olympics on Chilean TV. That success was so big that even open Chilean TV broadcasted live, also for the first time, the Paralympics with their ceremonies and events (in highlights) . TVN was one of the few channels on open TV in the world that covered the Paralympics in full….

 

-          One of the reasons that in Latin America Winter Olympics don’t catch the massive attention is very simple: we are in summer (at least in South America) and we are in a plenty period of vacations time. During summer time, in most of our countries, what catch the major attention of people and media are carnivals and festivals (in my country the famous Viña del Mar music festival in February and some other music Festivals in other cities spread during January and February) So, nobody cares about a competition in far countries in a season that none wants to live yet.

 

-          In addition of that, the countries in Latin America that have the conditions to practice winter sports are only Argentina and Chile, due to Andes Mountains (Cordillera de Los Andes) which in these countries reach the highest tops. Indeed, many of the snow sports and Olympians come to Chile and Argentina during the out-season to practice their sports. In Chile, we have hosted some minor events of ski and snowboard in our winter time (the northern summer time). Even the Pan American Games had some winter editions: in 1959 Lake Placid tried to host the first Winter Panamerican Games, but ODEPA rejected the idea. It was not until 1990 that the first edition of the Winter Panamerican Games was held in Las Leñas Argentina, with a low numbers of athletes and countries. For 1993 it was Santiago de Chile due to organize the Winter Pan Am Games, but the organizers asked for a certain numbers of events to assure media and public attention that were not accepted by ODEPA and they were cancelled. Since that, the idea was not relieved.

 

 

 

 

-          Since 2010, internet has brought to this part of the world full coverage 24/7 for the Olympic Winter Games. First by Terra (Vancouver 2010) and since 2014 by Marca Claro-Claro Sports (from Mexico) which is the current right holder for Latin America (except Brazil) and has the best full coverage of the event that you can imagine: free simultaneous channels to watch the event you want, live or on-demand. Again, thanks to Marca Claro, I could enjoy in full these Winter Olympics.

 

-          Marca-Claro is aware of the low attention that winter Olympics have in Latin America and its covering is made for every Latin America country, following their performances and interviewing the Latin winter Olympians (Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, etc). In this edition, a Mexican figure skating called the attention, especially of the Mexican media (a country in winter, also): Donovan Carillo, who was the first Mexican figure skater to qualify for the winter Olympics since Albertville ’92.

 

-          Most of Latin American Olympian go to the Winter Olympics to participate and improve their personals bests with low or any chance to win a medal for the reasons above mentioned.

 

-          For me, the games were, again an spectacle that happens “far away”, but the lack of public took away some soul and warm (that we have in excess these days in this part of the world) Even the figure skate gala, having all that glittering, seemed to me totally lack of soul: cold, fast, too rigid and with low joy… PyeongChang, in 2018, had a memorable ending that Beijing didn’t. I missed vivid and joyful performances such Javier Fernandez’s from Spain that gave in 2014 and 2018.

 

-          Another “far away” event, full of emotions that probably, none will remember here…. But I will as the “pandemic winter games”.

 

My Verdict as Olympic Fan:

-          As I mentioned above, these games were soulless and too cold. Of course, the events were truly spectacular, such as sliding sports (my favourite ones) …

 

-          It was sort of shocking for me watching snow events with dry surrounding landscapes… events in a “city” space, with concrete and heavy sun and a background of an abandoned factory (reminding me a sort of “Springfield” landscape)… and knowing the environmental impact it may cause, it really put me in the middle of the road: the Olympic fan and the world reality.

 

-          The organization was exceptional, the look of the games in blue tones was cool, but again I felt the impact of that lack of cheers. Knowing that Chinese citizens and from Beijing itself could watch the Olympics same as I watched thousands of kilometres away: a show on TV and Internet.

 

-          The Russian team again tainted the competition… what happened with Kamila Vailieva not only have to terrify us, but also it must open the debate of mental health in Olympians. When we know that and watch it live, I have the feeling the Olympics are becoming a sort of a Roman Circus for both Olympians and host cities… which are, exactly, the current crisis of the Olympic Games.

 

-          Ceremonies were cold (again) a mixture between Chinese style full of western elements. Zhang Yimou seems a robot, a walking dead in his interviews, a sort of militaristic art director that again makes me questioning how people involved on it enjoy the event… led panels on the floor are just a huge waste of money with the merely intention of boasting themselves… projections are a lot cheaper and on TV they give the same effect. Anyway, the technology replaced the mass performances we could expect from China and they succeed on that, even though, the closing ceremony was adjusted to protocol segments full of technology and vivid lights.

 

-          I know that we are facing changes in the Olympic movement and ceremonies won’t be the same as they were since 1992 to 2016, but that is the challenge: create new formulas that can amaze us again… and this challenge is for both Winter and Summer games.

 

-          The Beijing Olympics were beautiful, elegant and entertaining but soulless not only because of the ceremonies and the lack of cheers, but also by the truths that are coming to lights: the overspendings, the artificial snow and their tremendous environmental impact, the Roman Circus of the athletes pressure that CAN NOT convert the competitions in a sort of reality show… these games left me totally wondering about that.

 

-          Anyway, I loved the song “Snowflakes” of the ceremonies. I think, the biggest “ceremony legacy” of these games.

[Sir Rols]

49 minutes ago, SkiFreak said:

Calgary Herald: Scott Stinson: The Olympics were strange. May there never be another Games like it (Feb 20, 2022)

That one was a funny read!

[TorchbearerSydney]

There is another issue I see with Olympic ceremonies- countries hosting (in the recent past) hosting another ceremony. For example Sydney 2000 hosted a huge 'history of Australia', but now we have Brisbane already- what does it do?

Torino 2006 put on a show about Northern Italy, and here we are again 20 years later. Beijing 2008 showed us the grandeur of Chinese history, what does that leave Beijing 2022 to do?

So I can see a country hosting for the first time (say Turkey or India) going all out, but as we repeat hosts, the shows may become smaller because they have done it already?

Just a theory....

 

[SkiFreak]

Another post-Olympics article, from Castanet in Kelowna, BC:

Castanet: Cyber concerns continue - At Olympics, cybersecurity worries linger in background (Feb 20,2022)