Supposedly the Opening Ceremonies went wonderfully and were very impressive (from the pictures I've seen it looks that way).

I always enjoy seeing what the countries wear...


Roger Federer and the Swiss in man-pris!

The Japanese go colorful...

The British in their summer sport coats...

The Spanish decked out with heels and purses...

The French in suits...

And then WTF are the Americans wearing?

I have to admit I am a sucker for, well, several things that we won't discuss in this thread, but definitely for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. A gay man's dream, pomp and ritual and an over-the-top show and athletic bodies in fashionable (and sometimes not so fashionable, according to the pic of the US team) clothing. I really enjoy hearing the stories of the people picked to carry the flag for each nation, the final carriers of the torch, etc. I can't wait until tonight.

The US team is outfitted by Roots, a Canadian company whose hats and stuff were all the rage in Salt Lake in '02. The stuff Roots did in '02 was cool but these outfits are embarrassingly ugly. I mean, couldn't the USOC get Banana Republic or Gap to donate some khakis and polo shirts?

Wonder who was in charge of these outfits!?

It also seems like the American outfits come of course with advertising of Roots on them. Of course I haven't seen every country's outfits, but they seem to be the only ones doing advertising as well.

Our outfits kind of look like blue striped pajamas. frown

All I can say is Stacy and Clinton from TLC's WHAT NOT TO WEAR would have a field day with these outfits!

There is no place in sport for pastels.

Looks like throwback uniforms from McDonalds to me. eek!

Spain sent a delegation of flight attendants??

~Adam

Bballrob, I agree with you! I love the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics(Winter Olympics as well!) I especially love the parade of nations. I like the pastels the Japanese wore, it was cute. I thought the American outfits were kind of boring but that's just my opinion. I think my favorite moment of any Olympic Ceremony is the lighting of the torch. I think my favorite method was back in 1992 Barcelona with the archer. That was spectacular! The 1996 Atlanta Games with Ali lighting the torch was cool too.

Quit a runway of pagent... But I alway wonder how many of these young gods enjoy their first "experience" with their athletic roommates during the games.. I know, I'm such a perv..

The beginning was quite impressive, that simple ancient statue of the face turning into one of the most famous of the classical statues, the Kirous Boy, was incredible. And the lights turning into the strand of dna. Just wish Bob Costas would SHUT UP! And I know we are now prudish, but the greek statues with shorts on just looked stupid. The parade of athletes has started, it was cool that Greece cheered Albania, an historic enemy, but we will see what they do with the Turks and Serbia/Montenegro.

I HATE the uniforms ROOTS designs for the U.S. team. Those hats (dare we call them berets?) HAVE GOT TO GO!

Those are the Classical Greek kouroi, dear--the statues, with genitalia, of the handsome, idealized young men! The Greeks are among the great pioneers in all the arts (inventing drama, vase painting, etc.), and sculpture, particularly those of beautiful young men. BTW, the Ancient and Classical Greeks also made their historical mark with homosexuality!

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The discussion of The Ancient Greeks and homosexuality has been moved to its own thread in the Non-Sports Related forum. - Outsports moderator

[ August 13, 2004, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: m1 ]

American outfits:

Tommy Hilfiger meets Samuel Jackson meets McDonald's circa 1980. Ghetto fabulous.

The American team uniforms were embarrasing. The athletes just looked sloppy; they might as well have been taking out the trash at home. I thought the Japanese looked great, as did the Brazilians, the Irish, the Spaniards and the Dutch. The dressiness and class of their outfits only accentuated how awful our's were.

BTW, it was wonderful to hear the reception the American team got. The fears of an unfriendly welcome were clearly not justified.

illini n milwaukee posted

I thought the Opening Ceremonies were great. Considering they are going to be 4 or so hours long, with a good chunk of that the athletes coming in, it was rather entertaining. I liked the cross of modern music/lighting with the classical music/feel as well. Not a big fan of the Olympic flame, but it was pretty neat. I also felt bad for the athletes who didn't get to see the somewhat entertaining (especially for an opening ceremony) beginning and they had to stay in the middle that whole time. I liked how at Salt Lake they had the athletes come in first then did all the rest of the stuff.

You wouldn't have a clue watching tonight that there was any sort of 'trouble' and 'worries' leading up to it. It seemed to go off well.


Others I liked...

The Czechs...

The casual Danes...


The Swedish...

And of COURSE the Italians look good....


Then there's us..........

:confused:

Guys - don't slam McDonalds now, their uniforms look a lot better than the US olympic uniforms did.

Whoever was charged with this one blew it.

I really enjoyed watching the Opening Ceremonies, especially with the history of Greece being represented well.

It was hard to follow the order of the countries since it was done according to the Greek alphabet.
My favorite outfits:
Brazil and those cool lime jackets
Estonia and those slick white suits with crazy lime t-shirts.

