Poll: What Summer 2016 Olympic Sports Are You Watching?

The TV broadcast schedule this week has been dominated by coverage of the Olympics, Olympics and more Olympics. And yet, all anyone seems to care about is what a disaster Rio de Janeiro was for a choice of venue this year, what with the outdoor water events literally held in raw sewage and the omnipresent threat of the Zika virus. Are you watching any of the Olympic games this year?

I’m not typically much of an Olympics fan, but my wife is a bit obsessed with the swimming and gymnastics events. As a result, I’ve wound up getting sucked into watching those as well. The swimming doesn’t do much for me. From my perspective, that’s mostly a lot of watching people whose faces I can’t see splashing around in the water. The gymnastics events are a lot easier to appreciate, both in terms of artistry and raw physicality.

Vote for as many options in the poll below as you’d like.

Which Summer Olympics 2016 Sports Are You Watching?

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8 comments

  1. I’m interested in the boxing just because I had the family member of an athlete come to my place of work and had me do a caricature of him, so I’d like to see him in action.

  2. HuskerGuy

    Pretty much whatever happens to be on at the moment I’m watching TV. I haven’t gone out of my way to watch any particular event.

  3. Chris B

    Boxing and the 100 metre dash are the only two events that really interest me. I’ve always been a fan of the former and the 100m is the benchmark for determining who the fastest man on earth is. I still remember when Donovan Bailey beat Michael Johnson and every Canadian beamed with pride.

    I tend to be more intersted in the winter olympics as our country usually fairs a lot better and there’s usually a hockey game on…

  4. William Henley

    The is an interesting topic for me, partially because of how the question is worded. It is “which events are you watching” rather than “which events do you go out of your way to watch”. The DVR is setup to record the Opening and Closing Ceremonies (opening already watched and deleted), gymnastics, rythmic gymnastics, swimming and diving. However, if I am flipping through the channels, or if its a slow day at work and I got a data signal on my phone (unlimited 4G data!), I will watch pretty much anything. I don’t even care about the countries. So I have already watched gymnastics, swimming, table tennis, water polo, beach volleyball, shooting, Rugby, Handball, Golf, Tennis, cycling, rowing, and basketball. So I actually checked 24 events on the list, but I wouldn’t say I am obsessed – rather, its something going on, and so I will have it playing in the background while I am cooking or eating or cleaning or reading or working, and pay it mild attention. Probably going to burn out that projector bulb before too long if I am not careful, but that is part of the reason I picked the projector I did, because it has a bulb rated 3000 hours and replacement bulbs are only $200.

    What I am finding interesting is I am also watching the commercials.

    I am sure there is probably some international copyright law I may be violating, but I also ocassionally watch the feeds from other countries (especially European Countries). I did that a LOT in the past, but this year, NBC’s streaming coverage is so good, I don’t have to worry about missing stuff like the German gymnastics team qualifications.

    Also what is interesting is that, many of the events I am recording on my DVR, I will probably actually get around to watching those over the next few months, and am spending this time watching mostly the streams, as those are not archived (which STINKS. I am sure there is some kind of international copyright on that, but I would really like to see some portal that allows streams of old games. Right now, if you want to see something, you pretty much have to hit YouTube and hope someone recorded stuff on tape back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and deal with degraded tapes and contrast issues from people who did not know how to set settings on their analogue tape capture devices).

    Yeah, watching old games is fun. Go back and watch women’s gymnastics from the 1976 Olympics, then watch 1996, then watch 2008, 2012 or 2016 and watch how the sport has changed. Its really fascinating. Shoot, I took a couple of semesters of gymnastics in college, and I will look at the stuff from the 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s and thing “shoot, I can do that!”

  5. Thulsadoom

    ‘fraid to say, I’m one of those who doesn’t watch it. Only realised it was happening a few days ago, when the BBC news site started to get plastered with coverage! 😉

  6. EM

    The winner of one of the women’s swimming events is a student at the local university (my alma mater), and the local angle occasioned my taking the exceedingly rare step of deliberately looking in the paper’s sports section. I was less interested in the athletics aspect than the reports of dramatic controversy. But I am not interested in watching the games.

  7. Timcharger

    Where’s the poll option for blu-ray unboxing?
    Opening the plastic wrap. Goo-gone-ing away any labels.
    No loose discs rattling. Selecting pristine slipcovers. All
    in record time. These are Olympic-level skills. Maybe an
    event in Tokyo 2020?

  8. Gail smith

    I would like to watch note but can’t afford cable !!! I’m retired now and can finally each all of the OLYMPICS ALL I WANT !! BUT I CANT ,because a lot of the things I like are on cable and the finals for gymnastics on daytime and on cable ! I am a very proud American and have always while growing up and as an adult supported the Athletes ! They are amazing and they deserve the support of the world !!! And I am of course so very proud when the USA team wins anything ! I am in awe of them !! Thank you !

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