Paris 2024

[Stavros]

There was a moment when one wondered if this boat show would ever end. Where is the stadium? Why was the Olympic Flag hung upside down? Why was Céline Dion halfway up the Eiffel Tower?
How many athletes- known and unknown, dodgy drug tests or clean- does it take to carry a torch in the rain?

Thomas Jolly summed up the art director’s vision

“”It is in this unifying, eclectic, poetic and political spirit, as heir to Jean Vilar and André Malraux, great figures of decentralisation and exceptional French culture, that I have thrown my soul into this river of creation.”””
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/26/celine-dion-salvages-parade-held-thrillingly-hostage-to-its-own-hubris

[Stavros]

Helps explain why there is no Olympic stadium- they never built one, the Stade de France being used instead while venues are all over the place. Have not been following it owing to my travels.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/27/roadtesting-the-olympics-barriers-and-bag-checks-but-no-white-elephants

[Stavros]

Here is the title of an article in the Telegraph by Suzanne Moore:
A woman has been punched by a biological male – is this what we now call sport? (telegraph.co.uk) (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/08/01/angela-carini-imane-khelif-italian-boxer-punched/) (full article behind a paywall).

Trump also has his 1 cent offering:

Donald Trump wades into Olympic boxing gender row as he promises to 'keep men out of women's sports' amid growing fury over 'biological male' Algerian fighter Imane Khelif's brutal defeat of Italy's Angela Carini | Daily Mail Online (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13701391/trump-olympic-boxing-row-khelif-carini.html)

Here is the problem: the boxer in question is not transgendered, but female since birth. Never mind, the 'anti-Woke' hysteria machine is well under way. No clarity on why the boxer has on a previous occasion failed a gender eligibility tests, but perhaps some basic facts might help reduce the tension, if not the controversy.

Try this

Olympics 2024 boxing controversy: What we know and what we don't know - BBC Sport (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cye0ex43k63o)

[Stavros]

First Algeria, then Taiwan, the megaphones of hate and lies at full blast, facts be damnned

"At 3.30pm Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-ting stepped between the ropes to fight Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in the opening round of the women’s featherweight competition. In the process, and in an extraordinary development in her own previously regulation existence, Lin did so under the gaze of Donald Trump, JK Rowling and the entire massed global commentariat of a complex and acrimonious war of ideas and identity in which she is essentially non-combatant.Can we just be really clear on this? Lin is not, as far as anyone knows, a transgender woman. Lin is also not male, as far as anyone knows, and has never changed her gender identity.

Lin was born a girl 28 years ago. She is an athlete competing under her birth passport as a woman, backed also, as has been reported in her home country, by a Taiwanese identity number assigned at birth that begins with a 2, meaning this person was born a baby girl. Lin is a career fighter, much respected in her home country. She had until a year ago, as we must assume in the absence of any other evidence, no idea that this issue was going to subsume her life.
This is what has happened since. At last year’s world championships Lin took a swab test which, according to the International Boxing (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/boxing) Association (IBA), indicated the presence of sufficient male chromosomes to disqualify her from the women’s event. This is something that has begun to happen more regularly in elite sport."
In the Olympics boxing arena, facts and fairness are taking a battering | Boxing | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/02/boxing-imane-khelif-lin-yu-ting-facts-fairness-battering)

[Stavros]

"“Let’s talk about some things that are weird,” Vance continued. “We think it’s weird that Democrats wanna put sexually explicit books in toddlers’ libraries. We think it’s weird that the far left wants to allow biological males to beat the livin’ crap outta women in boxing.”"
Vance continues attack on Harris’s background in Atlanta: ‘Pretty weird’ (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/vance-continues-attack-harris-background-012054155.html)

What is not weird these days: when facts don't matter. Does he even know, or care what the truth is?

[Stavros]

From the murky world of Boxing, where confidence is low, but money is there to be made, for someone.
International Boxing Association - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Boxing_Association)

[Stavros]

About the Bell Gold Medal winners ring in the Stade de France.

I Just Realised Why 2024 Olympians Ring A Bell, And It's Actually Really Touching (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/just-realised-why-2024-olympians-100128703.html)

[Stavros]

After Paris, Los Angeles, after Los Angeles Brisbane, after Brisbane...India? First off, if it has to be a City, Ahmedabad is the most likely. If successful this would be another example of a world body choosing to ignore India's now permanent war against non-Hindu minorities, notably Muslims and Christians, rather in the way that the weekly head-chopping monstrosities of Saudi Arabia are not apparently important enough to merit a demerit of that Kingdom's invasion of global sports.

