Gymnastics

[Conotocarious]

12 hours ago, Mirabelle said:

I know Michelle Kwan would not eat sushi before a competition due to the possibility of getting food poisoning and maybe the gymnasts didn't want to risk it even if they were in Japan, inventor of sushi, and competition was over due to the long flight home they had. That's something I really would not want to experience. 

I was happily surprised to realize the gymnast in the Start Your Impossible commercial was Alex Moreno - she competes for Mexico so I wouldn't have expected to see her in a commercial airing in the US. McKayla Maroney is in a Geico (?) commercial and Laurie Hernandez is in a drug commercial (one she does not use). Good to know other gymnasts other than Biles is getting a chance to cash in on that endorsement money.

I'm hoping Suni gets to endorse Scholls - her toes gave her that gold medal. 

It was after the competition was over. The day after beam finals.

 

[BlackberryJam]

15 minutes ago, Conotocarious said:

It was after the competition was over. The day after beam finals.

 

Right, as the OP said, no one wants an upset stomach on a long flight. 

[Conotocarious]

41 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

Right, as the OP said, no one wants an upset stomach on a long flight. 

Honestly assuming that the food that the Japanese were proudly preparing for them could have been food poisoned is both insulting and a big reach. 
 

 

[Lady Whistleup]

1 hour ago, Jillibean said:

Yeah, this--not to mention MiKayla's own social media usage. She seems very close to Simone, but she's clearly not as close with the girls she was passively making comments about. Her closeness with Simone could also be a source of tension for Jordan since that's Jordan's self-described "BFF." I noticed in one of the event finals (floor?) Simone and MiKayla were sitting off on their own and Suni and Jordan (and Grace?) were sitting together a row up and much further down, with the men's team and some coaching staff between them, and noted that as an interesting seating arrangement. 

There's a big age difference between the "grandmas" and the rest of the team. 24 vs 18 doesn't seem like a big age difference but at that age it is. Simone and MyKayla might feel more comfortable around people their own age with the same life experiences.

[tanyak]

I sense that MiKayla and Jordan don’t really like each other all that much, and Simone is the one in the middle. Been there, done that.

As for the sushi discussion, I’m 46 and probably had sushi for the first time when I was in my late 20s, maybe? But I only eat shrimp tempura rolls (yum!) and California rolls. No raw sushi for me! Lol

[Lady Whistleup]

Ok one thing that I thought was a bit annoying about NBC's narrative was that Simone and Jordan were inseparable ("Biles and Chiles") and they might go 1-2 in the Olympics. In reality I don't think Jordan was ever in competition for an individual AA medal, and it was Suni and Jade who were the bigger threats. And while Jordan and Simone do have a good training relationship, it seems as if Simone is closer to Mykayla and Suni.

Basically NBC branding and narratives suck.

[NUguy514]

1 hour ago, Lady Whistleup said:

There's a big age difference between the "grandmas" and the rest of the team. 24 vs 18 doesn't seem like a big age difference but at that age it is. Simone and MyKayla might feel more comfortable around people their own age with the same life experiences.

Skinner acts like she's 13, so I can see Suni and Grace, who are 18 and act like 18-year-olds, being more comfortable around each other than they might be around someone less mature mentally.

Seriously, though, any tension wasn't obvious on camera to me.  If there was any, however, Skinner should have kept her mouth shut about it because she and her trash husband would likely be why there was tension.

[Lady Whistleup]

Jordan's family is pure trash though. Mom defrauded millions of dollars from people so Princess Jordan could have her whole set of Air Jordans. Fuck the Chiles'. And grifting families are all a unit. They always scam together.

[Conotocarious]

How old is Jordan? Simone is 24 and I can see more a big sister type of role with Jordan, but Simone has her own house, boyfriend and is just in a different place in life.

[Lady Whistleup]

Jordan is 20.

