M watching the women's fencing on one of the "red button" channels. I've never really watched it before but it's awesome. Some back board lights up along with your helmet when your opponent lands a strike. Then the one who gets hit screams and stamps their feet in frustration.
Watching the Boxing, has there been a rule change that I missed completely?
Scoring system still there but no white bits on the gloves (a la Amatuer rules)
:s
EDIT: OK according to the commentators, yes this is a new thing.
Scoring system still used but the scores are hidden until the end.
White knuckle patches are now removed and the gloves are now one solid colour (red or blue). Unknown the reasoning behind this as the white knuckles are supposed to help the judges score the strike.
There is zero need for the sponsorship money. The public purse has paid out around 7 billion for the games. Which includes all the construction etc. LOCOG has paid out around 2 billion to actually put the games on. Which is what the sponsorship money is for. And a portion of that 2 billion comes from ticket sales and merchandising. So the sponsors, who take in billions in profits globally, couldn't even scrape up a whole 2 billion between them.
Personally I think if the UK can spend 7 billion on the games. Another 2 billion wouldn't have broken the bank. And then we could have genuinely benefited from the games on an economic level because large multinationals wouldn't be pulling the strings an making demands.
2 billion pounds is a lot of bloody money in a nation of ~40m taxpayers.
Given a choice between paying an extra £50 in taxes or forcing spectators to choose between Heineken and Coca Cola for their pre-event beverage, I say, bring on the Heineken!
I'd agree if it wasn't for the fact that those ~40m taxpayers have already paid out 7 billion in the name of the Olympics. And besides a one off £50 extra tax take is easily spread across the year. It's an extra £4.17 per month. Or just an additional 14 pence per day. A bottle of Coca Cola costs £1.20 or more in some places.
The Sponsors are saying that all their tickets (many of which they paid for) have been allocated. The current theory is that it is the media reserved and athlete family seats that are being left empty, which makes sense as those people will only take their seats for part of each day, leaving them empty most of the time.
Bit off topic in regards to seats, but what has bothered me the most so far is seeing the 56kg male olympic weightliftes clean and jerk as much as my max squat as an 80kg guy. Slightly depressing.
That's what they've said and there is nothing to contradict that beyond your own prejudices.
There are a lot of athletes. There are probably upwards of 100 athletes competing in the aquatic centre on any one day. If they each get 5 comp tickets (may be more, may be less), that's 500 seats that will probably only be filled for part of the day. Then add in seating for the teams and officials themselves, it is easy to see how so many seats are empty.
They're talking about giving free tickets to squaddies to fill the empty seats. Presumably they'll tell them to turn up in mufti, otherwise it might look a bit 'North Korean' if half the stadium are wearing military uniforms.