Vancouver Olympics - Part II - ATTENTION: SPOILERS

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Ohno was nowhere near Hamelin, you must be talking about Tremblay (the Canadian who went down after Ohno put his hand on his hip).

As for your unsubstantiated allegations, the Australian ref was supposed to be there, but since he currently has threats against his life for the Korean relay DQ, he was replaced for security reasons. Maybe the Koreans orchestrated this whole thing by issuing death threats so that the Canadian alternate ref could screw over Ohno. Seems totally plausible.

I know Tremblay was the one Ohno was DQed for touching, what I said was Hamelin made just as much contact with the Korean skater who also fell.

I'm not starting conspiracy theories, but if that really was his last individual Olympic race it does kind of feel like karma for how he won his first gold in 2002.
 
Was she the skater who came in 5th? That was SO BIZARRE. They mentioned Rachael was in second, but didn't say who was in first - then of course you saw her name when they flashed the standings, and then at the end with the final standings, they skipped over #6!

WTF, NBC? Rude.

I'm so pleased with the results. Yu-Nam Kim was amazing. I felt really bad for Mao Asada - she makes history with TWO triple axels, and she still can't beat Yu-Na. Mirai was soooo good - I was wondering if she'd slip into third place, but glad Joannie got the bronze.

And yay for Rachael - she's not my favorite skater, but she skated a great program and was clearly so proud of herself, and rightly so.

I agree with Scott Hamilton and the woman announcer (forgot her name) that Rachael was graded poorly and the judges were exceptionally harsh on her compared to the other skaters. Maybe they had already made up their minds that Kim, Mao and Joannie were going to medal and no one could interfere with that, I don't know. I think that new scoring system is worse than the old one, at least before you could see which judge did what!

There is no way Rachael was worse than the slower, awkward skating of the Japanese girl who came in 5th. I was very impressed by the US girl in 4th, but glad Joannie got the bronze. I was worried when she stumbled on one of her jumps. Kim is awesome, but she was a bit overhyped. I feel sorry for Mao, two triple axels wasn't enough to overcome the star machine.
 
Random note: gymnastics/figure skating/etc. announcers who say that the person who just went is currently in 2nd/3rd/nth place when there are still 20 competitors to go are idiots.
 
Point taken...

As for the skating gala, I nearly cried when that Canadian skated for her mother. Even though I didn't understand the lyrics of the song, it was a beautiful performance.

It's a Céline Dion song and it's call "Vol"(in french).She did an english version call "Fly". It was wrote after the death of her niece of Cystic Fibroses.Many people are using it at funeral of a close person (family or friends).Like Céline Dion or not,it is a poignant song.

YouTube - Celine Dion - Fly
 
What are they supposed to do, lie?

How about posting the current scores (or at least those of the notables), distinguishing those competitors who have already done their routines from those who are still to come? Saying that someone is in whatever place before the current round is over is a lie.

"Despite falling off the beam twice and having her left breast pop out of her leotard, Alicia Sacramone's score of 2.5 is good enough to catapult her into first place." I might have embellished that a little bit, but it's not far off from the way NBC routinely announces scores.
 
I've got the Slovakia-Finland game on the French channel.

Individually, I prefer the Finnish players but Slovakia has given it their all this tournament and has never won a medal in Olympic hockey so I'm hoping they get the bronze :up:

ETA: I really hope Halak can play this well when he resumes play with the Habs next week!
 
How about posting the current scores (or at least those of the notables), distinguishing those competitors who have already done their routines from those who are still to come?

"Despite falling off the beam twice and having her left breast pop out of her leotard, Alicia Sacramone's score of 2.5 is good enough to catapult her into first place." I might have embellished that a little bit, but it's not far off from the way NBC routinely announces scores.


I guess I'm not sure what you mean. The rankings change as the competition progresses. There's nothing to post for those who haven't competed yet, so obviously the first 3 of 20 are going to stand 1, 2, and 3 for the time being. I don't see how that is misleading.

In gymnastics you would not see rankings posted until the entire rotation was finished. They can't just make up a ranking based on previous scores.
 
I guess I'm not sure what you mean. The rankings change as the competition progresses. There's nothing to post for those who haven't competed yet, so obviously the first 3 of 20 are going to stand 1, 2, and 3 for the time being. I don't see how that is misleading.

In gymnastics you would not see rankings posted until the entire rotation was finished. They can't just make up a ranking based on previous scores.

It's pretty dumb to say that competitor X is in first place if he/she has a 1 point lead over the field after finishing one extra round/rotation if the average scores per round are around 15 points, but NBC does this all the time without telling the audience how big the lead is.

In golf, the network periodically posts everyone's scores along with where they are in the tournament. So you might see that Sergio Garcia is currently in the "lead" having finished the Masters at 13 shots under par, but Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are both 12 shots under par with 9 holes to go. You'd conclude that Garcia isn't very likely to hang on to his lead. This is correct procedure.
 
I guess I still don't get it. I watched, attended live and/or competed in gymnastics for nearly 20 years and have never heard of standings announced or guestimated as you describe. I guess if one is watching skating and misunderstands the current standings, they may just not be familiar enough with the sport or the athletes to accurately guess how things might play out. I really don't see any value in NBC making fools of themselves trying to publicly guess who is really going to win, since it can easily turn into a falling fest even among the top contenders.