I still cannot believe NBC took those videos of Jordan with her complete set of "Air Jordans" knowing that it was paid for by her mom scamming people out of millions of dollars. Just gross.

 

[Rootbeer]

51 minutes ago, Conotocarious said:

How old is Jordan? Simone is 24 and I can see more a big sister type of role with Jordan, but Simone has her own house, boyfriend and is just in a different place in life.

Jordan is 20, so she's an adult and has been for a bit.  I think that, in gymnastics, it is very common for the older women to mentor and encourage the young ones coming up,  I think Simone has been actively mentoring younger gymnasts for a while and Jordan is one with whom she's developed a closer bond than most.  Training together every day in the same gym for the past couple years would certainly help that to happen.

[ShellsandCheese]

47 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:

Jordan is 20.

I still cannot believe NBC took those videos of Jordan with her complete set of "Air Jordans" knowing that it was paid for by her mom scamming people out of millions of dollars. Just gross.

 

Whoa! I’m not going to blame her for the sins or crimes of her mother; but I do hope she has a better future than said mom. This video reminded me of why I avoid interviews with American gymnasts like the plague. Their voices! 

[Lady Whistleup]

6 minutes ago, ShellsandCheese said:

Whoa! I’m not going to blame her for the sins or crimes of her mother; but I do hope she has a better future than said mom. This video reminded me of why I avoid interviews with American gymnasts like the plague. Their voices! 

I'm not going to blame her either but this video was taken recently, and looking back it's awful optics. Like the money her mom defrauded from people probably paid for those shoes. Wtf?

Edited August 8, 2021 by Lady Whistleup

[BlackberryJam]

5 hours ago, Conotocarious said:

Honestly assuming that the food that the Japanese were proudly preparing for them could have been food poisoned is both insulting and a big reach. 
 

 

Who said poisoned?  That’s a reach. Indigestion is real and has nothing to do with national pride or quality of preparation. And again, many people just don’t like sushi. Many people don’t like burgers and fries. Many people don’t eat cheese. 

It’s inappropriate to present elite athletes who monitor every calorie consumed unasked for food on camera by surprise. This seems to be just another way to bring down young women for small social mistakes. 

So…the rhythmic finals. NBC needs to actually hire someone who knows something about the sport to do the commentary. Nastia and Andrea knew nothing. They couldn’t describe the skills. The camera work failed to catch the mistakes. What a hot mess. 

[selkie]

15 hours ago, emmawoodhouse said:

I remember an inquiry from Aly Raisman on a beam routine. Mehi was running around like a dog chasing its tail. She won. 

Was that during the era when, IIRC, you had to pay 100CF in cash to file an appeal and you'd have team delegation members waving around fistfulls of bills toward the official in charge of appeals? The optics of that were ... not good to say the least.  

[BlackberryJam]

The rhythmic team …how in the hell can those judges even follow everything happening? Especially as Nastia provided one valuable piece of information noting that they don’t get a breakdown of the routine submitted to them.

I had to watch the Russians twice just to see a missed pirouette. It seems to me they need breakdowns of the routines and slow motions replays to catalogue everything to determine the difficulty. I understand why there were inquiries.

I’ve enjoyed gymnastics this Olympics.

[Lady Whistleup]

RG has the ice dancing problem -- it's hard for lay people to know what they're watching and what to watch. There's always drama and judging controversies in ice dance because again, people don't understand what to watch. I can tell if a girl dropped a club or didn't complete a turn but otherwise I have no idea who's good and who's not.

[ombelico]

Re: the whole sushi "episode",  it sounded like NBC dumped them all in a van as soon as Simone had her medal and got them over to the Today show set without much notice. I don't think any of them (except perhaps Simone) was expecting to be on tv that evening. Then add on suddenly being offered food on national TV; even if they liked sushi I could understand them declining just out of surprise. I think it's pretty unfair to take any of this as evidence of anything regarding their character or maturity.

