Forgive me fellow boarders but I am about to sin. Cynicism aside - avoiding all the build up hype in every form of the media - I am about to watch as much of the Games as possible.

Temp is going to see plays and ballet - for drama and witnessing people in dramatic mode and situation the games will be drama enough for me. For poise, balance and the sheer beauty of the human form in movement, I'll not go short witnessing the games, either. I know not who the competitors are, how they trained or what they have for breakfast - and I'm not too bothered about which emblem they sport, either - but I'll be watching... well maybe I'll give the syncronised swimming a miss. My daughter who has done it says it is difficult - whether she meant the smiling or getting the eyeliner just right I did not ask.

So what ever the lure -fame -wealth or personal pride the competitors are no different from anyone else in any other pursuit. Do I get absolution? Regards anyway, P.

We will be watching here too - I love watching the competitors come into the stadium, though I am not a great fan for the opening ceremonies. These big cultural things don't interest me much. But seeing single competitors representing their tiny nations is very heart-warming. And listening to the cheers as the host country come in is entertaining too. (And forcing me to sit in front of the TV might help me get my knitting done too!)

I prefer the individual athletes to the team sports (except that here we watch rowing avidly, since that is one of the sports NZers excel in. Is rowing a team sport, anyway?). I suppose that is because it is easier to identify and identify with one person.

After all the hype and moaning earlier, people will forget most of the problems and enjoy the sport once it gets going. (Though the British commentator on the radio did remind us that Britons like a good moan.) My kids are going to see some of the events, but here at least we will be spared the British media and their constant and almost entire focus on British athletes. My husband said he read a Guardian article about the first event, the women's soccer between England and NZ. He said in a longish article New Zealand was mentioned once.

Cheers, Caro.

You wouldn't be moaning too then Caro?

I doubt if the Greek media will be talking about NZ either, they'll be talking about the athletes their readers will be interested in, just the same as NZ media will only concentrate on NZ athletes probably.

But you must have been looking at the wrong media outlet yesterday, there was quite a longish interview on the Beeb about the upcoming women's football match, and NZ was mentioned quite a bit. But it mainly concentrated on previous games between the two and the British captain said that NZers were usually a bit dirty during game play.

NZ will concentrate on NZ athletes but not only so - they will be interested in most of the athletics and the swimming for some reason. We usually see a big variety. Lots of gymnastics and a bit of diving. I think my kids are going to see some diving.

I don't know much about women's soccer in NZ, though we did go to a couple of games a few years ago when there was an international competition on. I think we saw a NZ team then.

Apparently they were inept and dirty - that came from a Norwegian unbiased report. I know it was unbiased because it said the British team was also inept and dirty.

That's odd. Women's sport is usually quite ept, I find. Women's rugby was a revelation when I saw some one day. (Naturally, women's rugby tends to come a long, well not second, 1002nd perhaps, behind men's rugby.)

I'm surprised you'd think so Caro, I've always found that women's sport is dirtier (during play) than the mens. Women's water polo being one of the very worst, lord what goes on under the water doesn't bare (pun intended) thinking about. Although I'm sure the men would find it..er.... stimulating.........

I once had the dubious honour of refereeing a netball match. When I sin-binned one player for biting her opponent's ear so hard that it required stitches I was then assaulted by her teammate, a wing attack who took the definition of her position all too literally. Remarkably the only person surprised by all this feral stuff was myself - being ladies the others simply took it in their stride.

The fun and games has started already;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18993023

I find this quite amazing - wouldn't you think that the identity of flags would be checked a hundred times, especially for these sensitive countries? They could swap NZ's flag for Australia's and only about two people would notice, none if it was windy.

Netball is quite a strong game, at least in the international arena. When we played at school (I hated netball, along with most other sports, but especially netball because there were only about 5 girls in our school old enough to play and I didn't like them much) there was a rule that you didn't throw the ball so hard others couldn't be expected to catch it. This is not the case in top-level netball now. Mind you, hitting a tennis ball where it was out of reach of the opposition was also considered unsporting.

Water polo seems to me an abortion of a sport, really. Why would you want to get under the water and bang a ball around?

What is an abortion of a sport? But water polo is played above water, not under. All that happens under water is all the dirty stuff like pinching, scratching, gouging, pulling bathing suits up or down and anything else they can think of.

