Nothing If Not Random: Olympics

Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

2021 Olympic Trading Cards Blaster

2021 Topps Olympic: With the Olympics in full swing I pulled the trigger on one of these blasters. We'll kick it off with Carissa Moore who has already won a gold medal in shortboard surfing.

I like the simple design. Plenty of room for the athletes.

I pulled two of these For Pride and Country inserts. The background photo is different on each card and pertains to the hometown of each athlete. The backs seem like the same back as the other cards. If you can't tell, and I couldn't, Hughes is a rugby player.

I like the New to the Games! inserts. Not sure about the Olympic Heroes card. I'd like to see more though. The Ellison is a bronze insert.

The backs have background information on the athletes which is good for getting up to speed on their accomplishments.

Nice seafood appearance.

This was a fun box. I really wish they had more cards in them though. Relics and autos are possible but those weren't in the cards for me. I am enjoying the Olympics so I'm glad I decided to pick one of these up.

BREAKDOWN:
25 - Total Cards

2 - For Pride & Country

1 - Bronze Parallel

1 - New to the Games!

1 - U.S. Olympic Heroes

Saturday, August 27, 2016

2016 Rio Olympics

The 2016 Olympics are over and Rio de Janeiro and the athletes made this a great event. We watch quite a bit of the Olympics and enjoy the little known sports as well as some of the big name events. I enjoy what this means to the athletes as well as to the countries. And for the most part politics aren’t a big part of the story. Just athletes who’ve gone all out for the last four years to get to this one point. Rio for its part did a great job and all the dire predictions turned out to be for not. The city did a great job overall.

The opening and closing ceremonies did well as bookends to the Olympics. I like watching the athletes after the Olympics are over because they are so much looser. No more events to stress about and they can be themselves. Some are even fans themselves who get selfies with the other stars of the games.

Listening to interviews of the athletes, to include those on the local radio, showed they enjoyed themselves and also squashed the rumors about how bad conditions were. There is way too many great moments in the Olympics not to enjoy. You don’t have to be a fan of all the sports but there is definitely something for everyone. For me, I just enjoy.

Great Sportsmanship

And she backed it up the finger wag...

Trampoline competition - fun to watch for the first time

These guys were amazing to watch. China Gold Medalists

Domination From Beginning to End

I was kind of digging rugby

Sunday, March 9, 2014

2014 Winter Olympics

I am someone who looks forward to the Olympics. I was that way as a kid though in my 20's and 30's I went away from them a bit. Too many distractions during that timeframe I think. Now I look forward to everything it offers. The opening and closing ceremonies, the host nation's ability to showcase their country, the rivalries, the individual stories - all of it. This year was no different with the Winter Olympics. I'm glad the questions about security and hotel completeness were non stories during the Olympics. I loved seeing the closing ceremony where those putting it on poked fun at themselves as shown above. I don't worry about politics during the games. I'm glad Russia put on a good show. I want the games to be the story. Unfortunately the weather wasn't always great but that was out of everyone's control. Love seeing the different sports that you never see in the four years in between the winter games. Great times. I don't have specific stories but I enjoyed it all. The cross country skiers collapsing after finishing is one image I'll definitely take away. Oh they had to be exhausted. The physical and mental toughness it must take to that is something I'll always admire. We'll just say this is my way of saying I enjoyed the Olympics and can't wait until 2016.

U.S. didn't fair too well but Olympic hockey is always a big story and is fun to watch.

Curling is one of those sports that are so unique and where I work was always a topic of conversation. Great to see small sports like this get their time on center stage.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

2012 Olympics

The 2012 Olympics kicked off last night in London with the opening ceremonies. I watched the ceremonies. I'll say it was different and seemed a little long winded. I'm not faulting the organizers as you don't get many opportunities to host the Olympics. Still I'm glad there were commentators to help explain what was going on or I would have been lost. That said I did like the Queen's entrance with James Bond himself as they "parachuted" from the helicopter to enter the stadium. Nice bit. My favorite is always the athletes parading into the stadium. The ending as seen in the picture to the left was also pretty cool with the Olympic rings lifting into the air. Nice way to end it. Can't wait to see what Russia comes up with in 2016.

It is funny when the Olympics come around as conversations pop up as to why we care. With all the distractions in the world nowadays the Olympics can seem somewhat dated to many. I'm a little old school and still like the international challenge as the world's best go head to head for their country. They may win titles throughout the years but in the Olympics you are directly representing your country in a venue second to none. I also enjoy all the stories that are reported on. With so many athletes from around the world there are plenty of fun and heart tugging stories to go around. The underdogs also get to play on the big stage. As the athletes marched into the stadium last night there were many times where I was saying "that's a country?". You also have all the different sports that'll never see the light of day on cable TV otherwise. Racewalking or trampoline anyone? And they dropped baseball and softball? Hmmm. Sports come and go so even if I think they're goofy I'll watch just to say I did.

Again I enjoy the Olympics. I like everything that surrounds it. Nothing like seeing the excitement as athletes and teams win medals and the moment when they receive their medals is still special. I better get going. American Timmy Wang is down two sets to none to his North Korean ping pong opponent. I'd better pay more attention...

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