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How does Beijing rank?

_Ed_

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How would you rank Beijing in terms of the Olympic Games that you've watched?

For me: Sydney > Beijing > Athens > Atlanta.

The convenient viewing times are probably a factor, but the Sydney games were brilliant in general IMO.

Atlanta just seemed wrong to me, even though I was young at the time. I understood that the Olympics were usually held in the great cities of the world and Atlanta (with all due respect) probably isn't even in the top 5 cities in the US.
 

Precambrian

Banned
Beijing> Sydney> Atlanta> Athens

Though Sydney was a bencfhmark with it's superb anti-pollution conduct, Beijing was more wholesome, given there are hardly any controversies (doping etc) as compared to other games.
 

Burgey

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Beijing> Sydney> Atlanta> Athens

Though Sydney was a bencfhmark with it's superb anti-pollution conduct, Beijing was more wholesome, given there are hardly any controversies (doping etc) as compared to other games.
Tibet?
Internet censorship?
Replacing that little girl for a prettier one at the opening ceremony?
On second thoughts, would've been better had we never heard of Nikki Webster....
 
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pasag

RTDAS
Also the age of the gymnast controversy, dealings with the press, fake opening ceremony, player kicking a ref etc. That said it was pretty good controversy wise and in most places the actual sporting acts dominated the headlines.
 

ripper868

International Coach
Sydney>Athens>Atlanta>Beijing.

the beijing games just seemed to 'fake' for me.

e.g. watching the triathlon and there's a group of chinese people all waving the flag in perfect time with each other while competitors run/rid past (as well as the aerial chopper).

BMX - a big sign in the background telling the crowd to cheer...ffs if you dont know when to cheer then why are you there?

The struggle for people to get tickets, over half the crowd at opening ceremony being security/police.

Replacing the girl during the opening ceremony.

The staged games for mine.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Atlanta was my favourite. Beijing was a lot better then I thought it would be.
Yeah, I agree. As I've said before, Atlanta was awesome, staying up til 3/4am watching the Athletics, watching Roger Black win the silver in the 400 was awesome, even though we weren't much cop in those Olympics I watched pretty much the whole lot. Hardly watched any of Sydney because of the time zone and it being in september meaning I had just started Lower 6th, and Athens was okay but nothing special overall, Kelly Holmes & Matthew Pinsent aside :p

I also remember bits of Barcelona, that was decent

But yeah, Atlanta ftw. I remember thinking at the end of those Olympics that I would never enjoy another Olympics that much...it's true
 

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Its odd. I remember Atlanta being decidedly average. Maybe its the fact it was held in Atlanta. Its like when Salt Lake City won the Winter Olympics hosting rights - it smelt, nay stank of bribery and corruption.

My favourite of recent years was Seoul. Los Angeles was abysmal with the absence of so many important athletes, whilst Seoul had controversy (Ben Johnson and Flo-Jo) and as I recall there was a US swimmer attempting 'The Phelps' of defeating Mark Spitz's seven gold record, only to lose out in the Butterfly (distance???) to some African dude that no one had ever heard of. Brilliant. Of course, Mark Todd won a 2nd gold for NZ.

Some guy called Steve Redgrave won a couple of medals at Seoul too.
 

_Ed_

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Its odd. I remember Atlanta being decidedly average. Maybe its the fact it was held in Atlanta. Its like when Salt Lake City won the Winter Olympics hosting rights - it smelt, nay stank of bribery and corruption.
Yeah, exactly.

It was the 100th anniversary of the first Modern Olympics, and they had the choice between Atlanta and...Athens.
 

NZTailender

I can't believe I ate the whole thing
Yeah, exactly.

It was the 100th anniversary of the first Modern Olympics, and they had the choice between Atlanta and...Athens.
Yeah, always thought it odd that they had it in Atlanta and not Athens considering the anniversary.


For mine: Beijing>Atlanta>Sydney>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Athens.
 

Johnners

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Sydney
Beijing
Atlanta

Daylight

Moonlight

Starlight

you get the idea

Athens

Rate Sydney just ahead of Beijing purely and simply because it was the first Olympics I really got into, and the fact that they were in Australia and we did so well in them. Beijing a close 2nd though.

Atlanta was ok, it was what grabbed my interest in the first place. Can still recall perkins' win from lane 8 so well. Athens, on the other hand, was so **** imo. The timezone difference obviously didn't help, but for me, there was really nothing memorable about it.
 

Mister Wright

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Remember really enjoying the Barcelona Olympics. Since then the Sydney and Beijing Olympics have been the standouts for me. Remember skipping so much uni during the Sydney Olympics it wasn't funny.

I think the vastly different time zones have a lot to do with one's enjoyment of the games.
 

James90

Cricketer Of The Year
Have vague memories of Atlanta. Kawolski and Perkins the only ones I definitely remember. Did we even win any other medals?

Absolutely loved Sydney. Every second of it. Didn't move from the TV.

Watched a lot of Athens but I don't actually remember much of it at all. Remember a lot of footage of anchient Greek monuments and that was pretty cool.

Beijing seemed better than Athens but I didn't watch much this time around. Just the important swimming and running events with the odd game of basketball.
 

ohtani's jacket

State Vice-Captain
It was the best Olympics since Barcelona, IMO.

Mind you, this was the first time for me to watch the Olympics in a different country and that broadened the experience.
 

Adamc

Cricketer Of The Year
For me Beijing has been undoubtedly the most spectacular Games to date, but there has been a vaguely disturbing undercurrent to the whole event from the outset.

Just about every aspect of the Games has been manufactured to fit the image China wants to project to the world. Some of it has been fairly innocuous (locals being told how to behave; the girl in the opening ceremony being replaced by someone more photogenic) but much of it has been more distressing (mentally ill people and other 'vagrants' being removed from the city; septegenarians being forced into labour 're-education' for applying to protest against being evicted from their homes, etc). At the height of the torch relay controversies I remember joking to a (Chinese) friend that the Chinese government could easily assemble a rent-a-crowd to follow the torch around and drown out the pro-Tibet protests; it transpired that a few days later when the torch reached Canberra they had done exactly that.

Any Olympic Games is inevitably going to be to some extent a propaganda exercise for the host nation, but the extent to which this has been the case in Beijing has been unparalleled in my lifetime at least. Moscow, LA and Berlin all would have been highly politicised, but I doubt that any of them were as tightly controlled as these Games. That said, I did watch a fair bit of it and in terms of athletic performance it was certainly enjoyable, probably up there with any previous Olympics. The whole spectacle was undeniably compelling but at the same time a little perverse, and I found it difficult to reconcile these impressions.
 

Bobisback

International Regular
Enjoyed Beijing. Too bad Channel 7 ****ed it up for me. Was a joke. The bits and pieces we got to see were amazing though.
 

superkingdave

Hall of Fame Member
yeah this Olympics soured for me by dire tv coverage.

In other news Auckland Commonwealths 90 > Soeul 88 > Barcelona 92 > Sydney>Atlanta>Beijing>Athens
 

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