On landing the Olympics! You just know they'll do a great job again. Feel a little bad especially for Madrid but it seems like Istanbul is half happy they didn't win lol.

close to home and heart and impacting me personally is the correct decision of IOC to reinstate wrestling as a sport. my sons wrestling club, Beat the Streets, was instrumental in organizing the drive to keep the original sport of the games in the games. it's a huge story!!!

Look for little citizenrich to be wrestling in the Tokyo games. Yeah, he's that good (One of the top hs freshman recruits in the country. (((proud dad))) ).

http://m.washingtonpost.com/sports/...ed9cc4-18a2-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...olympic-wrestling-wins-ioc-vote-2020/2781887/

 

Glad they won - I think Istanbul would have been a very difficult place, and Madrid maybe not much better, so I really think Tokyo was the only viable option really.

As for wrestling, the IOC showed that it has great difficulties with making decisions about what sports are in or out. I don't think people who are outside of the sport system have any idea of the hoops that sports are made to jump through to maintain their place or get into the OG. When I was in charge of the high performance section of my sports national body, that was a big issue for us always, although we didn't have a ton of control over it (that was the job of the international body, and we only had one vote there). Anyway, the point of this according to the IOC was to introduce a new sport, and they failed at that miserably. Wrestling should have never been taken out in the first place, so it's good that they corrected that error, but in reality they failed at their stated purpose.

Cheers, Al

 

Yes! Al, you're 100% correct in your analysis. I had no idea of your background - great stuff.

Wrestling was too comfortable with the old boy network not understanding the politics of the IOC.

Speaking of politics - I don't want to speak about politics.

we hosted a big wrestling event here in nyc this past summer: Iran vs. Russia vs. USA. It was hugely succesful and part of the reason wrestling will be in the next (3) games.

 

Archer is not just my screen name and the name of my business - I was a competitive archer for 30 years on and off, as well as being involved in the administration. I no longer shoot due to physical issues but it has been a huge part of my life. There is nothing like being on a team representing your country as far as I'm concerned.

The drive for the IOC is to make sports "TV friendly" and this results sometimes in changes to the sport that are not the best for athletes. In archery it lead to a competition format that was based quite a bit on luck, and that debuted in Olympic competition at the 1996 Olympics - this is a good documentary on how the format works, and the results of those Games:

Further modifications to that format have made it more fair to the archers in recent years, without taking away any of the "excitement" that the IOC wanted.

I hope the changes in wrestling are well received by the athletes - sometimes the competitors get lost in the all the politics.

Cheers, Al

 

Wow! What an awesome thread! A huge congrats to you and your son Rich. You have every right to be a super proud dad too. That also explains a bit about your attitude to your watch repairs too AL.

As for the IOC, I envision a bunch of old men travelling the world at the expense of bidding countries and consuming as many hookers and kick backs as possible tbh. I have often wondered how they decided to include some sports (is syncronised swimming really a sport?) and removed others.

I beleive the Rugby 7s has been returned as as a sport which will give some of the tiny countries like Fiji the chance to win their first ever gold medal.

 

Well, that's a pretty accurate description up to and including the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. In addition to what you described, don't forget the requirement to give sons/daughters/family members of the IOC members jobs....

After the scandal surrounding 2002, when Jacques Rogge came in, he actually cleaned things up fairly well. I think the Olympic movement needed cleaning up, and he did a pretty good job of it. Hopefully the new President of the IOC will keep pushing on this front.

Cheers, Al

 

Well thanks. Yes I have been involved the in sport a long time, and really made some great friends from all over the world over the years. In the end it's not what you won, but the experiences you had along the way, both in competition and the other, sometimes odd, things that come up. Heck I even had a very, very small role in a nationally run (in the US) TV commercial once for Buick, with a pretty famous golfer.

But the key thing is the people you met and still keep in touch with - better than any medal hanging on the wall, or in my case stuck in a closet somewhere...my former team mates are some of my closest friends still...

On the watches, yes I do make and sell my own line. I do enjoy that side of the business as well as the service side.

Not sure if it's okay to post my web site, but here it is - can be removed if deemed appropriate...

http://www.archerwatches.ca/

Cheers, Al

 

Well not on the horizon at this time - oddly enough just had another request for a chronograph come in by email overnight...

And thanks on the link - I am so tuned to the "moneymaking" forums and how they operate it's second nature now...

Cheers, Al

 

Nice surprise Al........I've bookmarked them. You should tell a little bit about watches you produce in separate thread.

 

Al do you make these to order or do you have some stock...I think I see my Christmas present on your web site!

 

Recently someone gave him a tee shirt, took a photo of him wearing it, and the shirts are flying off the shelves....

He is a money making machine, that's for sure!

 

I try to keep stock, but it's difficult sometimes to do so....unless some dude from Taiwan wants to buy one, so I make him the watch, then he disappears when it comes times to pay, as happened recently. Now I have stock of that model. LOL!

If you are interested in something let me know.

Cheers, Al

 

That's what we call a "flake".