Intparent, in our house, the one who pays the (rent, mortgage, property taxes) controls the remote. B-)
One has to wonder how Olga Korbet and Nadia’s routines would be judged if they were performed today. Same too for ice skating.
Sports evolve. They wouldn’t be good enough.
@Dolemite if you want more graceful you could watch rhythmic gymnastics.
I never watch sports except for the Olympics. I don’t know why I find them so irresistible.
Sports in general are the original and still one of the few authentic reality shows. In so much of life nothing ever really gets settled - war, politics, commerce, etc. They just keep dragging on to the next round - for years. With sports the issues gets settled - with winners and losers.
In sports, with fame and fortune in the offing, you get real conflict, real human emotion, and do-or-die drama - all on full display and backed by years of preparation and sacrifice. Throw in a heavy dash of nationalism and you have the Olympics in a nutshell… What’s not to like?
@BunsenBurner, I know… but I have barely seen her in months, and want to take advantage of Seattle summer with her in the evenings as much as possible. 
I see! Then you would definitely want to be outside. Fingers crossed, summer will begin by then…
Olga Korbut may well have been more graceful than the gymnasts today, but Olga herself was the one who started the trend to acrobatic athleticism performed by ever younger competitors that is still with us today… Prior to Olga the grace and beauty of gymnastics performed by women (as opposed to girls) was epitomized by1972 gold medalist Ludmilla Tourischeva. That was the big contrast of the 1972 games - the old school womanly grace of Touischeva vs. the teenage acrobatics of Korbut. Touischeva won the all-round gold medal but Korbut won the public attention and fame.
In 1976 the even younger teenager Nadia Comaneci beat Olga at her own game by taking the acrobatics to a whole new level and doing it all perfectly. The trend to younger and younger competitors performing more and more difficult tricks with less and less grace has just continued from there.
I remember Ally Raisman on Dancing with the Stars, having a hard time counting the beats, telling her pro that it was hard for her to count…the Olympic Floor Gold Medalist had a hard time counting. That said a lot to me.
I don’t watch much in the way of sports besides Olympics either. I hate that the “good stuff” tends to come on late at night (my bedtime is 10 on “school” nights). The night they were deciding the women’s gymnastics team I stayed up til 1130, and the next day wasn’t good. If a TV Happens to be on, and I notice, I will stop to watch ice skating, gymnastics, and a couple of other sports.
I have been a fan of the Olympics as long as I can remember…and I am the most un-athletic person who has ever walked the planet. I love gymnastics - that’s the only summer event where I’ll know the names of not only our men and women but competitors from other countries as well. I’ll know our folks in basketball and a few in track and field, but I will watch anything…fencing, table tennis, whatever.
During the games I pig out on Olympic sports and watch pretty much all of them. But my clear preference is for sports where the winners are determined objectively based on factors such as fastest time or crossing the finish line first rather than ones that are subjectively judged such as gymnastics or figure skating.
It’s so disheartening to hear that this or that athlete is very talented but needs to do a better job of serving up “what the judges are looking for.”
I’m with you on all of that Scipio. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to watch Mary Decker in whatever foreign country the Olympics was in many years ago. I’m disappointed that my favorite miler (well, 1500) Leo Manzano fell a little short this year and didn’t make it.
@MomofWildChild, I think that might have been Seoul in 1988?
Yes- I think so!
I remember watching that race as well. I had an infant who stayed up all night, so I was happy to have something interesting to watch. I am an Olympics junkie. I’m especially interested in women’s track & field, swimming, and diving. I also like the obscure sports. I’m not sure if I really feel some of them belong in the Olympics (like rhythmic gymnastics), but its always fun to learn about the sports and the competitors.
Another Olympics junkie here! Love track and swimming.
I like the athletic female gymnasts. The feats of strength astound me.
But I’m not graceful and I’m not a fan of things like ice dancing so I’m biased.
I watch the guys too, but they seem so much more “blah” than the women. Don’t know how else to describe it. For them, it just seems like solely a feat of strength without any creativity. Women strike the right balance for me.
The current Code of Points (scoring system) is one reason for the difference between the styles of gymnasts like Olga Korbut and today’s Olympic gymnasts. The current system, which was set up to try to make the judging more objective, gives points for both difficulty (open-ended top score) and execution (worth up to 10 points). By putting more difficulty (double layouts, flips, twists, etc) into routines, gymnasts get more points. You won’t get as many points for artistry (dance-like moves) because this is part of execution. The Code of Points is set up by FIG, which is the international governing body for competitive gymnastics disciplines. I think the Code changes after this Olympics.
I really enjoy watching the Olympics–the only event that doesn’t interest me is golf. I’m also a fan of women’s/men’s gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics (my D who was on the US rhythmic national team is now a rhythmic judge).
If you’re interested in women’s gymnastics and Simone Biles, read this article:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/simone-biles-is-the-best-gymnast-in-the-world
I like fencing. Obscure if you aren’t into it, but one of my kids fenced. Her club coach led the US women (with someone she knew from her club on the team, too) to a bronze medal in the last summer Olympics. THAT was exciting! 
“@MomofWildChild, I think that might have been Seoul in 1988?”
I had the good fortune to attened the Seoul Olympics in person. And by 1988 Mary Decker was past her prime. She had been out of action for much of the two previous years due to childbirth and injury. She ran in Seoul and made the finals in both her events but finished well back in the pack. The dominant runner that year was Tatiana Samolenko.
Decker’s glory year was 1983, at the inaugural World Championship in Helsinki (which I also attended) in which she won two gold medals, out-kicking the big bad Russians down the stretch in both events. She was the darling of those games. This was before she besmirched her image with an extravagant show of bitter bad sportsmanship over her fall in the 1984 Olympics. In Helsinki the entire crowd was with her, cheering for her to beat the mighty Soviets. The Italian journalists I was sitting next to abandoned any pretense of journalistic impartiality and went totally nuts cheering for Decker during her races.