Although, whether you or I approve or disapprove is irrelevant I suppose. Water polo came about as a demonstration of strength and swimming skill at festivals and country fairs in 19C England and Scotland and was one of the first team sports to be introduced into the Olympics in 1900. It is still an extremely popular sport played by both men and women from one end of the gobe to the other.

I'm not a huge fan of football, but I just love the Olympics!

I've got tickets to watch the relay finals on athletics night on saturday August 11, so hopefully I will see Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell anchoring Jamaica to victory in the sprint relay in a new world record....

That's the kind of sporting event that even I can understand being of interest, shiv, there's something fundamental about wanting to know who can run fastest, jump highest or or lift the heaviest weight. It's when activities become specialised, elaborated and subdivided to the nth degree that it gets, to my mind anyway, a bit silly. Hop, Skip and Jump for heaven's sake and the numerous ways of getting a round thing past the opposite side: much though I dislike boxing, finding out who's best at knocking lumps out of someone else makes some kind of sense.

Yes, ferv the survival/combat sports are the real nub of the Games. And I agree about the subdivisions - especially in swimming. And while I am in gripe mode, I am angry about 'celebrities' and 'stars' having a go in the torch carrying show. To my mind all the bearers of the torch should have been young athletes in hopeful training for the next games. The fame hogging stars have their own moments of glory in the many award ceremonies that fill too much TV time later in the year. It can't be too early for a large port. I need one.

The original ancient games - and there were several, each had their own centres of interest. The Pythian Games were for poetry and music; the sporty parts were a side show. The Isthmus Games were mainly equestrian. And there were others. God forbid that others are reintroduced but I imagine that the Ed Festival is sort of one. Are prizes on offer at any part of it? To win a laurel at the Pythian games was immense; Pinder lost out one year and wept bitter tears,.... and men and women competed on equal terms.

I've just heard on the news that some South Korean has broken the world record for archery, how on earth do they set records in that sport? It can't be by score surely, that would mean that there is a maximum possible score that could never be surpassed, so how is it done? Does the archer keep stepping back with each shot, or jump up and down while firing? Wear increasingly opaque blindfolds? I'm sure one of you lot will know and I can't be bothered looking it up.

There are some awards at the Ed Fest. but for the Fringe, I can't think of any for the 'official' bit. http://www.edfringe.com/participants/awards

It's to do with screwing up the eyes as they shoot. Koreans have an advantage there.

Edit: Just read the news story about the lad. Apparently he's also visually impaired, which must improve his archery prowess no end (the judges are so busy diving for cover that his claimed scores go undisputed)

So far so good. By breakfast I had managed to see bits of 4 sports. Not too struck on archery - the bows all look like nightmare tooth braces. I reckon there ought be a long bow competition with no added stuff. Perhaps there is. Bring on the true butts stuff. And why not use the rowing place for true swim lengths instead of up and down in a standard bath...... anyone recall Hancock suggesting that Neasdon host the Olympics? When Bill Kerr thought the public baths not long enough, he suggested chipping out dents until they were?

That's actually not a bad idea for the rowing venue P, the one built for the Greek Olympics is in the process of closing down. The upkeep costs too much, so it will probably be locked, left to moulder and breed mosquitoes now. I don't understand why it can't be put to some other use that will bring in enough to cover it's upkeep. Seems such a waste.

mm, Id. Perhaps not as it could be expensive to run. Our local seawater lake which had been a swimming pool for yonks - dug out when the sea wall and park were founded on salt marsh - it was eventually converted to a decorative feature because of insurance probs. A drunk bloke had dived into shallow water and hit his head on the stub of an old notice board. A huge claim was paid out to his widow and after that the town lost a popular facility. Not that I had been allowed to use it as a child. Local fisher men claimed that at refill time local sewage was included with the infill. No one knows where the old pipes at that end of town flow to.

I watched many more sports later in the day and was as ever befuddled by the foils. I knew the 1936 UK woman champ - the rules were changed because of her. She was ambidextrous and difficult to counter so no changing hands was allowed thereafter. So far the commentaries have been excellent with experts explaining things - mostly detailed stuff that I hadn't noticed. Food was basic in our place today. Two weeks on and we should have lost weight.

Not necessarily, P. Basic food often tends to be hunks of bread and cheese, a quick sausage and eggs meal, boosted with the odd fried chicken. And then some chokkies for afters. We had to watch rugby today, so no Olympics yet.

