Rio 2016 Olympics

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While we are on the topic of swimming, can somebody more in tune with the sport than me explain why there should be 4 styles in competition at the Olympics? It just seems to defy the faster, stronger, higher sort of credo...why have the backstroke, for example? Would anybody run backwards when it's clear that forward is faster? You have the freestyle, which I totally understand but the others and so many of them and the medleys and the relays and I think it's worth a look at cutting some of them.

I think it kind of cheapens the sport to be honest...
 
Seems a pretty arbitrary comment. Why not get rid of the triple jump and the hurdles and everything else as well, just leave the 100m freestyle and 100m sprint.

However I would like to see to the breaststroke, which is ugly as fuck to watch, replaced with the doggy paddle.
 
In track news, today has certainly been exciting. You have the US Women's 4x100 relay team dropping a baton, but getting to re-run the race because Brazil encroached. Then they run by themselves and end up with the fastest time. That's not going to make a lot of people happy.

Ashton Eaton wins his 2nd Olympic decathlon.
And it was a great day for athletes from my Alma mater, Dalilah Muhammad dominates the 400 Hurdles and Andre DeGrasse wins a silver behind the greatest sprinter in history, Usain Bolt.

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Seems a pretty arbitrary comment. Why not get rid of the triple jump and the hurdles and everything else as well, just leave the 100m freestyle and 100m sprint.

However I would like to see to the breaststroke, which is ugly as fuck to watch, replaced with the doggy paddle.

No offense but that's ridiculous. Triple jump isn't a track event even.

I would get rid of the steeple chase for sure, that's an example in track that I think is unnecessary. You want to run over hills and water, have a cross country race.
 
I really don't get it. It's about being faster within a common set of rules. Which the different styles provide. This would be like only having one sailing competition with the faster boats, removing the Laser and other slower classes. The athletic march is another example.
 
I can't help but note the disproportionate amount of medals open to an individual swimmer though. If you compete in any other sport you have no chance of ever being able to win that many.
 
I can't help but note the disproportionate amount of medals open to an individual swimmer though. If you compete in any other sport you have no chance of ever being able to win that many.



Dunno about that. Aside from Phelps, the all-time top medal winners are gymnasts.

Speaking of which, do we really need all those different events? An all-around *and* a team competition.

Just have a floor routine and move on. No one uses the uneven bars in real life. Completely ridiculous.
 
I guess for me the Olympics have kind of become so unmanageable in terms of sports, especially in the summer. I think we can cull some events down in swimming and in track (I don't think we need the 400 hurdles either).

And gymnastic multi-medal winners are a bit deceiving as many of those won back in the day when women competed into their 20s and 30s. No way are you doing 3 Olympics these days like Phelps AND being that competitive. Swimming is the only sport where this is remotely doable.
 
I don't have a problem with the amount of events. It's the way the medal table is constructed that I find somewhat problematic. Not sure how to fix it, but it certainly undervalues collective sports, where you usually have to play so many games through the entire two weeks.
 
watching the finish line of the 50km race walk is amazing. it's like there's a force field that makes everyone turn into a drunken irishman trying to cross a frozen lake as soon as they cross the line.
 
That French guy who led the 50km for a while was described and having experienced "intestinal problems" during the race. That can't be good.
 
watching the finish line of the 50km race walk is amazing. it's like there's a force field that makes everyone turn into a drunken irishman trying to cross a frozen lake as soon as they cross the line.

They always look to me like they are trying to hold in a bowel movement until they can speed walk to the toilet. :lol:

Interesting take on the ridiculous Gabby Douglas "controversy" in comparison to Lochte and the swimmers.

White Male Privilege Is Why We Laugh At Lochte And Vilify Douglas
 
I for one love the different events. I LOVE watching hurdles. It's mind boggling to me as I can barely run a straight line without falling. And the relays are my favorite. I think the Olympics is great in spotlighting lesser known sports. This morning, I watched badminton, race walking and show jumping.

As for competing in multiple olympics, it depends on the sport. Equestrian riders can complete in many Olympics as can sailors. There was a wrestler that was going for her 3rd straight Gold. The Williams sisters have competed in 4 games. These days, with the advances in training and medical care, it does seem that competitors can compete longer even in the more physically demanding sports. Gymnastics may actually be an outlier here because of how hard it is on the body.

I strongly encourage you all to watch the Women's Water Polo final. The US team is great, and it's a brutal sport. The US Goalkeeper is ridiculous. I loved playing when I was in high school, swimming was boring.
 
yea i'm a fan of all the different events. i don't really care about the medal table. i get a little bored of swimming and gymnastics by the end of it, but now when i can watch any event live on demand it doesn't bother me too much.

cbc just broadcast a car karaoke video they made with half a dozen members of the canadian women's soccer team and the talking heads in the studio proceeded to talk over the entire thing to the point where you actually couldn't tell what song they were even doing. :huh:

google with the deliciously sarcastic choice of image for the 4x100m relay:

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finally, lochte is #sorrynotsorry:

CqOl6TGWEAINCml.jpg


"I like, went to this club. Was cray cray, I was so wasted. We got some dude to take us back but I had to piss so we stop at this shithole gas station. Fucking doors locked man. Fuckers aren't stopping me though, I'm murican. So I kick down that door with one unstoppable roundhouse and we go piss on the floor to show them who's boss. Wouldn't you know it, some rent a cop starts yellin some jibberish at us and waving a gun. I'm like bro, I had to piss, door had to go. He just kept going on his voodoo speak so I tossed dude a couple hundo's and bailed. Now dudes all pissed that I went and told everyone how awesome I was. Haters. So yea murica, I'm sorry bro."

