Anybody watching the Olympics?

Annegriet

2 years ago

I love the Olympics!

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MDLN

2 years ago

last modified: 2 years ago

Very interesting perspective...

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/24/tokyo-olympic-sport-displacing-athletes

""After Tokyo, we should bring the Olympic charade to an end

The travelling circus shows the ugly side of sport – displacing citizens, bullying athletes and endorsing cruel regimes""

"The empty seats in the stadiums of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are a blessing in disguise, for the sporting spectacle, no matter how good, will not be able to dispel the fact that this super-spreader event is being held in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis and against the wishes of the vast majority of the Japanese public. In so doing, the International Olympic Committee – which earnestly believes itself to be the leader of a global social movement – has been revealed as no more than the travelling circus of the global sports industry, ready to make sure the broadcasters get what they need come what may.

Not that these Games and the IOC’s standing weren’t deeply flawed prior to the pandemic. As at every Olympics, costs have spiralled and Japan will have to stump up more than $30bn (£22bn), of which the IOC will not be paying a cent. Along the way there has been the usual combination of expensive white-elephant stadiums, allegations of corruption in the bid process and in allocating contracts, and the forced eviction of citizens from their homes.

Sold as the “Recovery Games” – celebrating the nation’s revival after the 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown – Tokyo’s softball competition began this week in Fukushima, a region in vertiginous demographic decline, still awash in nuclear waste.

Paris, Los Angeles and now Brisbane are signed up to host the next three summer Olympics, and the IOC continues to argue that its Games catalyse economic growth and leave positive urban and sporting legacies. Yet the research is unequivocal: with the exception of Barcelona 1992, no modern Games has raised a host city’s rate of economic growth, levels of skills and employment, tourist income or productivity.

Similarly, the claim that the Olympics raise the level of sporting participation is a myth. After London 2012 – the only Games to actually take the proposition seriously – activity rates fell because the government’s austerity programme led to the widespread closure of sporting facilities.

Olympians might inspire other Olympians – but as physical and psychological outliers they have absolutely no impact on the behaviour of the general public. Ask the Finns, who abandoned the state-sponsored pursuit of medals and spent the money instead on active transport and accessible facilities. They barely win anything any more, but they have the most active and healthy old people in the world. In Britain we have a sack of gold and an obesity crisis.

The urban programmes that accompanied Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008 saw almost 2 million people displaced. More recently, Rio was staged on the back of over 60,000 people who had to get out of their homes and businesses: they were often intimidated and moved to inferior and distant housing. The vast majority were barely compensated. And then there are the police sweeps that clear homeless and mentally ill people from previously public spaces.

Of course, where someone is suffering, someone else is probably benefiting, and the Olympics have proven fabulously profitable for construction companies, the corrupt officials and politicians who have handed out contracts to them, and property developers. The local police and national security agencies are also considerable beneficiaries given that security costs are now around $2bn. Rio didn’t build a single community sporting facility but its riot police got the very best in new Kevlar-plated armour and Tasers.

In a desperate search for legitimacy the IOC has championed clean sport and embraced environmentalism. But the former has been fatally undermined by the light-touch treatment meted out to Russia after its unprecedented programme of state-sponsored doping. And the environmental record of the Games has been dismal. Beijing was more polluted after its Olympics than before. Pyeongchang, Rio and Sochi all saw the destruction of protected natural habitats.

Covid has at least reduced the usual gigantic carbon footprint of the Games. However, it is hard to see how these and future emissions, however much offsetting the IOC is planning for, can be justified at a time when the speed of the climate crisis means most previous hosts of the Winter Games will soon have insufficient snow to hold them again. Tokyo, now regularly experiencing burning, humid summers, has had to shift the marathon 1,000km north to Sapporo.

The quixotic notion that the Olympics could be a champion of human rights – and that staging the Games would open up authoritarian hosts to international norms and scrutiny – was completely undermined by Beijing 2008, then rendered risible by the Sochi Winter Games in 2014. Next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics, to be conducted alongside the genocidal repression of the Uyghurs, will be grotesque; and woe betide any athlete that wants to exercise the rights to free speech and protest while they are there.