I interpreted what MyKayla said about those that did and didn't make finals just to mean that it was just a bit awkward that Jordan and Grace were completely done with competition and didn't need to continue full training, whereas the others that had more finals still had to stay in competition mode (and MyKayla was in sort of a limbo waiting to see what was happening with Simone).

[Conotocarious]

Did anyone watch the interview? I did. They were asked if they were hungry and wanted some food and they said yes and then someone specifically prepared them food, which they then declined like pre-teens at a slumber party only to upload pictures of pizza and fries to instagram later. 

IN MY OPINION, it was immature and cringey. I don’t need to move goalposts to justify every single behavior of these girls when any reading of my posts clearly shows how much I love them and especially Simone. But that doesn’t mean I give them a pass on every single thing. If my kid acted like that when graciously offered food specially prepared for them by the host country of the Olympics I’d be having a facepalm moment.

[Lady Whistleup]

4 minutes ago, Conotocarious said:

Did anyone watch the interview? I did. They were asked if they were hungry and wanted some food and they said yes and then someone specifically prepared them food, which they then declined like pre-teens at a slumber party only to upload pictures of pizza and fries to instagram later. 

IN MY OPINION, it was immature and cringey. I don’t need to move goalposts to justify every single behavior of these girls when any reading of my posts clearly shows how much I love them and especially Simone. But that doesn’t mean I give them a pass on every single thing. If my kid acted like that when graciously offered food specially prepared for them by the host country of the Olympics I’d be having a facepalm moment.

It's a very ugly American thing to do. The polite thing to do would be to try a bite, smile, and that's it. 

For them to be uploading pix of pizza and fries to their IG and turning down sushi is so cringe. Sushi is way healthier.

[Lady Whistleup]

I have noticed that most gymnastics seem to have been raised extremely conservatively in small, middle-America towns. Maybe it's believable that someone in a small, midwest town hasn't had sushi. Idk. 

[BlackberryJam]

58 minutes ago, Conotocarious said:

Did anyone watch the interview? I did. They were asked if they were hungry and wanted some food and they said yes and then someone specifically prepared them food, which they then declined like pre-teens at a slumber party only to upload pictures of pizza and fries to instagram later. 

IN MY OPINION, it was immature and cringey. I don’t need to move goalposts to justify every single behavior of these girls when any reading of my posts clearly shows how much I love them and especially Simone. But that doesn’t mean I give them a pass on every single thing. If my kid acted like that when graciously offered food specially prepared for them by the host country of the Olympics I’d be having a facepalm moment.

Yes, I did. The sushi was presented by a member of the Today show, not a representative of Japan so “specially prepared for them by the host country” is a reach. I think it was Mykayla who mistook roe for sprinkles and at least three of the other gymnasts mocked her for it. And again, it’s perfectly acceptable to not like sushi. Could they have all politely tried it? Yes. 

It was thirty impolite seconds of a fifteen minute interview answering sometimes emotional, and sometimes just plain stupid, questions. They’ll probably look back at and think they could have done better in those last thirty seconds. It was a hop on the landing, maybe a .3 deduction, but it was no Ryan Lochte in Rio. 

There are far stronger examples of “ugly Americans” at these Olympics. So, the repeated attacks on these girls who have been through so much speaks to me of a culture that holds young women to unrealistic standards and then knocks them down and stomps on them when they don’t meet those standards. 

I’m saving my outrage against American Olympians for those who really deserve it. (Hi, Brody Malone, Michael Andrews, Alen Hadzic, and the rest of you.  You know who you are.)

All in all, I enjoyed this Olympics, just having it, when I wasn’t sure we would. Though it was ill-advised during the pandemic, I think came together well. Or as best as it could have.

I can’t say the same for NBC’s coverage. I’m still searching for full coverage of trampoline, of which I saw none. The NBC app is unwieldy and the replays are mislabeled. I hit play rhythmic gymnastics and it came up water polo. It feels like all the replays where edited by a Intro to AV class. Such a total mess. My RG individual replay actually skipped from Linoy to the judging of Dina, skipping routines and not making sense at all. And the commentary was all around crap. 

