Positives and negatives of the Olympics.

Yay football!

Woohoo! Beat the Brazilians at women's football! Am having an Olympic moment....

kick: I think, yeah, it's fine to admire all the yummy physical attributes of the men/women, but it's just all about balance, isn't it? I mean I'd be a robot if I didn't feel a bit warm and fuzzy watching Chad le Clos getting out the water, but I'm not expecting a huge Chippendale like procession of men wiggling about to Benny Hill for my titillation a la women's beach volleyball!

And I'm definitely more about admiring them for their skill not their pecks. Actually mainly, I just wanna give Chad's dad a big cuddle! Did you see him? He was so sweet going on "there's my beautiful boy!" Ah....

Actually, I think this is not long-term terribly wonderful, but it is interesting that during the olympics we see loads of men in scanty clothes who're young and physically fit.

messy said upthread that seeing all the women's sport was making her feel like men must feel all the time ... is it awful to say that seeing the men like this must be a little like what men feel like all the time?

The camera crew couldn't stop themselves zooming in on the women's bottoms in today's Beach Volleyball! I must check to see if they do the same amount of arseshooting in the men's event.

Ds1 (7) says the (female) gymnasts are "awesome" and has been doing roly-polies (sp??) across the rug in an attempt to copy them!

I agree, it's lovely to see strong women's bodies celebrated. I was really interested to see how different the bodies of women gymnasts were - obviously within a narrow range, but still quite a lot of differences.

I get the hair being tied back ... I still do think the makeup is, well, a feministy negative point, but FFS, they should do whatever makes them feel best so it's not a big one!

Re the sparkliness of the outfits, I'm just watching the women's artistic gymnastics and was thinking how great it is to have women's bodies celebrated for what they can do rather than some arbitrary standard of beauty. There's been hardly a comment about shapes / sizes but lots about power, energy, gracefulness in dance, agility, core strength etc. Is it bad that women's bodies are displayed when those are aspects of them that are admired and focused on? With the men's gymnastics, their strength tends to be the main focus, and they do display their pecs / biceps to good effect to maximise on this too...

Re the hair and makeup, I'm guessing the hair is necessary so you can be sure it won't come down and get in the way and since they're under bright lights and on TV, the makeup is probably to stop them thinking how ill they look when they see themselves on playback? I don't really wear make up but I think I would in their situation.

Mother presenting medal to daughter at the Eventing

Thanks for the link about the septuagenarian from Japan: there are amazing individuals in the Games - his Olympic debut was in 1964!

I've just been please to note, at the Eventing medals ceremony, that all competitors are given little flowery posies.

'practises' ffs - I'm not American!!!!

Indeed Messy. What a great and unexpected win for the women's volleyball team last night against Algeria. GB has no funding, practices in an empty fire station building and has to raise money to compete yet put out a team ranked umpteen above them in the 5th set, finishing at 12.40am!

Am completely loving the women's volleyball. In fact I'm really enjoying all the coverage and support of women's sports. It's making me feel so . It must be what men feel like all the time.

Oh, wow, they are aren't they?

What kind of idiot thinks, hmm, this woman is an olympic athelete and very good ... oh, I bet she's just gagging to come to a foreign country where racists like me live, oh yes!

Honestly.

Yuk, there are some hideous comments underneath that Daily Mail article.

This one is partly a question ... but I've just seen that the South Korean fencer, Shin Lam, lost her match in a very complicated situation with clocks being reset and lots of time taken to determine what was going on. She stayed on the fighting ground while everything was being decided, and she was in tears for a very long time, then went to fight her next match after they decided the result.

On the Guardian and some other sites, this is being described as a 'protest' she made by sitting and crying for nearly an hour.

But, as I understand it, she had to stay sitting there - she's not actually meant to leave the area. So she wasn't insisting on sitting in full view crying to make a protest.

I don't really know yet, and I'm not sure this would be deliberate sexism, but it is at least unfortunate that the papers are reporting this as a 'protest' when it seems to be no such thing.

Men's rhythmic gymnastics does exist, but isn't practised in enough countries yet. It seems to be quite popular in Japan.

Apparently the same argument applies for women's ski jumping in the Winter Olympics.

Has Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi been mentioned yet? 8 months PG and a shooter for Malaysia. This is a lovely and positive story. She is flying home today

Mary King is the oldest female competitor in team GB. That implies there is a male competitor who is older.

51 is not the oldest by a long way, if this is to be believed.

Does anyone know off hand if I'm right in assuming the oldest competitor is a woman? Mary King (51?)

IOC members list. count the number of women