This is all true to form for the IOC. On the eve of the 1968 games, the Mexican government slaughtered over 300 protesters in cold blood and launched a war of terror on the student movement that opposed it. When the then IOC president, Avery Brundage, was asked to comment on the matter, he replied: “I was at the ballet.” He then reacted to the greatest ever display of athlete activism at the games – the black power salutes – by destroying the careers of Tommie Smith and John Carlos. The IOC’s history is one of genuflecting before power and violence, and bullying the athletes it claims to revere.

An Olympic Covid spike could yet kill more people in Tokyo than the Mexican state managed with mere bullets, and the IOC’s ruthless suppression of athlete protest is primed with new regulations. The committee won’t get the irony though, because it does not learn from its mistakes and it does not engage with its critics.

Self-selected for the entirety of its history, the IOC appoints no independents, tolerates no critical voices and is completely opaque in its operations. The idea that such an organisation should have special status at the UN and claim sovereignty over the global governance of sport is untenable.

Sport does offer an extraordinary canvas for the celebration of human possibilities. It is a universal language in a perilously fragmented world. It deserves better than to be captured by the IOC, better than to be drowned in its pieties and bound to its pernicious business model.

A Covid emergency aside, it is too late to abandon the Tokyo Games, but it is not too late to bring this charade to an end. The Chinese Communist party can make all the artificial snow it likes in 2022, but we should simply refuse to watch. Paris 2024 can be the final fond farewell. The IOC should dissolve itself and its assets be passed to a new democratically constituted body for global sport. Los Angeles would lose the Games, but Hollywood can take out the first option on the story.

David Goldblatt is a journalist and author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics."

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Comments (57)

maddielee
2 years ago
@Ninapearl Lots of equestrian events are being covered. Here’s the schedule.

https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/equestrian
sushipup1
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
I love the sports, but I hate the TV presentation. It is unwatchable.
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Here is an interesting article about the Russian doping, their ”system” that not only cheats but victiimizes some of the youngest, most vulnerable and lithe pre-teen athletic aspirants. The Russian women’s figure skating team has bigger problems than doping Kamila Valieva and Russia’s women’s figure skating team are incredibly dominant. The team is also incredibly controversial. Read in Vox: https://apple.news/ABh0Ob5riS-iMwaBUjdvgoQ Shared from Apple News A portion of article for discussion purposes. the Russian cheating is disgusting, as is the passive response and greed and self promotion of the IOC. ”… Even before this bombshell doping scandal, the Russian quad squad’s excellence has been accompanied by controversy. At the center of it are fears for the long-term health of the team’s prized prodigies — landing difficult jumps can take their toll on small, developing bodies. All eyes have been on the women’s skating team from Russia for one big reason: They’re incredibly dominant. Coach Eteri Tutberidze figured out how to get the highest possible scores, and skating is a numbers game. 🔺Tutberidze’s stars took advantage of the scoring system, which favors risky jumps over safely executed, if less ambitious, tricks. In the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, gold medalist Alina Zagitova stacked all her jumps in the second half of her free skate to cash in on a 10 percent bonus, a rule that’s since been changed and limited to three jumping passes in the second half. Tutberidze’s current crop of students — Valieva, Alexandra Trusova, and Anna Shcherbakova — all are able to hit quads with positive grade of execution scores, which amount to bonus points given when skaters can perform their tricks. They’re among the only women in the world who can hit quads at all, and Valieva and Trusova have jumps that rival those of some of the best male skaters. Thanks to the scoring system, even when Tutberidze’s protégés don’t skate cleanly, they’re racking up points. When they do hit cleanly, it’s a blowout. This year, they’re poised to come in with gold, silver, and bronze. Add past and seemingly current doping controversies to that, and you can understand why this team is under scrutiny. Even before the doping report surfaced, however, there has been controversy surrounding the Russian women skaters, specifically around their practice regimens and physical health. There’s concern that Russian women’s success and their dominant jumps come at the high cost of serious injury and shortened career longevity. Female skaters who can land difficult jumps and quads tend to be very young — sometimes prepubescent — and very small and thin. Puberty affects women’s bodies in ways that are incongruent with skating. Hips, breasts, and more height and weight can make triple and quads that girls used to hit much more difficult to land. 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bpath
2 years ago
I enjoy the Olympics! I don’t usually care for NBC’s coverage, too many extreme closeups. We are setting up a VPN tomorrow to watch, say, Canadian coverage. (That was fun in one Olympics when our niece was covering of it for TSN). Right now I’m watching men’s gymnastics and it is cool to NOT have the artisitic hype of women’s. I’m hoping to see some equestrian and watercraft events.