"Uh, I think we'll go ahead and release our apology statement instead Ryan"
 
As for competing in multiple olympics, it depends on the sport. Equestrian riders can complete in many Olympics as can sailors. There was a wrestler that was going for her 3rd straight Gold. The Williams sisters have competed in 4 games. These days, with the advances in training and medical care, it does seem that competitors can compete longer even in the more physically demanding sports. Gymnastics may actually be an outlier here because of how hard it is on the body.


absolutely. i think we're going to see longer and longer careers in many sports, and likely more people with multiple Olympic medals, particularly given how lucrative Olympic sports can be (Bolt, Kim Yuna, etc.)

there's only one swimmer in the top 10 of all-time medalists, Phelps. the rest are gymnastics (4 entrants), biathalon, fencing, and athletics. you get more swimmers in the top 20, but they are all Americans who make multiple appearances on relays.

it really is a mistake to look at Phelps and think that he is somehow indicative of the opportunities available to the typical Olympic swimmer. he has 28 medals, 23 of them gold. the next closest male medalist is International Supervillain Ryan Lochte who has 12. only 6 of those are gold. Phelps achieves on a level 2-3x that of the absolute best swimmers in history. we could even pretend that Phelps isn't an American, and isn't swimming on 3 medal winning relays during the Olympics, and he still has easily the most individual gold medals (and, without having to mentally and physically perform on the relays, you could argue that his individual performances would be even better as he'd have fewer overall events and more rest). on the list of individual gold medals, Phelps has the most golds (13 compared to #2 with 8) and overall medals (16 compared to #2 with 14) and he's the only swimmer in the top 10, and only 1 of 2 in the top 20 (the other being Egerszegi of Hungary).

there's a video of the Australian swim team at a press conference looking kind of shell shocked and trying to explain their lackluster performance to the media, and Mitch Larkin says something to the effect of, "i know that Michael Phelps makes it look easy, but winning one medal, let alone several medals, is really incredibly hard." and i think that's broadly true -- people who only see swimming once every four years see Phelps and think this is somehow expected or probable. it's not. it's unimaginable. not impossible, as, yes, there are multiple events in swimming and it isn't as rough on your body as running. but he's such an outlier within the sport itself.

also, i wasn't aware that there was a Gabby Douglas controversy? i guess a few people on twitter says something about her not putting her hand over her heart? these people are idiots and fools and likely Trump voters, but is this really something from which we can extrapolate "how we talk" about social issues? i'm getting tired of articles where people take a few dumb tweets as indicative of what "many people are saying" about this and that social issue. i can take (and agree with) the broader point(s), but these are awfully sweeping statements to make.
 
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absolutely. i think we're going to see longer and longer careers in many sports, and likely more people with multiple Olympic medals, particularly given how lucrative Olympic sports can be (Bolt, Kim Yuna, etc.)

there's only one swimmer in the top 10 of all-time medalists, Phelps. the rest are gymnastics (4 entrants), biathalon, fencing, and athletics. you get more swimmers in the top 20, but they are all Americans who make multiple appearances on relays.

and that's exactly it. in sports with many individual and team competitions, where the teams usually comprise those who are most successful in the individual competitions, people are inherently going to get lots of medals over their careers. the only way to change it is to take out a ton of events, which would be an absolutely silly thing for any competition to do if cost and time isn't a big factor. even the ability to say someone is "going for six medals" creates hype, regardless of if they win or not. there's a reason swimming, gymnastics, and athletics (also speed skating) are the most popular tv events every olympics.
 
And gymnastics, like figure skating, has the drama of judges, as well as being highly visually appealing. There's also the baked in drama of girls going after their dreams while mom watches in the stands -- NBC needs that shit for ratings.
 
pretty sure they woulda called this guy "hercules" about 3500 years ago:

eleftherios-petrounias_still-rings_rio-olympics_ap.jpg


[historynerd]"herakles"[/historynerd]
 
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Leave it the the 4x100 relay to bring drama. The USA Women dominated from lane 1. Impressive.
Usain Bolt was incredible on his anchor leg to win gold. Japan was so far ahead of the USA and Canada after the 3rd leg they won silver.
And the USA. Oh the USA. Thought they won Bronze, did a victory lap, then saw they were DQ'd on the board. Ouch. Thus Canada wins the bronze. Wow.

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It's a shame the hammer throw and pole vault were on at the same time (especially as the hammer throw winner was the first ever gold medal for Tajikistan). I hadn't seen any hammer throw these games, but pole vault is my favourite athletics event so it was a no-brainer, especially with Eliza McCartney seemingly coming from nowhere to win bronze for New Zealand with such joy. Then the tense competition between Stefanidi and Morris for the gold was amazing - I totally thought for a second that Morris had cleared her final jump to take the gold from Stefanidi, and then down came the bar.

And, well, what can you even say about Bolt doing the triple triple. Pretty sure he's succeeded in his ambition to be spoken of in the same breath as Pele and Muhammad Ali.
 
I see no reason why male beach volleyball players can't play shirtless.

Everyone likes Top Gun.


And this is why no one cares about men's beach volleyball. The only reason people watch women's is cos they're in bikinis.
 
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