Megan, sorry, not Meghan.

Alright then, who's Megan Rapinoe? 

Still in  the dark about Megan, I just thought I'd show people who didn't see it or weren't interested, what the drone thing at the opening ceremony looked like. Mrs B took these couple of pics of BealTV on Friday night.

I don't know how many were drones were involved (although they did say), but it's a lot. Certainly impressed me!



After it moved into a globe - there's Australia!



I thought it was an amazing display.

Equally amazing, watching coverage this afternoon, now that surfing is included as an Olympic sport, I discovered Japan actually has surfable waves!

Quote from: Bealman on July 25, 2021, 09:40:50 AM
I don't know how many were drones were involved (although they did say), but it's a lot. Certainly impressed me!

I think I saw a figure around 1400.  Actually missed that, was dealing with recalcitrant bedtime Squidlet.

Quote from: Bealman on July 25, 2021, 09:40:50 AM
Equally amazing, watching coverage this afternoon, now that surfing is included as an Olympic sport, I discovered Japan actually has surfable waves!

Yup, the Pacific coast seems very surfable, even if the waves get a little high sometimes (thinks back 10 years or so).

Quote from: Newportnobby on July 24, 2021, 05:35:42 PM

Quote from: njee20 on July 24, 2021, 02:04:59 PM
Very cool. Here you'd have to hope your bike didn't get nicked while you dashed into a petrol station 

Probably unheard of in Japan as they have respect for each other.

Relatively speaking, yeah, though bicycle theft is enough of a risk I lock mine up when popping inside a shop etc. just in case. We actually had one stolen from our drive, best guess is probably someone stumbling home drunk from the station who thought it would be a wheeze to borrow a bicycle. (Happily it was a decrepit bicycle we were on the verge of disposing of, saved us a bit of money ).  Statistically I suspect one is more likely to have a bicycle impounded by the roving bicycle parking enforcement teams - believe it or not, bicycle parking is a perennial social and political issue here...

I woke early this morning to watch the womens cycle road race and sat through nearly an hour of some  called skateboarding before the Beeb informed me the race was on the Red Button rather than BBC1
That race was the most bizarre I have ever watched. A breakaway went right from km1 but none of the 'super' racers seemed to be bothered. It then got to the stage where I think the peloton had forgotten the breakaway existed. Then it dawned on them, but by then the Austrian lass had a 5 minute lead with just 20km to go. The gold medal was hers. 'Chapeau' to her as she is not contracted to a team and is the first Austrian to win a cycling medal since 1896! And that one was a bloke in a 12hr race which doesn't exist any more.

Quote from: railsquid on July 25, 2021, 10:33:16 AM
believe it or not, bicycle parking is a perennial social and political issue here...

Not entirely unreasonable - we had similar issues when London introduced bike-hire schemes with bikes you could leave anywhere.

I confess I never carry a lock with me, but I try and avoid having to go into shops etc, having a short attention span I rarely ride for more than about 3 hours!

Quote from: Bealman on July 25, 2021, 09:40:50 AM
Still in  the dark about Megan,

Megan Rapinoe is the former captain of the US football (soccer) team IIRC, including taking them to victory in Rio(?), sounds like she's a pundit in the US.

The amount of cringeworthy moments in Olympic commentary is always epic, with commentators or pundits taking on sports they know nothing about. On the road race our pundit was talking about the bronze medal going to Poj-a-car, rather than Pog-archer, admittedly a phonetic pronunciation of Pogačar.

That Austrian lass is Anna Kiesenhofer

Woohoo, thankfully her bike wasn't nicked or impounded.
Gold medals for Austria are a rare thing in the summer games, so this was a huge surprise for everyone here.

And, it were 1,824 drones. I imagine 1,824 guys with their remote controls with one colliding with his neighbour's drone, and the whole Australia tumbling and falling.

 

Wouldn't that be a mess!

However I tend to think that there would be software running in some computer somewhere controlling that lot. 

Quote from: railsquid on July 25, 2021, 10:28:47 AM

Yup, the Pacific coast seems very surfable, even if the waves get a little high sometimes (thinks back 10 years or so).

Eeek yeah.... the tsunami 

Bizarre about the road race; do they have team radio in the Olympics? It's possible they genuinely had forgotten/didn't know someone was up the road, or at least assumed she'd fade and come back to the bunch.

Shame for Van Vleuten, having lost out on Gold in Rio in horrendous circumstances, but amazing for Austria and Keisenhoffer.

Quote from: njee20 on July 25, 2021, 11:32:01 AM
Bizarre about the road race; do they have team radio in the Olympics?

That would be a 'No'
All those pesky motorbikes and yet not one giving out any info to competitors

Pretty interesting. I'll confess to having had to ask other riders in road races whether there's a break on many occasions - particularly when one goes early you don't necessarily count/see/know who's in it. Another peculiarity of the Olympic event versus the world tour I guess!

On the road race our pundit was talking about the bronze medal going to Poj-a-car, rather than Pog-archer, admittedly a phonetic pronunciation of Pogačar.
[/quote]

To be pedantic, the č diacritic is a "ch" sound (e.g Slobadan Milosovič )

Phil Liggett is not much better, always pronouncing Jens Voigt as "Voyt" rather than "Folkt"

That's what I'm saying. She was calling him poj-a-car, it should be a "ch" sound.