I’m going to figure out the streaming to see some of the non-network events.
Kathsgrdn
2 years ago
I will watch some stuff occasionally. I did see the fireworks and drone show last night on youtube.
dedtired
2 years ago
I enjoy the winter olympics more than summer. I really like figure skating and skiing. In the summer, the gymnastics are exciting. Watching swimming is not so great, although I appreciate the difficulty.

One year we were sking in Stowe VT and could pick up Canadian coverage of the Olympics. Totally different!
wildchild2x2
2 years ago
Not today. I am busy watching Tevis Cup live online. That's the Western States Trail Ride that runs 1 day/ 100 miles through rugged terrain. Living my dream vicariously. I do enjoy watching some of the Olympic events but winter sports more than summer.
bragu_DSM 5
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
have seen 15 of them and don't want to see american athletes turn thier backs on us. don't like what it has become
Elmer J Fudd
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
I'm with zalco.

There's corruption and illegal conduct (not just recently) in the governing bodies, national and international , and duplicity and phoniness in most of the sports, some more than others. It is a charade, that's an appropriate word. A charade that more and more people are beginning to realize but it's been there all along.

Here's a quick question for you Olympics and gymnastics fans - how many years/decades were American teenage female gymnasts subjected to repeated and systemic sexual abuse? Does that outrage anyone? Why is there still a US Gymnastics Association, why wasn't it banned? Is the need to ruin the lives of so many little and then teenage girls with promises of fame that few ever achieve, oftentimes driven by overbearing parents, really so compelling to justify continue doing?
youngquinn_gw
2 years ago
Tunisia just won a gold medal in the swimming...and the whole world (well those that were watching) just got to hear the TuniisIan National Anthem THATS what I love about the Olympics.
Annegriet thanked youngquinn_gw
lily316
2 years ago
Nope, I'll be watching Netflix. I think they should have been canceled again. Japan has a terrible vaccination rate and people from all over the world gathering...a disaster waiting to happen.
nickel_kg
2 years ago
The part I like best of the Olympics is the opening ceremony -- the spectacle part, not the parade of athletes. This year, my enthusiasm is dampened by Covid (of course), plus all the corruption, lying, and greed of the IOC. I could be done with them, in their current format.
bpath
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
I learned a lot about Naomi Osaka when I saw her light the torch. So she was born in Japan, but left because her grandparents’ culture would not let them accept Naomi’s father. So they moved to US. Her father is Haitian. But Naomi had both US and Japanese citizenship. How did she have US citizenship? She chose Japanese citizenship at 21 because Japan required a decision one way or another. I’m very confused. And the very culture that made Naomi’s family leave Japan, now asks her to light the torch.

Other confusing observations: The women’s beach volleyball players like wearing bikinis because they don’t like when the sand gets inside other clothing. But the men wear baggy shorts and tank tops. Don’t they have the same problem? The German women’s gymnastics team are wearing unitards instead of leotards, to cover up the legs, but the top of the unitard has a deeply-plunging neckline. It’s filled in with flesh-colored fabric, but it sure does look daring. Did they just swap one sexualization for another?

I’m also fascinated by all the competitors that do not train in their home country. Or who have different nationality than the one they grew up in. Having gone to college with young adults in the same situation, i get it, but I still find it interesting.

I’m also fascinated by the athletes who endure some pretty bad training situations. Gymnastics has been rife with it; Karoliy was notoriously harsh. And yet, the young people prevail. And athletes whose training is impacted by war, natural disasters, economics.