Sausage and eggs must be cooked - surely. I shall not labour whilst I watch sports I do not understand and competitors who can't get their pike right. What have they been doing for four years since the time when they could? Chines children pike all day and get it right on the day. Then there are naughty horse that knock down the first bar just to show their mood and independence - they used to shoot horse didn't they - or was that if they couldn't dance for long enough.

Oh dear I'm so conflicted. I still haven't watched any of the events but it's inescapable on the news and there the parade of tearful youngsters who have not just been beaten but have royally cocked up their performance is quite affecting. I find myself feeling so sorry for them but also pondering on why anyone would devote their life to doing something that is neither use nor ornament, as my granny would have said.

Professional sport is such an odd thing: earning a living from something that is meant to be a pastime and so it becoming a job. To spend years training for an event that may last minutes or seconds; even odder if you know that you will never be more than adequate. There's so much in this world that I just don't get and a lot of it has to do with sport.

Last night we watched a documentary presented by Andrew Flintoff about depression in sport, and one point made was that at that high level people forgot why they were doing it in the first place, which is for fun. Fun, exercise and meeting people is the interest at that level. None of those totally when it is played at international level. Not always enjoyable at all, broken bones, and a cocooned life.

But I would say it was ornament, in that people watch as spectators. Ornaments are for looking at and seeing beauty in, and there's plenty of that in top-level sport. For the athletes, I suppose it is similar to the feelings that actors and entertainers have - the world is their stage and everybody is admiring them, or at least watching them.

And while any one event might only last minutes or seconds, there is always another one soon after.

I'm listening at the moment to Newsnight and they're discussing genetic manipulation and epigenetics in general with reference to improving sporting performance. Gene doping it seems has been added to the banned list of substances/procedures.
Now the topic is elective laser eye surgery for improving the vision of archers.

"The most important thing is not to win but to take part!" Aye right!

Eye right?

Eye ready!

In hindsight Harold must have regretted not getting it done.

Hind sight as in 'Oh dear.'

Doh!

ferval wrote:

I'm listening at the moment to Newsnight and they're discussing genetic manipulation and epigenetics in general with reference to improving sporting performance. Gene doping it seems has been added to the banned list of substances/procedures.
Now the topic is elective laser eye surgery for improving the vision of archers.

.... and also there are disabled athletes whose prostheses give them better performance than non-disabled athletes. The whole thing is now a complete farce!

So instead why not allow doping and let the athletes be sponsored by the drug companies?

Manolis Andronikos, in his book about Alexander, cites the author Filostratos - to whose writings we owe nearly everything that we know about the Olympics as originally conducted in Greece. According to Filostratos native Greek athletes competing in the games were placed on special "diets" supervised by the Hellanodikai (the official judges of the games) in which they were fed breads and other dishes infused with extract of opium and refined honey, amongst other drugs which were jealously guarded secrets of the judging body. These increased oxygen transfer to muscle tissue and gave the Greeks, according to Filostratos, a distinct advantage over Macedonian, Thracian and other "non-Greek" competitors at the time. Two hundred years later in the first century BCE Plinios the Younger describes a drug called "hippouris" (horse strength) which was taken by the athletes to pump up muscle mass in training immediately prior to competing and which was the subject of a major row when Romans competed for the first time since they didn't know the recipe. The Hellanodikai actually executed a Spartan trainer for allegedly selling the drug's recipe (a steroid distilled from sesame) to the Roman "team" which entered the games during Sulla's reign.

The games fell out of favour with the Greeks more or less around the same time as when all their secret performance-enhancing drugs became generally available. It took all the fun out of having Olympics apparently when everyone could avail of doping. The whole Olympic ideal rests on selective cheating. When everyone cheats it's just not cricket, Greek style.

Interesting - and sad, nordmann - so much of what we try and want to value is a delusion. Do you think there are any sports for which drug enhancement of any kind would be of little use? Team events, perhaps?

Even omitting out and out doping, sport at this level is about more than raw talent: the financial clout to be able to provide the backroom support and remove the need for the athlete to do anything other than prepare is obviously critical. Here's Bradley Wiggin's support staff - as well as the other cyclist's in the team who made his win possible by their willingness to sacrifice personal glory.

STAFF
Shane Sutton – Head coach
Sean Yates – Sports director
Nicolas Portal – Sports director
Tim Kerrison – Head of performance science
Richard Freeman – Doctor
Bob Grainger – Physio
Sebastian Paepcke – Therapist
Chris Slark – Bus driver
Rajen Murugayen – Mechanic
Igor Turk – Mechanic
Alan Williams – Mechanic
Mario Pafundi – Carer
Maarten Mimpen – Carer
Klaus Liepold – Carer
Soren Kristiansen – Chef
Oli Cookson – Assistant

Then you need someone to do the maths to tell the person or team when it's in their interest to lose!