 

 

[pennben]

Oh neat! Now fans are judging these young gymnasts for food choices---no way that goes wrong given history of food issues associated with gymnastics.  Also, focusing on intra-squad squabbles & placing the sins of the parent on the child, not to mention the notions expressed that Biles brought this on herself.  I mean, if fans are like this...........

I think mydiscomfort in supporting this sport is over, because I'm gonna back away from supporting it at all (even my minor 4 year on my radar fandom).  I felt obligated, not sure that's the right word, to follow through and support Biles because of her stance and request for that support.  Beyond that, the general governance of this sport is abhorrent & less concerned with getting things fixed than moving on, much like the media who wants to monetize them.  Then we get to the competing gyms & their nonsense & the fandom that seems to not understand their role in the pressure they put on these young folks and on and on and on.  And it is just so gross to me. I've worried that supporting the player means supporting the "game", & now just have to realize that the game is so bad, that I can't enjoy the players anymore.

[Conotocarious]

There are plenty of other levels in between “Here’s your pass!” And utter outrage. My level is a bit of cringe and the observation that American gymnasts have the same food preferences as an American toddler. And they do.

[Lady Whistleup]

2 minutes ago, Conotocarious said:

There are plenty of other levels in between “Here’s your pass!” And utter outrage. My level is a bit of cringe and the observation that American gymnasts have the same food preferences as an American toddler. And they do.

Think it just speaks to the lack of healthy cuisine they were allowed as elite gymnasts that they react this way to sushi. Myk mentioned that Aly Raisman was once afraid to eat a piece of fruit. I think if your whole life the choice is between a drop of water and a cracker and pizza and fries, you;re going to have very stunted tastes in food.

Sushi and other healthy meals are things they should have had constant exposure to but it's apparent they haven't. 

[pennben]

Comparing these athletes to toddlers over food preferences.  Let's keep infantilizing them, nothing can go wrong with that attitude.  

[NUguy514]

I watched the interview, and I didn't think the gymnasts were particularly rude at all for not eating the sushi (and you all know I wouldn't give Skinner the benefit of the doubt on anything if I could possibly help it).  I think any perceived weirdness was NBC's fault.

[choclatechip45]

All this sushi talk and gymnastics reminds me of 100x Nastia fluff pieces from 2005-2008 that always had a shot of her eating sushi!

[Lady Whistleup]

Here's the interview.

I think they act like ugly Americans the way they shriek at the sushi. And none of them have a clue how to use chopsticks?

[LostWithSawyer]

On 8/7/2021 at 1:32 AM, emmawoodhouse said:

So, Jordan and Grace against everyone else? I can't see that what with Simone and Jordan being besties. I don't know anything about Grace, and she seemed very quiet, so she was really a cypher.

I agree with you. After the way things turned out it’s easy to forget that Mykayla is included in the group that didn’t actually ‘make’ the final, and if I recall correctly this vlog was recorded before she knew that Simone had any issues and would have to withdraw (she explained that the vlogs were posted out of order due to a copyright issue). 

On 8/7/2021 at 6:05 PM, Jeddah said:

I would imagine her husband posting about how Grace and Jordan shouldn’t have made the team would probably cause some tension too.

I also agree with this. I actually perceived in that comment that it was likely Mykayla herself as the one with tension with others, not Grace or Jordan. Throughout the vlog she talked about how she was so upset and how she was sobbing from disappointment, and that she worked so hard and couldn’t believe how things turned out with not making vault finals, etc. She also specifically mentioned Jade making finals over her. Again, this was recorded before she knew that she would sub in for Simone. There has been a lot of talk about her ‘deserving it’… then her husband also made his snarky remarks on social media. Maybe a bit of chip on her shoulder? 