When DS was in high school he had an opportunity (not athletic) that would impact his school schedule. Before pursuing it, we checked in with the school for how that could all be managed. The counselor said ”oh, no problem, we do it all the time for students, like athletes, musicians, performers.” We are just a sleepy suburban town but we do have some talented kids with the means to pursue their dreams, without going to a specialty high school. (we have an Olympic silver medalist!) Our nephew went to a sports high school in another country: a quality education, because most of the students would go on to university, but half your day was dedicated to training and your sport. Not everyone has that opportunity. So the Olympics can seem pretty elitist.

But I love watching athletes from smaller countries who still have the drive and desire to compete in this event. THAT’S the cool part of the Olympics.
Elmer J Fudd
2 years ago
"Tunisia just won a gold medal in the swimming...and the whole world (well those that were watching) just got to hear the TuniisIan National Anthem THATS what I love about the Olympics."

National anthems for most (all?) nations are available to hear on You Tube. If you listen there, you can be confident that they are brought to you free of child or sexual abuse of participants and free of financial and political corruption.
Annegriet thanked Elmer J Fudd
raee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio
2 years ago
I love to watch many of the competitions in admiration of the athleticism and achievement. In particular I will be watching most if not all of the cycling events.

One thing I loved when I went to watch the UCI World Cycling Championships (in Richmond Va in 2015), was seeing all of the Eritrean - and other, but most markedly Eritrean - immigrants who turned out to cheer on and celebrate their lone competitor. It is the same for the Olympics - it is great to see the not-powerhouse countries get a share of the world stage. Also getting to meet and chat a little with some competitors, even world famous ones -- I even got to hold one athlete's silver medal while he took my picture!

But the event didn't serve to showcase Richmond so much - all the beautiful but indefensible monuments to the traitors of the civil war, and the many many empty storefronts along the main streets...while US media pretty much ignored the event. Fortunately it didn't involve creating infrastructure for the races.

However, despite that, I do agree with all of the criticisms, particularly the corruption and the enormous unjustifiable expense of hosting the Olympics. I do think it should go the way of the World's Fairs, barring significant changes to stop the abuses.
bpath
2 years ago
So I watched foil fencing today, and it took me back to our fencing units in high school Pe. Boy, that was a workout! Over lunch we watched street skateboarding. It wasn’t a course but one trick on a stair railing. why aren’t those guys wearing helmets? Unless their caps are actually helmets? At least they all landed on their bottoms, not their heads. Still, makes me appreciate the kids I see at the skate park. Anyway,I think there are more skatboard events, we will check those out.

I watched water polo. When i was a ”band mom” at the high school, we had football suppers on friday, and the water polo players would be coming in from a game. You could always tell them by the gashes on their bodies! ouch! I imagine water polo is better in person than on tv.

Oh, and 3x3 basketball, that was fun. And short!
LoneJack Zn 6a, KC
2 years ago
No, not interested for a variety of reasons.
Mystical Manns
2 years ago
Watching as much as I can, I enjoy seeing the highest examples from the different countries and root for them all. :)
aok27502
2 years ago
I admire the athleticism, no matter the sport. Well, except USA basketball. Could do without seeing every single minute of this stupid game. And we don't have the required devices to watch other broadcasts. So, mute it is!
chisue
2 years ago
A little OT: Does anyone miss the "Miss America" pagents? (Another commercial event that persisted well beyond its sell-by date, with similar abuses.)
nhbaskets
2 years ago
I’ll be watching everyday as much as I can. Call me a sports junkie and the Olympics takes it to another level.

Will be cheering for the US and especially our local athletes, Jessica Parratto competing in 10 meter synchronized platform diving and Elle Purrier in 1500 meter track.
dedtired
2 years ago
Chisue, no i dont miss the Miss America pageant at all. she was definitely held up as ” my ideal” when I was a kid. i remember having a discussion with my father about what my talent would be if and when i competed. That was when I was about six. Ugh what an awful example for young girls. Cant believe how long it persisted.

