2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games

[Bosco]

Hoping for an entertaining and safe 2.5 weeks!

 It's my wish that this thread doesn't devolve into pseudo "difficult subjects thread", but I know the world is in a very unrest state and hope that we can keep things civil.

That being said, I just was reminded 'Breaking' (break dancing) is an Olympic competition this year.

Here is a mini documentary following the French 'Breaking' scene:

B-Boy Olympic Qualified Breaker preview:

Sunny Choi (USA) B-Girl preview:

[Enjoyed]

I'll definitely be looking out for some highlights of the 'Breaking' competition (side note: there was a NYT Connections puzzle recently that had the word 'breaking' in it - it turned out to be in a category with other Olympic sports... A very frustrating, complete opposite to an 'Ohhh yeeeaaahhh!' moment. I hate the term. Breakdancing was too widely known as a thing, so they decided to make it more obtuse? OK!).

BUT. I'll definitely be trying to catch the track cycling live if I can. One of the few things us Brits are actually pretty fucking good at. And the races are so much fun to watch!

[Stefan]

As usual, I'll be probably only watching the road cycling events.
This week I noticed that today's final stage of this year's Tour de France (havent't paid that much attention to it since I'm currently moving) isn't finishing in Paris, as it has for decades, but in Nice, and after a first "oh that's new" I of course remembered that there's another big sports event happening there

[Bosco]

Italian Olympic Gymnast (and silver medalist), Giorgia Villa...

https://x.com/womenpostingws/status/1818699502301450603

https://x.com/slothanova/status/1818681698667667720

An epic kink has been birthed

[rynostar]

Had to chuckle at the two minute long wait at the Men's 100m track final and Justice - Genesis leaving everyone hanging in anticipation. Not sure if this is for all track events.

[Bosco]

This is my first time checking out the "boulder" rock climbing competition, and I think it's worth checking out if you have an access to Olympic replays.

In "boulder" the competitors are given ~5 minutes to solve a problem (climb) and score points by how far they progress. There are 4 different problems for competitors to solve and the climbers with the most points wins.

As I watched, I found out I'm less interested in the competition angle and more focused on the completionist aspect of problem solving. I found myself rooting for everyone, which I cant exactly say for every event.

[Stefan]

Imho that's the best kind of sports event to watch, where it's just interesting/entertaining/exciting, but it's not the "most important thing" whether a particular athlete or team wins.

[Enjoyed]

This is kind of how I feel about eSports. I know, ha ha, people playing video games professionally. But watching a game of League of Legends being played by the best players in the world is fascinating, no matter which side wins. I do support a team, but for all the games that they don't play in, I'm mostly just enjoying the game unfold. The micro and macro decisions, map movements, lane allocation, figuring out the best way to approach a fight/objective. Even the picks and bans are fun to see unfold!

And, why am I talking about this in the Paris Olympics topic? Well, turns out that eSports was recently voted to be included in [some kind of way with] the Olympics. Funded by Saudi money, sadly. But approved by the IOC and, in theory, backed by them officially.

[Bosco]

The only eSport Olympic competition that matters:

[Bosco]

Closing Ceremony:

Dang, no Daft Punk. Plenty of Justice soundtracking the marching athletes, though. And Kavinsky? Lol, that's a bit of a reach, but ok...

The American broadcast is so garbage. We cut to commercial just as Air's "Playground Love" started up and didn't give the band any air-time (pun intended). We might be the leaders of the world when it comes to athletic competition, but shit do we have some dog shit culture. Let Americans hear some beautifully crafted music that might actually strike some emotion, damn.

So to continue, United States (broadcast) had Jimmy Fallon commentating, an olympic hand-off to a puffy faced Tom Cruise, a washed and tired Red Hot Chili Peppers, everybody's favorite product hawking uncle... Snoop Dogg, and a generation-locked, soft-singing pop-star, Billie Eilish... Exciting? Um, not exactly.

That said, L.A. is prepared. There isn't a better place on earth to hold the Olympics than Los Angeles/ Southern California.

Paris produced some great competition, but I thought ceremonies were missing some magic. Now knowing Daft Punk was absolutely not a surprise, I think Phoenix was better suited to the opening ceremony rather than the closing it out.

[ThePumisher]

We cut to commercial just as Air's "Playground Love" started up and didn't give the band any air-time (pun intended).

Bummer. One of my Top 6 tracks from Air

In no particular order:
La femme d'argent
Caramel Prisoner
Run
Le soleil est près de moi
Jeanne
Playground Love

[Wolkenkrabber]

Closing Ceremony:

Apologies for starting the opening ceremony chat in the "Sports" thread when I should have done it in this one. If any moderator people want to move that stuff retroactively to this thread, then I won't complain.

Dang, no Daft Punk.