And it is all the other cyclists in his team who do all the hard slog, Wiggins just sits behind until the last bit when he dashes to the front and takes all the glory. Oh and not forgetting BSkyB who pay the millions to make it all possible.

The support riders are the reason he didn't win the Olympic gold, simply wasn't possible with only 4 instead of 8 riders doing all the work. Something he conveniently forgot to mention during his hissy fit after the event.

Priscilla wrote:

Interesting - and sad, nordmann - so much of what we try and want to value is a delusion. Do you think there are any sports for which drug enhancement of any kind would be of little use? Team events, perhaps?

Sports that don't require strength or speed, diving perhaps?

Not sure why there is a need to fantasise the past, imo man has changed little over the millenia. Or is it just arrogance to think that we thought of it first?

I have reservations about diving, like gymnastics and ice dance, being truly a sport since it is marked with a subjective element, style or artistic impression. Surely the winner/s of any proper sport should be identifiable without consideration of technique? Once the 'how' becomes a component, isn't it then an art?

How about Lawn Bowls for a sport where drugs wouldn't be an advantage then?

Not sure if team racing is in the sailing events. For those involved it is 'chess on water' nail biting and with great skill applied with viscious intent; the opposition is picked out and 'pushed away' to allow your chosen one to get a clearer route. Timing for re-entry into the fleet to get positional points is acute. I can't see that any drug would help - flasks of gin and tonic might though. But, of course as in cycling there is a huge back up support group to serve the team.

Gamesmanship is always rife in any sport, I suppose. For one South east Asia sailing competition, the favoured sailor was billeted with us because we lived further away than anyone else from the sea. He also succombed somewhat to the charms of a german lady who partied late - while her husband who was competing, did not. At that time there was also a round-robin series when helms had to use others' boats after draws. Mine being the fastest in its class was cleverly sabotaged - and that was not unusual in competitive sailing for boats not under 24hr watch.

NZ takes part in sailing, but I don't know if team sailing is an Olympic sport or not. Perhaps not.

Ferval, I think sport is defined by its bodily movement - which differentiates it from indoor games like Monopoly and chess. So I don't think it has to be measureable or competitive. I think it is sport if you run by yourself just for fun, or for health purposes. Or does sport have to be at least able to watched by others? (We have watched our son play soccer at times in the last few years, and sometimes we and his wife have been the only spectators. But even without any, sport would still be being played, surely?)

And if teachers don't bother to keep the score of little kids playing team games, they are still taking part in sport. So I don't think artistic subjective endeavours with the body exclude them from being sport. They are just harder to measure and definitely harder to measure fairly and totally objectively. I read some ex-judge saying that equestrians Zara Phillips and Mark Todd would both be judged a little more highly that they deserved (in the dressage - the jumping bits have specific measurements).

And there used to be all sort of controversy over the judging in gymnastics and those sort of sports where each country had a score to give. We haven't heard of that so much recently; have there been changes in how this is done. I did read today something about the Cold War effects of the past affecting the Olympics, and maybe this judging was one way that was manifested. The writer said, "When the Berlin Wall came down, [the games] were shorn of their geopolitical dimension. For four decades the Games were a front in the Cold War: Team Democratic Capitalism versus Team Totalitarian Scoialism, and may the superior system prevail...It seems a long time ago. Who still remembers that in 1980 the US led a 60-nation boycott of the Moscow Olympics to punish the Societ Union for its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan?"

This is beginning to resemble the 'What is Art' thread in the complexity of tying down definitions of a word that is used in so many senses. Surely sport in the terms we're talking about must be competitive, if it's not then it's a game or just a form of exercise? You might possibly argue that training is an element of sport but no more its essence than drill is the essence of war.

The more I see and hear of the Olympics, the more I feel that it hasn't moved on at all from the days of the cold war and is still largely an inherently nasty way of international point scoring: war by other means.

Well, damn sight better than war that kills people.

I can't argue with that!
I still think it would be much better though if the girls all had to wear navy blue knickers with a pocket for their hankies and the boys black sandshoes with proper laces, not elastic inserts.