On the other hand, Grace and Jordan seemed to be living their best lives in Tokyo! All of their press was adorable. I really hope they all had a positive experience overall. 

6 hours ago, ShellsandCheese said:

Whoa! I’m not going to blame her for the sins or crimes of her mother; but I do hope she has a better future than said mom. 

Same here. A lot of people come from crappy families. She seems to have a bright future and I wish her all the best. 

[Garden Wafers]

On 8/7/2021 at 8:41 PM, greyhorse said:

I don't think it shows how sheltered they are at all.  These kids are 18 to 24 years old.  How many of us ate sushi when we were 18 years old?  I certainly didn't.  It's an acquired taste.  For one, it's raw, and not everyone jumps at the idea of eating something uncooked. And two, it's not exactly as cheap as a burger and fries.   If anything, maybe it's a reflection of the eating preferences of their parents.  I'd be surprised if Suni never had sushi.  Yes, she's Chinese, but I'd think that her Asian parents would at some point have brought the family out to a Japanese restaurant.

Just as an additional data point, I never ate sushi until I went to college. Prior to that, the only "restaurant" food I ate growing up was the occasional McDonald's my folks bought on roadtrips to the grandparents; otherwise, I only ate Vietnamese food my mom prepared. So this Asian immigrant family never ate sushi or dim sum because (1) eating out was a luxury that simply wasn't in the budget and (2) my parents' command of English wasn't that great and they were afraid of saying/doing the wrong thing in a public setting. Plus, my mom was definitely never going to buy raw sushi at the local grocery store. My family's culinary horizons really didn't expand until my older sister went to college and started ordering takeout for the family to enjoy. 

1 hour ago, BlackberryJam said:

I can’t say the same for NBC’s coverage. I’m still searching for full coverage of trampoline, of which I saw none. The NBC app is unwieldy and the replays are mislabeled. I hit play rhythmic gymnastics and it came up water polo. It feels like all the replays where edited by a Intro to AV class. Such a total mess. My RG individual replay actually skipped from Linoy to the judging of Dina, skipping routines and not making sense at all. And the commentary was all around crap.

I've had similar issues with the NBC Sports app on both my smart TV and tablet. I ended up watching most of the Olympics using streaming from the nbcolympics.com website. Not sure if this link will work for you, but that's how I watched both the men's and women's trampoline. https://www.nbcolympics.com/replays/sport/trampoline

[LostWithSawyer]

13 hours ago, Jillibean said:

Jordan seemed genuinely thrilled when she was out there cheering on her teammates. If she can fake that for the cameras, maybe her calling was acting and not gymnastics. Grace is much harder to read, but she had to know she was unlikely to make event finals coming into all this given the composition of the team.

Yeah, this--not to mention MiKayla's own social media usage. She seems very close to Simone, but she's clearly not as close with the girls she was passively making comments about. Her closeness with Simone could also be a source of tension for Jordan since that's Jordan's self-described "BFF." I noticed in one of the event finals (floor?) Simone and MiKayla were sitting off on their own and Suni and Jordan (and Grace?) were sitting together a row up and much further down, with the men's team and some coaching staff between them, and noted that as an interesting seating arrangement. 

That is an interesting point. Simone posted on IG calling Jordan her best friend last week, so it seems to be reciprocated. However, I agree with the point about the seating order. I wonder if Simone and Mykayla were just in a different/ more intense headspace overall than the rest of the team? We know Simone had a rough week, and to me Mykayla seemed very stressed overall. I always remember that, sadly,  their experiences in gymnastics will always be different than their younger teammates coming through the system now. 

[huggybear]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with that video. They are young girls for the most part and Suni actually acted like she was happy about it. What a weird idea, hand a bunch of elite athletes in a sport known for eating disorders a plate of food that is generally a love it or hate it experience. It was just a dumb, awkward idea.