My least favorite outfit:
United States and their tasteless 1970's street-corner clothing. I usually like Roots stuff and make it a point to go to their store in downtown Toronto when I am there. However, I really didn't like the Roots' casual appearance that they gave the United States, Canada and Great Britain. I wonder if the queen would have approved of the way the British looked in those ugly warm-up suits. They usually wear suits and ties.

I think the problem with the U.S. and Canadian outfits was that they were too casual, and that they allowed athletes wear them in different ways. If it's a uniform, then everybody should wear them the same way.

The Canadian zip-front top was sometimes zipped up and sometimes zipped down, and looked sloppy and cheap. The cap was nice, though.

Some of the Americans had the jacket open, some had it closed. Some wore the cap frontwards, some backwards, some in a jaunty angle. The inconsistancy made it look too casual and too much like street-wear. But I think on its own, the short-sleve navy jacket is quite nice. (The poor-boy cap is supposed to be worn backwards. This style was very popular when the Canadian team wore it in the Nagano winter Olympics.)

The Danes, for example, wore a casual outfit: red t-shirt with khaki pants/skirt. But, the all had their t-shirt tucked in. They had a belt. They wore the messanger bag consistantly over the right shoulder. They looked neat.

I'm generally not a big fan of the dressy look--athletic women in heels and purses just doesn't look right. And I always find that fashion powerhouses France and Italy have bad outfits (the French women had some un-stylish white cross-over jacket). But I did like Spain's sharp-looking suits.

--------------

Now as for the commentary... eeks, Bob Costas and Katie Couric were terrible. Lame jokes and tasteless comments (such as rhyming Djibouti with "booty"), failing to describe what was going on (they were given written descriptions of each part of the ceremonies, and negelected to mention the Maria Callas aria, for example, and whenever there was some nudity--or that pregnant women--they fell conspicuously silent)... Brian Williams and Peter Mansbridge on CBC was much better (although they struggled to indentify non-Canadian athletes, such as the U.S. basketball team or Yao Ming).

I thought the French women looked fine......

And also the Italians I thought looked nice too.


So far the coverage has been U.S. that US this.......barely even any hype of the Ian Thrope/Grant Hackett showdown tonight. Well the first of their 2 tonight..... wink

We had the opening ceremonies on at the bar last night, but I couldn't hear the crowd reactions. How was the US received?

Would it kill Allen Iverson to smile? Jeez, does he always have to be in thug mode?

Amnu Ginobli looked hella-cute as did many of his Argentine teammates. The Italians, Canadians and Aussies also were quite the lookers!

Though I liked the ceremonies--especially the parade of Greek civilization in human statue form, I kind of miss the days when they were smaller in scale and about the athletes entering the arena rather than a generally hyper-produced extravaganza. The Winter Games still tend to keep things in better proportion (the '88 games in Calgary I attended featured a wonderful, intimate-feeling Opening Ceremony, while the '84 LA Summer Olympics--at which I was a volunteer--featured a way over-the-top production with 84 pianos that overpowered the athletes.) To avoid Bob Costas and especially Katie Couric, I kept hitting the mute button, though not quickly enough to miss hearing that the "Central African Republic is in central Africa." Such adorable banter!!

And the parade of athletes proved once again there is no such thing as an unattractive Australian male. And I kind of liked the way Alan Iverson wore the ridiculous Roots cap, with the brim jauntilly to the side.

~Adam

[ August 14, 2004, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: Adam ]

Is it just me, or did anyone else thing that lighting the Olympic flame looked suspiciously like lighting a gigantic joint?

I don't know...I kind of liked it when the cauldron went flacid so the Greek Sailor could light it and then it went erect. eek!

I dunno maybe it's just me, but I don't mind casual outfits for the ceremonies. It's not like the athletes are going for a job interview. That being said here are my observations:

The American outfit was ok not great, except for those Lewinskian hats which added nothing.

I hated the Lime green jackets on the Brazilians. (Sorry Cattledog lime is just not a color for clothes unless your're a golfer)

Even though the French were formally dressed, I liked their outfits as there were some cute looking dudes in those duds.

The Italians had a good idea of not being too formal nor too casual (jackets sans ties).

Did anyone watch the opening ceremonies on HDTV? The first hour was a replay of the women's figure skating finals from Salt Lake. They had 2 of the worst announcers (not Katie and Bob). They even screwed up the editing and when they came back from commercial we had to see 10 minutes of the same countries walk through again. I am sure someone got fired over that. You would think the broadcast would be the same, just clearer.

PRunner, didn't you hear that your Eagles have decided that their shade of green was just way too dark and they switched to lime for the upcoming season?

Who wants to slap Bob Costas and Katie Couric? The line forms behind me. Good God, could they have been any more unprepared and yet pretentious? Captain Obvious with his lame-ass jokes (you bet Djibouti), mispronunciation and geographical ineptitude? Belize is NOT an island.

