Feel free to vent if you are not interested.

I have quite enjoyed following the BBC text service. I am still digging around for videos of Mo Farah's 10km run and the Brit boys cycling pursuit triumph - the way these blokes can cycle at speed and with such accuracy is amazing.

I always enjoy seeing the lesser known sports getting their moment in the spotlight - shooting/archery, kayaks and various other boats. Always impressed by the strength and precision of gymnasts. Bolt and Phelps are amazing. Pleased for the 18 year old Aussie school boy who won swimming gold. Even more so for the 16 year old Canadian school girl who did likewise and the Singaporean bloke who beat Phelps.

Feel good moment is probably Fiji winning the rugby 7s and acting with such dignity and humility afterwards. All up. Not a bad show so far and the expected organisational cock ups have been few and far between.

For me the Olymipcs are over. All cycling sports have finished

Ok, there's still basketball.

Personally, I don't particularly enjoy watching sports that I do not normally watch.

Anyway, well done to all sportsmen/women - they have put so much work to get where they are now.

Womens's Volleyball and Basketball. Simone Biles. Man, she flies.
Judo was over in a minute.

It's funny, I love running and swimming, but personally, not watching those sports. I like team sports and more the popular ones where we have professional and collegiate leagues for them in the U.S.

An issue is that when I was a kid, there was no cable, nor internet and thus you could not avoid watching the Olympics. Now you can entirely avoid them. Honestly the structure of my life is that I would have not seen them entirely if not for them being on the gym TVs. (And then yeah, I'm on the treadmill trotting, and the Olympians take off and go the same distance I go in 1/2 hour, but they do it in 5 minutes!)

Since you left it open to rants, I'll elicit a minor two which extend all the way back to '72 and '76. Not a rant, but still remember with sadness what happened in Munich. Now I can rant, remembering '76 for the US and I sit here thinking just how much has changed, one need only look at the '76 Decathlon gold medalist ....

Boring!

I can watch some sport, where you can see a skill being exercised, like gymnastics, but most of it I find a bore. Half a dozen people line up to run, swim, or cycle from A to B. One is faster than the others. Well, duh! What did you expect? In fact, I'm not watching anything — I'm just not motivated enough to track it down, even the women's beach volleyball.

Rant on:

What I find boring is the opinion reporting digging up negative aspects of personal athletes and Olympic site shortcomings.

Reporting seems to think I am in a barber shop or a womens sowing circle to put up with such gossip. So what if Phelps smoked dope back in his youth. So what the lock is cut with bolt cutters.

This water cooler reporting is getting old in my book. I did enjoy the discus. There was no water cooler opinion gossip during that contest.

Where is a Walter Cronkite style of reporting when one needs one.

Rant off:

I thought the High Diving Pool's Green color matched the Basketball court colors.

I edited my reply before I saw your reply Habitual.

I edited

out of my reply. Anyways. Negative outlooks on people and cities and countries are starting to get on my nerves. Mainly because these posers make good money on gossiping about things. But god forbid the spot light is turned on them or the people they work for <EG: Matt Lauer and others>

I lost interest in the Olympics long ago.

The only competition I'm following is this one: Which is more corrupt: the Olympic Committee, FIFA, or the NCAA.

(I wasn't always cynical. Then I started paying attention.)

For a small island of the coast of Europe, no.2 in the Gold Medal list isn't bad, is it?

Group of islands. ;-)

Oops sorry. I stand corrected!

The reason we can do it is because the British government decided, after our terrible showing in Atlanta, to pour money (mostly from the National Lottery) into British athletics. Our athletes are professionals in all but name. The government pays for them to train full-time.

There was also a deliberate decision to specialise in sports such as rowing, sailing, riding and cycling, where the equipment (or the horse in the case of equestrian events) is at least as important as the athlete. Our equipment is high-tech, the best that money can buy.

Let's face it: we effectively bought those medals. I don't see how that is any more sporting than the Russian "National Doping Agency". If anything, the Russian method is fairer. Anyone can compete on equal terms with Russian athletes if they are prepared to take the same drugs, but most of the world's athletes have no hope of competing on equal terms with British ones because their countries don't have that kind of money to spend.

Ooh Hazel, that's a bit harsh. I think most of the world,s athletes are 'pro' now. We just caught up with them. But you've still got to say that the athletes are performing.
I actually find it pretty boring to watch too but I think the athletes achivements are pretty good.