And FWIW I am in my 50s and have never even held a plate of sushi and have no desire to do so. I don't think I could eat an oyster if my life depended on it. 

NBCs coverage in prime time was absolutely horrific. I streamed the gymnastics but as far as prime time, I felt like I missed a lot. Except, of course, every second of women's beach volleyball.

[Quilt Fairy]

20 hours ago, Cherpumple said:

Evgeny Plushenko (diva figure skater) have supported her "I was robbed" stance (Plushenko still thinks he deserved gold in 2010). 🙄 

Was he the one who skated the same long program for like 10 years?  (I exaggerate, but not by much.)

16 minutes ago, huggybear said:

And FWIW I am in my 50s and have never even held a plate of sushi and have no desire to do so. I don't think I could eat an oyster if my life depended on it. 

I'm with you, and I'm 10 years older.   And I don't understand why we're talking about this instead of how many medals they won!  Without Simone. 

[NUguy514]

1 minute ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Was he the one who skated the same long program for like 10 years?  (I exaggerate, but not by much.)

It was actually 23 years, but yes.

[Guest]

Not to drag out the sushi debate any more, but I think it's worth pointing out that "they" don't shriek at it. The only one who does something close to shrieking (and the only one who outright states that she won't eat it) is Simone, who is clearly familiar with it and knows she doesn't like it (and has unexpectedly just been presented with a large platter of it). Suni also knows what it is because she says to Simone "you don't like it?" and you can hear her explain to Mykayla that the "sprinkles" are fish eggs, which they share a laugh about. Jade, Jordan, and Grace don't really react at all. I think a lot of what's being interpreted as shrieking is just surprised laughter.

Some of them could have been a little more chill about it, I suppose, but I think this is much ado about nothing.

[Conotocarious]

10 hours ago, pennben said:

Comparing these athletes to toddlers over food preferences.  Let's keep infantilizing them, nothing can go wrong with that attitude.  

You mean by sparkly leotards? Maybe bows in their hair? Wiggling to floor routines? That kind of infantilizing? The sport has this problem anyway. This is not new in gymnastics. In some ways it’s getting better (gymnasts don’t sound or look as stunted as they used to) and in others its not. (Pageant glitter and bows were not a think in the early and mid nineties). They are sheltered as heck and I’m just noting another instance. 

[BlackberryJam]

9 hours ago, Garden Wafers said:

Just as an additional data point, I never ate sushi until I went to college. Prior to that, the only "restaurant" food I ate growing up was the occasional McDonald's my folks bought on roadtrips to the grandparents; otherwise, I only ate Vietnamese food my mom prepared. So this Asian immigrant family never ate sushi or dim sum because (1) eating out was a luxury that simply wasn't in the budget and (2) my parents' command of English wasn't that great and they were afraid of saying/doing the wrong thing in a public setting. Plus, my mom was definitely never going to buy raw sushi at the local grocery store. My family's culinary horizons really didn't expand until my older sister went to college and started ordering takeout for the family to enjoy. 

I've had similar issues with the NBC Sports app on both my smart TV and tablet. I ended up watching most of the Olympics using streaming from the nbcolympics.com website. Not sure if this link will work for you, but that's how I watched both the men's and women's trampoline. https://www.nbcolympics.com/replays/sport/trampoline

I grew up pretty poor and McDonald's was a treat when I was little. Grad school is where I got my best exposure to different cuisines. I went to a Catholic undergrad where everyone was eating Italian with some occasional Eastern European or Puerto Rican food. I didn't have proper French, Greek, Ethopian, Korean, Turkish, etc, until I went to grad school.

These women certainly have more opportunity than I had, of course. But yeah, I'm just anti criticism of all women based upon what they do or do not eat. Sure. Gymnastics has a problem with infantilizing and sexualizing young women. I'm just not going to be a part of it. 

I want to watch on my big screen, and the website is an unwieldy platform. 

