Rio 2016 Olympics

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Ugh can the commentators stop talking about the "men" and the "girls"?
 
You're going to have to explain this, because it's not as if the US is struggling for medals in swimming specifically or the Olympics in general. In broad terms, I support anybody who is not representing Australia, China, or the US because it's so fucking boring watching those three countries win medals. As soon as I hear any of those three has won a medal I tune out.



RIO DE JANEIRO — The pursuit of an Olympic medal can be singular and isolating, and the steps it takes to swim two lengths of the pool as fast as possible are filled with details. The athletes assembled here at Olympic Aquatics Stadium are forgiven, then, for some level of self-absorption. They couldn’t have arrived at this spot without it.

But when Simone Manuel touched the wall at the end of the women’s 100-meter freestyle at the Rio Olympics, when she blinked out the chlorine and could see the clock, she knew. This was a gold medal for her, of course, but she shared it. Those in the arena knew what that meant, because the scoreboard showed 52.70 seconds, an Olympic record, for both Manuel and Canadian teenager Penny Oleksiak — a dead heat that meant both took gold.

Manuel, though, shared it with a wider audience — all young African-American girls. None had ever before won an individual Olympic medal in swimming. After preparation that took a lifetime, Manuel thus became a role model in less than a minute.

“Hopefully it will get them inspired,” Manuel said. “The gold medal wasn’t just for me. It was for people who came before me and inspired me to stay in this sport, and for people who believe that they can’t do it. I hope that I’m an inspiration to others to get out there and try swimming. They might be pretty good at it.”

Manuel’s performance was not only significant, it was stunning. The field consisted not just of the 16-year-old Oleksiak, who entered the event with three medals already to her credit, but with more formidable opponents all around. Australia’s Cate Campbell was the top seed, the world-record holder — indeed, swimmer of six of the eight fastest times in history — who swam the anchor leg of the Aussies’ gold-medal winning 4x100 relay team earlier in the meet. Cate’s younger sister Bronte had a personal best that made her the third fastest in the event’s history. A gold-silver finish not just for Australia, but for the Campbell family of Brisbane, seemed plausible.

Manuel, a 20-year-old from Sugar Land, Texas, hadn’t come here expecting such a performance. She had, though, arrived with a sense of what her participation meant. She and Lia Neal, a teammate of Manuel’s at Stanford, gave the U.S. women’s team two African-American swimmers for the first time. But Manuel has struggled with embracing her role as, as she said, a “black swimmer,” and shoving it aside.

“Just coming into this race tonight, I kind of tried to take the weight of the black community off my shoulders, which is something I carry with me just being in this position,” Manuel said. “But I do hope that it kind of goes away. . . . The title ‘black swimmer’ makes it seem like I’m not supposed to be able to win a gold medal or I’m not supposed to break records. And that’s not true.”


Yet Manuel had largely struggled en route to her first Olympics, failing to post a best time at U.S. trials. She finally did that in semifinals of the 100 here, a 53.11, but even that was just the sixth-best time in the world this year.

“I haven’t gotten best times in a while in long course,” she said, differentiating from the distance she swims in college. “It was time.”

Manuel’s start was solid, and she swam well over the first 50 meters, turning in third. But Cate Campbell was there, as expected, in first, a blistering 24.77 seconds. Bronte trailed her by a quarter of a second. Manuel was fighting for a medal, for sure, but a gold seemed unlikely.

But from there, the Campbells inexplicably fell off. Cate’s last 50 was 28.47 seconds, and she finished sixth. Bronte’s final length was 28.00, and she finished fourth. And here came Manuel and Oleksiak.

“That was a big shock for everyone in the final,” said bronze medalist Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden. “. . . I think that was the biggest surprise so far of this competition.”

Both Oleksiak and Manuel reached for the wall. They both touched. A single light — indicating first — lit up on each of their starting blocks.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m on the medal stand,’ ” Manuel said. “And then I turned around and saw the ‘1’ by my name, and I was super-surprised.”

Manuel thought about predecessors and contemporaries — particularly Cullen Jones, an African-American gold medalist before her, and Neal, her teammate and friend. But she knows, too, that when Michael Phelps wins a race, he can just break it down. He isn’t asked the kind of broad societal questions she faces.

“It means a lot, especially with what’s going on in the world today, just with some of the issues with police brutality,” Manuel said. “This win kind of helps bring hope and change to some of the issues that are going on in the world. I went out there and swam as fast as I could, and my color just comes with the territory.”

She tried, as so many gold medalists have before her, to hold back tears. She couldn’t. But the tears weren’t just for her pursuit. Phelps has changed swimming by his unprecedented accomplishments. But somehow, in one race, Manuel made his changes seem narrow.


“I’m super-glad with the fact that I can be an inspiration to others and hopefully diversify the sport,” she said. “But at the same time I would like there to be a day where there are more of us and it’s not, ‘Simone, the black swimmer.’ ”

How about: Simone, the Olympic champion.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...cc3fe6-603d-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html


my comment about "good for the sport" was a bit US-centric, but it's always great when a POC wins in swimming.

it's traditionally been a country-club sport, which generally means white (although Japan has a long, illustrious swimming history). the more that changes, the more athletes like Simone we have, the more young kids from all walks of life, all communities, get involved in the sport, it's good for everyone.

i swim frequently at a pool where the youth swim team is at least 75% black. there are posters up on the wall of black swimmers who have achieved at the highest levels. i imagine Simone is going to get a big place on that wall, and she is going to inspire lots of kids who look like her to stick with swimming. and what's doubly-great is that, in swimming, female swimmers are as admired and respected and cheered for as their male counterparts. she'll inspire girls and boys.

lastly, learning how to swim is not just for fun or sport, it's a safety issue. minority kids drown at rates much higher than their white counterparts. if more kids are enrolled in learn-to-swim programs, fewer kids will drown every summer.
 
