By The Numbers

    One kind reader said they enjoyed the trivia of the Games.  Herewith, our first such installment:


    

They are officially known as The Games of the XXXI Summer Olympiad.

They are the first games ever held in South America.

It is estimated that there will be $5.4 billion lost in productivity at work (outside of Brazil) by people watching the Games.  Although estimates differ, I am only responsible for $800 million of that total.

There are 10,500 athletes competing, from 207 nations.  Also, some refugees will be competing under the Olympic flag, I plan to address that in another post.

About 500,000 tourists are expected to visit Rio and the surrounding area during the Games.

There will be 2,084 hours of coverage across all the networks of NBC Universal.  With my six daisy-chained DVR’s, I’ll be finished watching on December 8^th.  But I’m skipping women’s weightlifting, and almost all the slalom rowing events.

As for Team USA:

 555 competitors, 191 of whom have participated in a previous Olympiad, four of those are in their fourth Games.

The youngest US Olympian is Kanak Jha, who is 16, he plays table tennis.  The oldest US Olympian is Phillip Dutton, who is 52.  He is an equestrian.

California leads the list of US representatives with 125.  Only 4 states do not have an Olympian…..Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming, three of which I’m not sure really exist.

The scuttlebutt says that the last torch bearer in the relay, and therefore the cauldron-lighter, will be soccer (football) legend Pele.

8/3 Recap:

Team Canada's soccer women lollygagged for all of 19 seconds before scoring the quickest goal in Olympic history.

Carli Lloyd picked up where she left off in the World Cup, scoring Team USA's first goal, on a header. 

The host nation got off to a good start, beating China, 3-0, again in women's soccer.

I made predictions for 5 soccer matches and got 3 correct.

Today's guesses, in men's soccer:

Denmark over Iraq, Brazil over South Africa, Germany over Mexico.