My other issue with the app/website is that the fastforwarding feature is terrible. I want to fast forward where I get the picture in picture boxes of what's coming up, not just blindly fastforward and then stop, go back and so on.

I think NBC's gymnastics commentary is probably the worst I've ever seen/heard for an Olympics. They stuck Andrea and Nastia in trampoline and rhythmic, sports neither of them fully understood. Such a difference from diving. Cynthia Potter has been doing excellent commentary for decades. We need more of that. With the pandemic, I understand that it was too difficult to send so many commentators to the Games. However, commentary could have been done remotely. 

 

[choclatechip45]

The shrieking came from Simone who is 24 years old and I expect to act better about food she doesn't like. Suni and Jordan seemed fine about it. 

[supposebly]

This whole discussion reminds me of my Japanese friend who is regularly annoyed when Japanese cuisine is reduced to sushi in North America and other countries.

[Lady Whistleup]

34 minutes ago, supposebly said:

This whole discussion reminds me of my Japanese friend who is regularly annoyed when Japanese cuisine is reduced to sushi in North America and other countries.

I went to Japan some years ago and was surprised that sushi was usually sold as snack packs in delis. The real restaurants have sashimi (raw, smoked fish) and these delicious noodle bowls. 

[Jeddah]

2 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

But yeah, I'm just anti criticism of all women based upon what they do or do not eat. Sure. Gymnastics has a problem with infantilizing and sexualizing young women. I'm just not going to be a part of it. 

Yup. The larger conversation a week ago was about how Simone is a hero for standing up for mental health, and the rest of the team is awesome for stepping up. Now the conversation is about how they are childish, ungrateful girls who are awful for not eating sushi when a tv host unexpectedly handed them a plate. Fast turnaround. All they accomplished mattered for about five days before people started to go after them for something as minor as not wanting sushi.

[proserpina65]

On 8/7/2021 at 10:53 AM, Conotocarious said:

The team was offered sushi during an NBC interview with Hoda as well and they all stared at it as if it was poisoned. These gymnasts eat like American toddlers. Did they want chicken fingers and hot dogs too? To me its an indication of how sheltered their lives are. 

Eh, people have different taste in food.  Some of us think sushi is nasty, even if you are an adult with diverse tastes in food who will try things from all over the world.  (I hate seafood, ftr, so I'd rather starve than eat sushi.)  And sometimes you want comfort food - when I was in Greece for 2 weeks, there was one night where a friend and I went to McDonalds just because we wanted something familiar.

 

I watched some of the team rhythmic gymnastics.  Not a lot, because, quite frankly, I don't really care for it as a sport.  What I can say is that the costumes were varying degrees of ugly, and some of the music choices were weird as hell.  I was, however, glad to see the Russians lose.

On 8/7/2021 at 9:50 PM, Mirabelle said:

I was happily surprised to realize the gymnast in the Start Your Impossible commercial was Alex Moreno - she competes for Mexico so I wouldn't have expected to see her in a commercial airing in the US.

I would have liked to have seen her compete.  I would've like to have seen a lot of the gymnasts compete rather than just the few we did see.

[proserpina65]

16 hours ago, Conotocarious said:

Did anyone watch the interview? I did. They were asked if they were hungry and wanted some food and they said yes and then someone specifically prepared them food, which they then declined like pre-teens at a slumber party only to upload pictures of pizza and fries to instagram later. 

Were they asked if they wanted sushi, though?  If not, then that's on whomever decided to serve them sushi, not them.  Because not everyone in the freaking world likes sushi, or even likes seafood, for that matter.

13 hours ago, Lady Whistleup said:

And none of them have a clue how to use chopsticks?

It's not exactly taught at gymnastics camp.  A lot of people don't know how to use chopsticks.  It's not some universal skill.

[Lady Whistleup]

Chopsticks is the universal Asian eating utensil. If you don't use chopsticks that basically means you've never even had Chinese food.