You're just getting nostalgic for your school days, ferval. It sounds like urban myth but I am sure that when I was at school, we still had the occasional check up our legs to ensure we were wearing the regulation bloomer-type navy pants and not nice neat little white ones. I wonder why it was important (to keep the boys unattracted, perhaps? but we didn't see boys at school.).

In our school girls had to kneel before the headmistress to prove that hems just touched the ground........ longer skirts were forbidden..... but it was coed and the head master was the bigger boss so make what you will of that. I was grounded for passing strong opinion to the HM on this ludicrous matter - and thus open war was declared between me and authority for two years..... and why I was made deputy head girl and not the big one, so I was told. I never understood why they gave me anything at all for reasons I care not to reveal here.

Re artistic points. That ski jumpers get points for style as well as distance jumped seems odd to me... at least I think they do. Their style of flight is always remarked.

And another thing; I shall watch out for it next week - sandd pit mark measuring is never shown on TV for long jump and that silly one. I can't imagine how that evolved as a sport.... apart from crossing hotcoals barefoot as best possible if pushed to it.

Oh P, my daughter had the opposite skirt issue: in 5th year she wore a long black skirt and the deputy rector commented that she looked like the madam in a bordello. She, of course, replied that in that case, he looked like one of the customers. Much trouble ensued.

I'm sure you're right about ski jumping but I don't know the details. Could lack of style mean someone might lose out to a shorter but more stylish competitor? Surely not. I was going to say 'shorter and more stylish jumper' but that's a rather different matter.

Just got back on the bus from Edinburgh, I chose not to take the car since the entire city, thronged as it is with festival visitors, is a labyrinth of blocked, dug up streets and diversions with this interminable tram farce. It's an awfully hilly town to run through when you're late for the last bus so a night cap would go down well.

We had to kneel for a uniform check too, they had to be 5ins above the knee when kneeling and they were measured with the ruler. I had a measurement of 5 1/2 ins once and had to sit in at lunch and unpick the hem. It was a whopping big hem, in those days things were bought extra big for "growing into", so spent the rest of the day with the uniform flopping around the calves. Thought it was totally stupid being punished with a length also not regulation, but the nuns were never big on thinking.

I think lack of style in the ski jumping means you can't jump as far, it seems to be all in the technique how long they stay air-borne before landing.

The long jump was in the ancient games, originally the olympics were supposed to be for disiplines practiced for warfare or as part of warfare training, and it is thought that the ability to jump over ravines and gullies was a useful skill to have. They would carry weights when jumping also, possibly to immitate the weight of armour, weapons etc ?

Edit. Wiki gives the triple jump, or a variant of, as being in the ancient games as well, and as an event included in the ancient Irish Tailteann games. It was included in the 1896 games where it was contested with two hops on the same foot and then a jump!

I think it was 3 inches above the knee when I went to school and it was to ensure we didn't get carried away in the days of the mini skirt. The school wanted their girls to show them off, not up. When my classmate and later flatmate went to university she unpicked her kilt and made a little skirt (and it was little) and vest. It looked lovely (but she was very beautiful) but perhaps not totally suitable for school.

My objections are now with the very long length girls at some schools in NZ wear their kilts. Right down to their heels in some cases. I don't think kilts are meant to be worn like that, but presumably the schools don't mind. I would mind having to pay out the extra money for the material.

Ancient long jump was a standing jump with weights swung to give lift. The weights had to be standard - as was the discus and these were checked.

The rules about what is worn by athletes for their events is fascinating. Hockey - women's - skirts, for instance. These now look like long tee shirts with shorts beneath. men's basket ball shorts are long and baggy ( an aside - talented Pete Sampras was dismayed by his lack of popular appeal. I suggest it was because of his baggy cargo shorts - aside over).

Swimmers now all wear those granny knicker things in the water and for mucking about on the beach with a ball and net the less the better apparently. Though men need more cover up for some reason.

Kilts were said to be worn at 'wet heather height.' Ferv will correct me on this if I've got it wrong. Mine was a friend's brother's length, anyway - for when I had to take over his double sword dance part at demonstrations. Sometimes I can't believe the daft things I've done in the name of friendship.

I'm happy, because my favourite Jamaican retained her title in the women's 100m....

We're happy because NZ is topping those alternative medal tables. We're not quite so happy because two soldiers were killed in Afghanistan today.

I am a little disappointed that the girl from San Marino didn't get a medal in the claybird shooting. I like to see little countries getting medals. She was in a shootout for second or third.