However, I adored the women who were figure skaters, like Tenley Albright and Carol Heiss.
katlan
2 years ago
Nope.
arcy_gw
2 years ago
We enjoy watching a few of the events. Certainly not all. I am more and more turned off by the human exploitation that goes on surrounding these types of events. The latest is the controversy over the women's sand volleyball teams required bikini get up. I was really hoping for a collective walk out/refusal to compete. We have not come along way baby!!
dedtired
2 years ago
I love that ”khaki pants guy” is back! Steve Kornacki
bragu_DSM 5
2 years ago
glad they don't have smello-vision ... teen-age boy funk smell personified
Annegriet
Original Author
2 years ago
I love the "Here she is Miss America...." commercial featuring women athletes!
Elmer J Fudd
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
In today's news, yet another repulsive incident and scandal affecting a person (Alberto Salazar) described as "once a prominent Nike coach of some of the world’s top distance runners". He's been permanently barred from the world of track and field because of sexual and emotional misconduct. He was currently serving a suspension for administering banned performance enhancing substances.

Thoughtful parents don't let their kids get anywhere near toxic sports programs that have almost prison-like training programs that the path to elite sports performance often requires. Hours and hours of practice and training routines most days of the week, inculcating perverted values overemphasizing the wrong things in life. Most who leave these programs, when adults, look back at their experiences and missed childhoods with mixed feelings but also usually with regret.

Still want to watch the Olympics?
LoneJack Zn 6a, KC
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
Had to look up inculcating! I doubt I will ever remember its meaning or use it myself.

I doubt the archers have a very grueling training program. Go out and fling some arrows for an hour or 2 each day.

I didn't want to watch earlier and still don't want to watch.
Annegriet thanked LoneJack Zn 6a, KC
Elmer J Fudd
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
Here's info from etymology online: "from Latin inculcatus, past participle of inculcare "force upon, insist; stamp in, impress, tread down," ". It's a more polite and gentle word that means about the same as "brainwash". If you've known any kids in intense "elite" sports programs as I have, parents get brainwashed too.

English is a rich language because of historical influences and its greater openness (compared to other languages) to create new words and also to accept others of foreign origin. Not always but there frequently can be one word that focuses the sense of a thought or a situation better than others and I think inculcate is an example.
LoneJack Zn 6a, KC
2 years ago
I can remember and spell brainwash
Elmer J Fudd
2 years ago
But inculcate hits heads more gently than brainwash. Brainwash (at least for me) conjures up the notion of something nefarious or illegal. Inculcate can relate to what some do with arbitrary dogma of whatever kind that's wrong-headed, ignorant, ill-advised or unbalanced.
LoneJack Zn 6a, KC
2 years ago
Only if those you are speaking too understand the meaning. Remember I am a redneck hillbilly living in the heartland. Brainwash will do me fine.
Annegriet thanked LoneJack Zn 6a, KC
Zalco/bring back Sophie!
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
Elmer, I don't believe inculcate is an inherently derogatory word. It's meaning is neutral. I inculcated the importance of punctuality in my children, for example.

See from the Oxford dictionary online:

inculcate

verb

/ˈɪnkʌlkeɪt/

/ɪnˈkʌlkeɪt/

(formal)

Verb Forms
1. to cause somebody to learn and remember ideas, moral principles, etc., especially by repeating them ofteninculcate something (in/into somebody) to inculcate a sense of responsibility in somebody
  inculcate somebody with somethingto inculcate somebody with a sense of responsibility
Or here from Webster's:

Definition of inculcate

transitive verb

: to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions
lucillle
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
My heart goes out to Simone Biles, who stepped down because of stress.
Annegriet thanked lucillle
bpath
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
That pressure and misconduct is not limited to the Olympics. The Olympics is a drop in the athletic bucket. If I didn’t watch the Olympics for that reason, I probably wouldn’t watch most sports. Or listen to classical music. or follow the Scripps Spelling Bee.

I find I’m not watching the Olympics now because I can’t figure what is on when and where. NBC, NBCSports, Peacock, I think there’s another.