Apologies again for getting my prediction wrong - in the Daft Punk thread. As far as I can tell, every music artist in the Paris ceremony was miming (even the orchestra were miming - one violinist had no strings on his fiddle). So If DP had turned up, they would have been miming too (maybe that's what they always did anyway?). But I genuinely believed we would get some DP tunes in some shape or form. Very odd that we got nothing at all. If we have any active French forumites, maybe they can explain why.
The only DP I heard during the Olympics was Da Funk being used as a music bed by the BBC - I think when they were showing the medals table.

I gotta say as someone from a small country (Ireland), it really jumps out at me how um, "nationalistic" broadcasters can be during events like the Olympics. During a men's gymnastics event where Ireland won a gold (a rare occurrence!!) the BBC presenters spent more time talking about their silver medalist (he's retiring - boo hoo) than actually praising the gold medal winner  . And as for that "medals table" - that's not something a smaller country gives a damn about. I think Team GB wanted top 5 (in Golds) but finished 7th. Good, they can simmer down now.

The American broadcast is so garbage. We cut to commercial just as Air's "Playground Love" started up and didn't give the band any air-time ... damn.

Maybe you can console yourself with my miming comments above - you missed some miming. Bet yeah good tunes and a bad move from the broadcaster; I sympathise. Playground Love and 1901 by Phoenix really are excellent pop songs.

So to continue, United States (broadcast) had Jimmy Fallon commentating, an olympic hand-off to a puffy faced Tom Cruise, a washed and tired Red Hot Chili Peppers, everybody's favorite product hawking uncle... Snoop Dogg, and a generation-locked, soft-singing pop-star, Billie Eilish... Exciting? Um, not exactly.

These comments might be a little harsh. RHCP and Snoop Dogg were the only artists who did any live performance last night, I reckon. It may have been just the vocals that were live but it was something. Billie Eilish's miming was BAD though! And as for Tom Cruise, well I don't like defending the guy cos he's kinda weird, but he's in his 60s so maybe "puffy faced" is a little harsh.

Oh and the Guardian's Alexis Petredis took the view that Paris' Gallic cool was upstaged by LA glitz. Well, it's an opinion.

Back to the music at the Paris ceremony, at 22:09 (French time) just as the "proper" ceremony was kicking in, we got that "Rocky-ish" sounding tune again. And it was definitely Johnny Hallyday's "Que Je Taime". You can hear the crowd singing the words to the instrumntal from about 0.25 in this twitter clip:
[Edit: the second embedded twitter clip. I can't post it without the first tweet/clip also emedding because Steph did it as a reply)

https://x.com/Stbslam/status/1822720571605492110

Perhaps we can console ourselves on the Daft Punk front by watching this video of a French brass band playing DP tunes in front of Emmanuel Macron and an oblivious Donald Trump (2017).

https://x.com/thesisterbliss/status/1822737077018021955



oh PS, as I've had to put up with non-stop Union Jack waving, Team-GB-cheering stuff for the past 3 weeks. Here's a little celebration I probably won't see on the BBC.

https://x.com/niallcarsonpa/status/1822994790142660886
https://x.com/janemoore__/status/1822969650574995517

[ThePumisher]

And Kavinsky?

CLICK

After being played at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony, Kavinsky's 'Nightcall' has broken the record to become the most Shazamed song ever in a single day.

[Bosco]

https://x.com/ChrisExpTheNews/status/1823047358248014173

reference, for those who didn't grow up with The Simpsons

@ 0:48

[Wolkenkrabber]

CLICK

Just proves that it wasn't live, as Shazam can't ID live music.

[Bosco]

Just proves that it wasn't live, as Shazam can't ID live music.

Which is fine. The "singer" probably the only one that should be embarrassed here, though, wouldn't be the first and wont be the last.

I'm not a Kavinsky fan, it will be interesting if he gets some kind of career boost after this.

[gfa2001]

That said, L.A. is prepared. There isn't a better place on earth to hold the Olympics than Los Angeles/ Southern California.

Somewhere with public transport would be nice!

[Bosco]

Somewhere with public transport would be nice!

that's the goal:

https://apnews.com/article/2028-los-angeles-olympics-nocar-traffic-homeless-3adafcada2c5964e5dc2da2077a2520d


forcing patrons to use buses for access to events, will create some interesting results...

[Joslyn]

I have seen very little of the Olympics but Kavinsky being part off the closing is fucking awesome!
https://youtu.be/asL4qxHVS-k?si=nwih_N_4ZiBU2hyK

[beauharlan]

I have seen very little of the Olympics but Kavinsky being part off the closing is fucking awesome!
https://youtu.be/asL4qxHVS-k?si=nwih_N_4ZiBU2hyK

Agreed. After the olympics drama I wasn't that interested. Kavinsky's participation made me look forward to her performance and I wasn't disappointed.