As for their record, 30 medallists since 1900, the link below suggests that for a country with over a Billion people, India is not that good at sport, while an advocate for India as a Summer Olympics destination said-

""We researched in detail and identified six sports in which are strong. We are masters in yoga, chess, cricket, and kho kho is our traditional sport. So these sports will enhance our medal chances. We have already submitted our report to the ministry which will take it up with the PMO in due course of time."".
India to promote 2036 Olympic bid in Paris, push for Indic sports inclusion (insidethegames.biz) (https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1146175/india-2036-olympics-advocate-paris-2024)

Olympic Chess? Olympic Yoga? (I didn't know it was a sport) -Cricket, ok that might work. As for Kho Kho...where's Boris Johnson when we need him?

How many medals has India won in Olympics? (https://olympics.com/en/news/india-olympics-medals)

[Stavros]

Who thought it would be a good idea to give women who win gold medals a tiara or a crown to wear? In a Republic that abolished the monarchy too?! It looks stupid, and it is not something that adds to the achievement of the athlete concerned, but it does make them look stupid.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has turned ‘debilitating fear’ into six world records - Yahoo Sport (https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/sydney-mclaughlin-levrone-turned-debilitating-071200251.html)

[Stavros]

I thought the closing show in Paris 'borrowed' quite a lot from London 2012, whatever. As for Tom Cruise being 'the face of Hollywood' -doesn't he make most of his films here in the UK?

[rodinuk]

I don’t think it looks stupid, it’s their choice if they want to wear it in what is their moment of glory and many women do rather like them - I cite Amy Farrah-Fowler in the Big Bang Theory for example and thousands of brides every year get married wearing a tiara.

https://the-big-bang-theory.com/amys-tiara



Who thought it would be a good idea to give women who win gold medals a tiara or a crown to wear? In a Republic that abolished the monarchy too?! It looks stupid, and it is not something that adds to the achievement of the athlete concerned, but it does make them look stupid.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has turned ‘debilitating fear’ into six world records - Yahoo Sport (https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/sydney-mclaughlin-levrone-turned-debilitating-071200251.html)

[Stavros]

I don’t think it looks stupid, it’s their choice if they want to wear it in what is their moment of glory and many women do rather like them - I cite Amy Farrah-Fowler in the Big Bang Theory for example and thousands of brides every year get married wearing a tiara.

https://the-big-bang-theory.com/amys-tiara

Ok if you like it. Why were the men who won their races denied crowns? And I must admit, I never thought I would encounter anyone citing Amy Farrah Fowler as a source of wisdom...

[rodinuk]

Ok if you like it. Why were the men who won their races denied crowns? And I must admit, I never thought I would encounter anyone citing Amy Farrah Fowler as a source of wisdom...

Her credentials are sound - after all she’s a Nobel Prize winner :pumped:

[Stavros]

Meanwhile the Gold Medal winning Boxer Imane Khelif has filed a suit in France using a French law on online bullying, one of the people accused being the writer JK Rowling. This is how Suzanne Moore reacted-

"But if Khelif does deliver a swift right hook in court by winning her French case, will that convince her most vocal critics to back down? Definitely not in Rowling’s case, believes feminist campaigner and Telegraph columnist Suzanne Moore.“All I can say is, ‘Bring it on’, as Khelif will have to show some proof of sex. If Rowling was ever going to ‘back down’, she would have done so years ago. She stepped forward during the Hate Crime legislation [in Scotland] and dared them to arrest her. They blinked first.
“Everything I know of this woman is that ‘backing down’ is not genetically possible for her. Anyone who takes her on needs to realise this. She knows what this fight for women’s rights is and what it means and how long it will take, and she is prepared to go the distance.”".
Why Imane Khelif’s biggest fight yet could be against JK Rowling (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/why-imane-khelif-biggest-fight-193000152.html)

So if Ms Khelif does indeed "show some proof of sex", will Moore and Rowling claim it is now possible to be a man without having a penis? And since when is anyone in Ms Khelif's position obliged to obey people like Suzanne Moore or JK Rowling by undressing and showing them their genitals? Are either Moore or Rowling also going to 'show proof of sex' to anyone who disputes their gender status?

If Boxing was a properly managed sport we might not be in this position. It has been mired in corruption and doubt for more than a century, but it seems difficult if not impossible for a single body to emerge that can control what is needed in the sport and have the respect of the people involved in it. Or maybe the Olympic Committee that decides these things could return to the days when there was no category for women in Boxing. Some might want Dressage dropped as an Olympic Sport, much as 'Breaking' that was in Paris will not be taking place in Los Angeles. Etc.