I feel for Simone Biles. I was also picturing the NBC folks scrambling to cover that story but also figuring out how to cover gymnastics now that their lead story is out!
Annegriet
Original Author
2 years ago
Me too Lucille. I feel awful for Simone.
Elmer J Fudd
2 years ago
zalco, as I've heard the word used, it seems to often have a rougher edge, perhaps in criticism and suggesting needless or wrongful coercion is involved. But no matter.

lonejack, I'm sure you're not a redneck hillbilly, that may just be how you were brainwashed to think about yourself.
arcy_gw
2 years ago
So much for GOAT. The affects of trauma are not to be down played. The challenge to "then watch no sports" if the cesspool at the Olympics is too much is one I already met. I watch ZERO sports EVER. MN hosted the Super bowl not long ago and the SHOCK of the cesspool that surrounds THAT would have shut me down--if I ever--but I don't. I really have never understood the HOURS families invest is things that have no lasting future. Why not put kids in activities that will last a lifetime??? Music/drama/design/art....there's sooo much to life.
LoneJack Zn 6a, KC
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
There is a place for sports in life if one chooses to participate. Sports can provide a good source of exercise, entertainment, healthy competition, teamwork building, and many other worthwhile things. There is plenty of room for both sports and the arts in life if one so chooses.

The problem I see in competitive youth sports is that sometimes the child initially chooses to participate and then is forced by the parent to continue even if they do not enjoy it. The parent(s) is living vicariously through their child with the dream of them someday making it to the big time or at least getting a free college education. Same difference if a child is forced into piano or violin lessons.
lucillle
2 years ago
I agree, it is all about choice. I have a friend and she and her husband have always loved baseball. Their son played when he was young and enjoyed it, now grown and on his own, when he comes home to visit father and son will sometimes go play in a community game. It is obvious there are a lot of good family memories.
bragu_DSM 5
2 years ago
lone jack, oh thee 150 miles south of me, are you saying you couldn't inculcate someone to drink a beer and cook a steak on the barby? Come on man ...
sjerin
2 years ago
Back to the original question, yes, I'm watching a little, though am really turned off when the cameras zoom in on an athlete's face and follows her/his every move while waiting to compete. Yes, I'm thinking of Ms. Biles. Get the cameras back and give her some space!
lucillle
2 years ago
I am furious with Aaron Reitz, Texas Deputy Attorney General, who wrote a tweet calling Simone Biles a “selfish, childish national embarrassment.” Simone put her own health first. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm horrified that someone would shame her actions, she has tried so hard and given years of her life practicing, but she felt that she might be facing an injury and she wasn't ready at the time.
nicole___
2 years ago
Arcy....none of these athletes need a lasting future. They have more money than most make in a lifetime. And....more power to them!
bragu_DSM 5
2 years ago
Biles is a national embarrasment ... she would have gotten more mileage if she perservered and competed, and then told her story afterwards.
Elmer J Fudd
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
Other gymnasts don't think so. As with everything else, I think those in the know are better placed to make an assessment than are others lacking information and insights but carping from a distance all the same.
maddielee
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
“Biles is a national embarrasment ... she would have gotten more mileage if she perservered and competed, and then told her story afterwards.”

This statement goes to show that some people think they have rights over how someone else lives. Everyone should have the final say in what affects their own health.
Zalco/bring back Sophie!
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
Biles is a national embarrasment (sic) she would have gotten more mileage if she perservered (sic) and competed, and then told her story afterwards

One of the greatest gymnasts of all time, who contiued in a sport in part so that the doctor who se&ually abused her and her teammates would not be allowed to slither out of our collective consciousness is being lectured to about the need to persist? Simone Biles is a world star gymnast, she got to that point through a super human ability to persevere through mental, physical and emotional challenges, the likes of which we, non-world class, not children abused by our doctors, mortals can barely fathom. Those with the gall to criticize her decisions are mentally and physically lazy trolls. They are the cause of our national embarrassment many times over.
Zalco/bring back Sophie!
2 years ago
Nocole, I DMed you.

Anybody watching the Olympics?

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