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edit: fine, never mind, i get it. she's black and that makes it incredible and historic and amazing. let's not even bother mentioning the canadian white girl who set a shitload of records last night that was up there on the top of the podium too, she's not american therefore who gives a fuck.
 
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edit: fine, never mind, i get it. she's black and that makes it incredible and historic and amazing. let's not even bother mentioning the canadian white girl who set a shitload of records last night that was up there on the top of the podium too, she's not american therefore who gives a fuck.



yeah, for swimming, it's a big deal. teenage girls often break out at the Olympics, drop huge amounts of time, and win gold medals -- like, say, Ledecky in 2012. no black woman has won an individual gold medal before in swimming.

on all the swimming websites everyone IS talking about Oleksiak as The Next Big Thing, and i don't think that noting the historic nature of one swim automatically degrades another, as if we can't appreciate two performances at the same time.
 
wow, hope solo is a dick:

[tweet]764182934798606337[/tweet]

the full quote for context:

EZMLGQq.jpg


:rolleyes:
 
Wow, I'm glad she lost. Her little mind game drama before the last penalty was annoying enough. Good riddance, go home


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Well the whole team lost really.

Either way, sportsmanship is not her thing clearly.


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has there been a single case of zika in the first week of the olympics?

As I predicted before the Olympics, there seems to have been more cases of Zika in Florida than in Rio in the last few weeks.
 
Did we even send any male athletes to the Olympics this time?

I'm so pumped that Track&Field has started. I like swimming well enough but it gets tiresome towards the end of the first week. Though Canada did really well this time so that was nice going forward.

I liked Manuel's awesome reaction at the end of her swim. Very genuine and happy.

The 10,000 metre women's race today was the performance of these Olympics so far. To break a 23-year world record by 14 SECONDS is unreal. She actually set an OR for the second 5,000 metres of that race which is just total insanity. Wow.
 
I can genuinely say that I have never liked soccer as much as I did in the last 45 minutes. That was utterly captivating, spellbinding stuff to watch, easily the best I've ever seen. Fucking devastating loss.

I have never experienced emotions like the 90 or so seconds where Lydia Williams denied the champion Marta ... and then we got denied on the next spot kick.

Lot of people saying that Barbara was coming off her line.
 
Yeah, with USA,USA,USA, Hope Solo, G O A T, out
I was watching, good game, my heart was going both ways, would love to see Brazil get the gold, they have sacrificed so much for these games, but I know Oceania would love the gold, too. So with the cowardly Swedes advancing to semis, let's hope* they lose and bounce out with no medal.
 
Wow, stunning finish in the men's single sculls. Croatia's Damir Martin looked completely out of it with New Zealand's Mahe Drysdale well in front after moving ahead in style at the kilometre mark. Then in the final couple of hundred metres Martin absolutely surged. I was convinced he had pipped Drysdale at the post.

But it was a photo finish, and it came up that they had recorded identical times - with the tip of Drysdale's boat ahead by mere millimetres on the line. Heartbreaking for the Croat but I'm stoked New Zealand can add an extra gold to the tally. Shame Emma Twigg couldn't follow it up in the women's single sculls; she tried her guts out for bronze but couldn't quite get out of fourth.

And I'm glad the athletics has begun. Both the triple jump and steeplechase are kind of ridiculous, huh? In an entertaining way, I mean. The steeplechase looks like kids cutting a corner to splash through a puddle.
 
Did we even send any male athletes to the Olympics this time?

no kidding. here's hoping for some success in track and field. andre degrasse should do pretty well in the 100m and we also have some good athletes in taekwondo, triathlon, and wrestling who haven't even started competing yet.

So with the cowardly Swedes advancing to semis, let's hope* they lose and bounce out with no medal.

nah, i would rather canada play sweden for gold than brazil :up:
 
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Australia should be playing for a medal instead of Germany in women's soccer, but that is how it goes!

Canada are playing better right now, but what a tall task - Beat Germany for a 2nd time in a week, after never beating them before this tournament.

SUCKS to not see USA-Brazil in the Maracanã, would've been their first meeting in the World Cup/Olympics since that memorable 2011 Women's World Cup QF. That would have been outstanding. Hope they can dump Solo though, they need a new GK soon anyway. I mean technically she could probably go through 2019 WC since goalies tend to last longer, but it would be nice to not need her.

Though Sweden did have a frustrating style of play, it worked. And they didn't completely park the bus, they did attack at times. But that style of play has been used forever, not everyone can play like Japan/France. USA should've scored more than once on one of those 25+ shots they took. And Crystal Dunn should've started the game.

Still say England are the best European women's team and its a shame they couldn't go as Great Britain...or at least have the brightest future.
 
i don't know much about women's international soccer, but the canadians seem to be playing lights out in this tournament. these things more often than not seem to go to whichever team is hottest in the moment rather than the favourites going in. i see no reason why they can't beat the germans again.

enjoyed seeing usain bolt jog for at least 50m in his preliminary heat and still beat 7 guys going flat out.
 
Thiam breaking almost all her personal bests in the heptathlon. Incredible for a 21 year old under this pressure. Only the 800m to go, which is her weakest part.

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Great to see Mo Farah win back to back golds in the 10,000m. What an athlete he is.

And the long jump was incredibly entertaining. I feel for the guy who jumped very last, thinking it was a jump good enough to challenge for gold without realising his hand flicked the sand on the way through.
 
the 10k was such a great race.

hoping for brianne thiesen-eaton tonight in the women's pentathlon.

edit: bronze. attagirl :D
 
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