[BlackberryJam]

1 hour ago, supposebly said:

This whole discussion reminds me of my Japanese friend who is regularly annoyed when Japanese cuisine is reduced to sushi in North America and other countries.

Love teppanyaki. Hate sushi. 

7 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

I watched some of the team rhythmic gymnastics.  Not a lot, because, quite frankly, I don't really care for it as a sport.  What I can say is that the costumes were varying degrees of ugly, and some of the music choices were weird as hell.  I was, however, glad to see the Russians lose.

I would have liked to have seen her compete.  I would've like to have seen a lot of the gymnasts compete rather than just the few we did see.

The RG costumes had some of the worst quality illusion fabric that I have ever seen. It was thick, rolled at the edges and the wrong color for each gymnasts skin. 

I liked the one routine to Metallica, because I recognized it. I would have liked one of teams to actually use circus music. 

[Rootbeer]

5 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:

Chopsticks is the universal Asian eating utensil. If you don't use chopsticks that basically means you've never even had Chinese food.

I love Chinese food.  I do not love chopsticks.  I have eaten Chinese food many times in many places; but never with chopsticks after a couple unsuccessful attempts.  

Every Chinese restaurant where I've dined has offered both chopsticks and western utensils and nobody ever questioned my love for Chinese food just because I didn't want to use chopsticks.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Rootbeer

[proserpina65]

1 minute ago, Lady Whistleup said:

Chopsticks is the universal Asian eating utensil. If you don't use chopsticks that basically means you've never even had Chinese food.

No, it doesn't.  I've had Chinese food a lot; I love Chinese food.  I use a fork, because I don't want to lose any of the delicious food down the front of my shirt which is exactly what would happen if I tried to use chopsticks.

[DkNNy79]

13 hours ago, Garden Wafers said:

Just as an additional data point, I never ate sushi until I went to college. Prior to that, the only "restaurant" food I ate growing up was the occasional McDonald's my folks bought on roadtrips to the grandparents; otherwise, I only ate Vietnamese food my mom prepared. So this Asian immigrant family never ate sushi or dim sum because (1) eating out was a luxury that simply wasn't in the budget and (2) my parents' command of English wasn't that great and they were afraid of saying/doing the wrong thing in a public setting. Plus, my mom was definitely never going to buy raw sushi at the local grocery store. My family's culinary horizons really didn't expand until my older sister went to college and started ordering takeout for the family to enjoy. 

I've had similar issues with the NBC Sports app on both my smart TV and tablet. I ended up watching most of the Olympics using streaming from the nbcolympics.com website. Not sure if this link will work for you, but that's how I watched both the men's and women's trampoline. https://www.nbcolympics.com/replays/sport/trampoline

Ditto for me.  Going to McDonald's was a special occasion for us.  My mom thinks she can cook better than everyone else, so we never went out to eat at restaurants (plus she didn't want to pay others for something she could do - i.e. cook).  She is an amazing cook and can eat Vietnamese food every day for the rest of her life, but us kids wanted variety.  The only non-Vietnamese food I ate was what I ate in school growing up.

I don't think I had sushi until after college and similar to another poster, I only eat California rolls and Tempura rolls.  The thought of raw fish skeeves me out.  My mom has never had sushi and doesn't ever want to try it.

So, I will give the girls a pass if they didn't want to eat the sushi.  Although some people might think its rude, I would never want someone to expect me to eat something if I didn't want to.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, choclatechip45 said:

The shrieking came from Simone who is 24 years old and I expect to act better about food she doesn't like. Suni and Jordan seemed fine about it. 

Admittedly, the noise she made wasn't the greatest look, but after Suni asked her if she didn't like it, Simone said something that wasn't clear - and right after that, Hoda said "we don't want anyone getting sick". So I wonder if Simone said that it would make her sick. And when someone has a bad experience with a certain type of food and then it's unexpectedly put in front of them, I think a little freaking out is understandable.