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Olympics games at Dezeen Now that Brexit has been and gone, the soon-to-be-upon-us Olympic Games are the new must-do design opportunity:
That’s going to get around. Although if you think it’s only Russians who are drug cheats I say you are being very naive. Nevertheless the above logo is all part of why I always enjoy all the they’re not ready stories which inevitably circulate around now in the Olympic cycle, before enough other people’s money is thrown at the various problems to make them go away, just in time.
This little flurry of bad Olympic news won’t last, alas. Drug doubts will get no mention from the television commentators. Bad Olympic news – i.e. proper Olympic news – will be submerged by a flood of good news, in the form of the various drugged-up competitors winning medals, and when it ends, it will all be declared a huge success. As of now, however, I can live in hope.
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People get a bit soft in the head when it comes to the Olympics. Couple of years back when I said I didn’t support the London Olympics I was told by somebody quite smart that “they really brought the country together”. I was too good a mate to point out that Scotland had a referendum to leave 2 years later…
And the value of unity is vastly overrated anyway, Tim.
As far as Rio goes the test-tubes should have had a few turds floating in them.
The main chemical experimentation in Brazil will be with desperate attempts to find an antibiotic cocktail that will save the sailing/rowing teams etc.
Have to say I actually enjoy watching them (I like sport, and I’m quite happy to get nationalistic enough to support British atheletes in order to gain a sense of involvement). I also find the drugs cheats really irritating (because I play sports, and prefer to play most of these on a level playing field (in one case rough terrain is preferable)).
But that is me – I will happily watch most sport and tend to get involved in this (my favourite recent experience was discovering that it is fun to support Croatia if surrounded by Croats in Spain – at least until the Czech’s stage a comeback…). I don’t see why anyone should be forced to enjoy it, and certainly why we should be taxed to support it (or the Brazilians should be in this case) – if the IOC wants to run the Olympics fine, but they should have to fund it themselves.
Gaming the competition against the rules and state-imposed hosting of competition seem similiar problems to me – an assumption that it is fine to do these things regardless of those it affects.
Mr Ecks – its the free water swimmers who are stuffed – especially the frankly gorgeous Kerri Anne Payne…
There seems to be less and less media coverage of each Olympics in the months leading up to it. Until a few weeks ago Rio was virtually invisible. Even now it all seems a bit of a yawn (and I’m a sports fan).
They ought to do away with the rules preventing drug use.
This is another Olympic logo that amuses
http://i.imgur.com/FApqk3D.jpg
Oooo…Francis, GOOD CATCH!
The comments are precious as well.
There are drugs and then there are the judges and officials at the Olympics. How much can your team pay other teams so the judges swing the results: Figure Skating, Equestrian (I know about this one as the mother of my children won Olympic Gold on the US Equestrian Team), Diving – basically any judged event. Scandals all the time. In addition, judges are people and people are biased, so when you watch judged events enjoy watching what the athletes are doing and pay less attention to the official results.
JG III,
I think you may have something there – generally judged events are those that are entertaining to watch as an act, rather than a competion, so you can watch for the content. But the subjective nature makes them prone to abuse. Interestingly there are accusations about amateur boxing (a bit of a misnomer…) today, and that is a sport where judging is definetly interesting.
By equestrian I take it you mean dressage and three-day eventing (dressage element)? Aren’t the other equestrian events against the clock with normally clear penalties?
staghounds,
I think there is a pretty good safety reason for not allowing drug use (see Florence Joyner-Griffiths for example a) – if it was allowed it would encourage people to take increasingly unsafe amounts of drugs. And whilst individual choice to do so is fine, what if you were in a country where individual choice was not allowed – and there are modern day equivalents to East Germany…
Also, allowing drug use in sports is entirely up to the governing bodies (it should not be a government thing – and actually generally is not – doping itself is not a crime in the UK or US as far as I know), which should be determined by their members. Speaking as a federation member of a sport which does listen to its membership at national and international level (interestingly it is not an olympic sport – wonder if that’s a coincidence…) I support banning taking drugs, if only because I want to lose to people who are better than me (most of my competitors…) not those who are using some sort of performance aid. It’s just the same as sports having regulations around allowable equipment if you think about it – the sport defines what is allowable or not in competition, and if you want to play outside of the federation’s competitions you can do what you like.
And as the olympics is effectively a federation of governing bodies, it is up to them whether they want to ban drugs.
So in short, free association means sports can determine whether drugs are allowed or not, just like equipment, and the members of sporting bodies tend to support banning them.
LoL, when I first saw the image at the top of the post I did not think of test tubes. I thought of the millions of condoms that get used at every Olympics.
I am in favour of the use of drugs in sport.
The only lasting visage of the London Olympics is BoJo stranded on a zip wire, frequently recast on every occasion he gets some air time.
Sorry to be a party pooper, but I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about the Olympics. F*-it.
The wise know that every competition is against yourself. Michael Phelps needed to beat Michael Phelps’ record…case in point.
To give a flying rat’s s* about the Olympics is to (a) care about the revenue, which is ligitimate, and (b) to care about tribal (national) prestige, which is assinine, since that collectivism is meaningless in and of itself. And (c) to care about diverting attention away from meaningful issues like what asshole will soon be in charge of the semi-free world soon and what will happen to the UK in the near future, and will the illiberal left ever bring itself to admitting that “radical” Islam even exists.
Watchman, yes I know. I suggested what they should do with their power,not that they do not have it.
Sorry to be a party pooper, but I couldn’t give a fuck what you’re interested in either 😉
Holy crap that’s funny.
I don’t know what I’d do without the snarky bastards of the internet. Get more done at work, probably.
If these ‘drugs’ are so good and useful for athletes
– why can’t us elderly have them to liven us up?
John, you could do exactly that, but the drawback is the same – your life will be shorter.
Indeed, as Denis Leary said, we might have to miss out on the drooling years 😉
It is very sad.