In gymnastics there are "start values" for every routine. Fans are aware of each athlete's start values so yes, even people who are ranked at the top after one or a few rotations can be guaranteed to move down if their start values are less. If their routines are perfect, they can still be scored less than someone who falls. But even then, any athlete can alter their routine and change the start value, which also immediately changes if an athlete falls or misses doing skills in combination. Also in event finals, gymnasts are simply ranked as they compete, since there is no combining of previous scores.
 
The point is that in any sport where scores are cumulative, comparing players' scores without noting the number of rounds they have completed is meaningless (replace any of these events with, say, bowling or darts, and it becomes immediately clear how ridiculous it is).
 
It's pretty dumb to say that competitor X is in first place if he/she has a 1 point lead over the field after finishing one extra round/rotation if the average scores per round are around 15 points, but NBC does this all the time without telling the audience how big the lead is.

In golf, the network periodically posts everyone's scores along with where they are in the tournament. So you might see that Sergio Garcia is currently in the "lead" having finished the Masters at 13 shots under par, but Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are both 12 shots under par with 9 holes to go. You'd conclude that Garcia isn't very likely to hang on to his lead. This is correct procedure.


. . .lol "correct procedure." No. The correct procedure is giving the placement based on the scores at the time.

NBC does a fine job of telling the viewer that competitor X is currently in first place, second place, whatever, because, in fact, at that moment the competitor is actually in that place. :shrug:
 
The point is that in any sport where scores are cumulative, comparing players' scores without noting the number of rounds they have completed is meaningless (replace any of these events with, say, bowling or darts, and it becomes immediately clear how ridiculous it is).

I've watched nearly every second of primetime Olympic coverage and they always announce (and re-announce after commercials) which leg/run/round the competition is on. It's not meaningless to me, I like to see the scores/times and the standings. Hockey is cumulative, should they not post or announce the score until the end?
 
. . .lol "correct procedure." No. The correct procedure is giving the placement based on the scores at the time.

NBC does a fine job of telling the viewer that competitor X is currently in first place, second place, whatever, because, in fact, at that moment the competitor is actually in that place. :shrug:

I've watched nearly every second of primetime Olympic coverage and they always announce (and re-announce after commercials) which leg/run/round the competition is on. It's not meaningless to me, I like to see the scores/times and the standings. Hockey is cumulative, should they not post or announce the score until the end?

:yes:

And I don't know about everyone else, but I'm smart enough to figure out when an announcers says "Jane Smith is currently in first place" that generally means there are more competitors yet to come and the results may change.
 
I've watched nearly every second of primetime Olympic coverage and they always announce (and re-announce after commercials) which leg/run/round the competition is on. It's not meaningless to me, I like to see the scores/times and the standings. Hockey is cumulative, should they not post or announce the score until the end?

If I'm bowling against someone else, I go first, and knock down one pin in the first frame, would you rather be told that I've just taken the lead, or that I'm ahead 1-0 in the first frame, with the other guy up to bowl? The former is much closer to what NBC does than the latter.

In events with multiple rounds, there's no reason not to post an updated leaderboard after every contestant goes so that viewers can see who's already gone, who hasn't, and how much ground the contestants to come need to make up.
 
If I'm bowling against someone else, I go first, and knock down one pin in the first frame, would you rather be told that I've just taken the lead, or that I'm ahead 1-0 in the first frame, with the other guy up to bowl?

I don't really see a difference.

I like to know the score/time as it happens. Often the competitors do to. At least in gymnastics, it's nice to know what the people ahead of you put up so you know what you need to get the place you want (but other competitors might say they'd rather not know). Sometimes you can be conservative; other times you might have to throw in that difficult skill. I imagine in a timed event, some competitors would want to know the current standings. In skating you see them sitting there waiting for their score and then waiting quite intensely for their ranking. Bowling is not really comparable since you are doing the same thing every single time. There's no "start value".
 
I don't really see a difference.

I like to know the score/time as it happens. Often the competitors do to. At least in gymnastics, it's nice to know what the people ahead of you put up so you know what you need to get the place you want (but other competitors might say they'd rather not know). Sometimes you can be conservative; other times you might have to throw in that difficult skill. I imagine in a timed event, some competitors would want to know the current standings. In skating you see them sitting there waiting for their score and then waiting quite intensely for their ranking. Bowling is not really comparable since you are doing the same thing every single time. There's no "start value".

The competitor has access to the complete scoreboard. The television viewer does not. Seeing the top three skating scores tells you where they are in relation to each other, but really is of limited value without knowing the scores of the skaters who have yet to compete, and NBC often doesn't provide the latter information. There's a big difference between having a 150-point lead on the field and having a 80-point lead on the field.

Things get even worse in diving, where the range of possible scores is so wide that divers who have finished an extra dive can have similar scores to divers who haven't, and a viewer who tunes in late/flipped from the volleyball game on CNBC/forgot the standings from an hour ago might not be able to tell that one of them has already gone up.
 
We must be watching different broadcasts then b/c my NBC has always said which run of which they are on, or which number of six in which group the skater is skating, etc. Plus in many sports, they qualify into the order they are competing, or the order is reversed (which NBC has always said). I disagree that knowing the score before the rest of the skaters compete has limited value. I like to know how it compares to their earlier scores of the season, their start value (or whatever it's called in skating), if any jumps were down graded, etc. Not everyone is only watching to see the final top standings. This was one of the first times ever (in skating or gymnastics) where the athletes I was following were actually top contenders. Often I don't really care at all what the final standings are going to be because my favorites aren't in contention.
 
gold medal face off in 6 hours!

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