And Princess Perky, always dragging up some political angle to show us how well-informed she isn't. Somalia and the "Black Hawk Down" incident. The Iranian judoka who won't compete against an Israeli athelete. The Canadian flag-bearer who wants to carry the flag for an independent Quebec.

STFU, the two of you.

More random ravings:

--The torch/cauldron: a little too phallo-centric for my taste

--Bjork? BJORK??? Where the hell were Yanni, Nana Mouskouri and Mario Frangoulis?

--The frolicking lovers on the beach brough back unfortunate memories of the Madonna remake of "Swept Away."

--Glowing Pregnant lady: the Smurfiest moment of the ceremony.

--Loved the parade. All that heavy body make-up, though, had me nervous that someone would die like that lady in "Goldfinger."

--Best-Dressed Award: Denmark

--Worst-Dressed Award: Grenada

--Team-Dressed-Most-Like-50-Cent's-Posse: U.S.

--Hottest Flag-Bearers: Mark Huizenga (Holland) and Denis Silant'yev (Ukraine)

--Teams Whose Athletes I Would Most Like to Have Sex With: Spain, Argentina, Denmark and Sweden

ETA: Because I've change my mind: Grenada had the worst outfits.

[ August 16, 2004, 09:46 AM: Message edited by: Jerzoid ]

It's all about taste.

My partner and I both gave best dressed to Brazil. I thought the lime green was smart and perfect for the occasion and the multi-colored skirts on the women worked well. I guess I'm a sucker for taking risks. A lot of the nicely dressed teams in suits just looked the same to me (which is still better than the US team, which was among the worst).

This may belong in another thread, but I was disappointed in the coverage of the Opening Ceremonies, especially the parade of athletes. Since the coverage was tape delayed, it wasn't necessary for them to rush through 6 or so countries after a commercial as if they were trying to catch up during live coverage.

I liked Brazil's uniforms the best. I was disappointed in the American uniforms.

NBC decided not to show huge chunks of the ceremonies.

Did you notice that they skipped the oaths of the athletes and officials?

Did you notice that there was no footage of the torch outside the stadium, like, being carried through the streets?

Did you wonder what happened to that lake? Well, what happened was that a mountain arose out of it and broke apart to reveal the olive tree. Wouldn't it have been nice to see that?

And there was much more of Glowing Pregnant Lady that we didn't see, that would have made the whole thing make sense.

[ August 16, 2004, 09:46 AM: Message edited by: Jerzoid ]

I'm indifferent about the opening ceremonies, except for the stadium and lights/fireworks which were very impressive.
My highlight though was the shirtless guy from American Samoa in the opening ceremony. Hello! Definately my type....

Oh Please You Americans were leaders in style compared to what we Australians were wearing Parachute silk with white stripes? WTF - as one of our local commentators said, that is what you wear when you're a ma and pa doing your big retirment tour of the local caravan parks around the country.

- wow - blaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhh.

[ August 19, 2004, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: Mixie ]

Outfits aside though, not bad though for a (relatively) small country for holding steady in the medal tally (although possibly outdone by the Ukraine in terms of small countries succeeding - good on em I say).

Was watching the medal ceremony in the men's 400m, in which the U.S. finished 1-2-3. Noticed that the track jackets the American athletes were wearing had the Adidas logo on it--yet the competition outfit they wear on the track/field has the Nike logo on it. Throw in some Reebok shoes and you've got the athletic wear trifecta.

And perhaps they can add something from New Balance--a company that still makes its product in the US.

~Adam

That's the problem -- paying those "overpriced" American workers ate up their sponsorship budget. Besides, what fun is consistency?

Team Canada looked nice and casual in their Closing Ceremonies outfit: red t-shirt with Canada written in Greek, khaki pants.

And that Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the president of the Athens Olympic Organizing Committee, I like her sense of style. She wore that nice sand-color dress at the opening, and now these nice breezy pink slacks and white blouse at the closing. Love her!

Well, I think it is safe to say that the Roots outfits were a pretty big flop. They are now 65% off on their website:

Did they really sell those stupid hats for $34.95????

Good Grief! Now someone is complaining about the content of the opening ceremonies!

Olympics indecency complaint probed

I was beginning to wonder what John Ashcroft was doing now that he has retired. I guess covering female statues wasn't enough?

Opening Ceremony: The IX Olympic Gripes

Edited to add:

The complaints are almost all the result of a campaign orchestrated by the Parents Television Council.

FCC Receives Record Number Of Complaints, Issues Record Amount In Fines

FCC Enforcement Bureau - Obscene, Profane & Indecent Broadcasts: Pleadings and Other Documents of Interest

Complaints Regarding NBC's Broadcast of the 2004 Summer Olympics

[ December 22, 2004, 09:24 PM: Message edited by: twin58 ]