Tokyo Olympics 2020(1)

[the_debaser]

I don’t think Peaty gets enough credit. He’s as good at swimming as Bolt was as running. 

[Stopharage]

51 minutes ago, Naysonymous said:

How the fuck is he still only 27?  I mean I get the concept of time and everything but he’s been around forever and is barely in his prime?  I really like him, balls of steel for coming out but seems very happy with his life and is an eloquent guy to boot.  History will remember him kindly.  

He used to live next door to a relative and early on in his career was ridiculously arrogant and insufferable. Obviously he was only a teenager at the time and was coming to terms with his new-found fame. And there was all the muck-raking into his sexuality. 
 

When he was about 18, he knocked on their door and apologised for his previous behaviour. Sat with them for a couple of hours and just apologised for the best part of those 2 hours. Relatives are in awe of him now, said he was just a humble and ridiculously nice person. Apparently he went round and spoke to lots of the neighbours in a similar fashion. 

[Graham S]

I find Lutalo Muhammad's voice very relaxing.

[Darwock]

Can someone explain what’s going on with a couple of things here - firstly why do the Judo competitions always seem to have two bronze medalists?
 

And what’s up with Russia, receiving medals and playing Tchaikovsky instead of their national anthem, and not using their own flag? (google tells me it’s because Russia are banned for doping, except they clearly aren’t banned if they are still here winning gold medals…)

[layten]

They should never have gone ahead without allowing spectators into the venues. It loses so much without them, especially when you see a Japanese competitor doing well, you know they would be raising the roof.

[Graham S]

20 minutes ago, Darwock said:

Can someone explain what’s going on with a couple of things here - firstly why do the Judo competitions always seem to have two bronze medalists?
 

And what’s up with Russia, receiving medals and playing Tchaikovsky instead of their national anthem, and not using their own flag? (google tells me it’s because Russia are banned for doping, except they clearly aren’t banned if they are still here winning gold medals…)

A bunch of the combat sports don't have them. I guess no-one wants to get injured in a third/fourth playoff.

 

Yes, the Russian gov and the FSB had a massive state sponsored doping program, doping 1,000+ athletes who might compete at London and Sochi. At Rio, only heavily tested Russian athletes who trained outside the country were allowed to compete. I'm not up to date with the situation for this games.

 

*edit*

 

Quote

This is the outcome of a decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on 9 December 2019 banning Russia from all international sport for four years, after it was found that data provided by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency had been manipulated by Russian authorities with a goal of protecting athletes involved in its state-sponsored doping scheme. As at the 2018 Winter Olympics, WADA would allow individual cleared Russian athletes to compete neutrally under a title to be determined (which may not include the name "Russia", unlike the use of "Olympic Athletes from Russia" in 2018).[3]

Russia later filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the WADA decision.[4] The Court of Arbitration for Sport, on review of Russia's appeal of its case from WADA, ruled on 17 December 2020 to reduce the penalty that WADA had placed. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russia to participate at the Olympics and other international events, but for a period of two years, the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team". The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation.[5] Russia can appeal the decision.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Olympic_Committee_athletes_at_the_2020_Summer_Olympics

[Naysonymous]

6 minutes ago, layten said:

They should never have gone ahead without allowing spectators into the venues. It loses so much without them, especially when you see a Japanese competitor doing well, you know they would be raising the roof.

What was the alternative? Cancelling the games would cost a ridiculous amount of money and break the hearts of thousands of athletes.  It’s definitely just a case of sucking it up but i can’t see a better option.  
 

 

That stadium is cursed though.  Rebuilt for the 2019 Rugby World Cup and 2020 Olympics.  Wasn’t finished in time for the Rugby and is empty for the Games.  

[hmm]

15 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

That wouldn't help ryodi, mind you, as Discovery own Eurosport.

 

Indeed, if you do have a Discovery+ sub you'll find the live commentary stuff is just Eurosport anyway.

 

I did nearly say "but undoubtedly Eurosport are owned by some awful arseholes too" and there you go. I don't really know what you can do besides either abstain or pirate.

[hmm]

Big fan of Russia whittling their punishment down to the point where all they have to do is call themselves "not Russia WINK" but otherwise can carry on cheerily topping all the medal tables.

[Graham S]

Quite like this Discovery thing actually. It makes a nice change from so heavily covering GBR athletes all the time.

[Timbuktu]

Seeing footage of the crowds in the malls cheering on Edgar Cheung winning fencing gold and chanting “We are Hong Kong was very touching.  I didn’t expect to shed tears but I did.  Haven’t seen people coming together and actually being happy in HK for a long time.

 

 

 

[BeeJay]

5 hours ago, the_debaser said:

I don’t think Peaty gets enough credit. He’s as good at swimming as Bolt was as running. 

 

There is an arguement around swimming that the Bolt comparison should be reversed. I don't think a direct comparison is valid personally but...

 

Peaty has swam the 16 fastest 100m Breastroke races of all time, stretched out over his career. Until recently, that number was 20. Since Kamminga has taken 2 of the top 20 spots, Peaty has gone quicker 3 times, restoring the top 16 slots. Peaty is unbeaten in over 7 years in the 100m Breastroke (Long Course). We can't also forget that he is the fastest 50m breastroke swimmer too, which isn't currently an olympic event.

 

Percentage-wise, Arno Kamminga has done a 57.80 compared to Peaty's record of 56.88. That is a percentage gap of 1.62% to the next fastest in history. For Bolt, that equates to a 9.73 in the 100 free, which 3 people have achieved.

 

For me, I'll consider Peaty to be one of the all time greats of swimming if he wins the 100m Breast at Paris. Winning 3 individual gold medals in a row in olympic swimming is something that very few swimmers acheive.

 

[Sidewaysbob]

2 hours ago, Graham S said:

Quite like this Discovery thing actually. It makes a nice change from so heavily covering GBR athletes all the time.

 

But, I want to know how the home nations are doing, there is so much sport at the Olympics it's easy to lose site of the British contingent. And eurosport seem to be obsessed with handball, volley ball, basketball and tennis. They don't seem to show anything else. 

 

I'm only seeing the archery cycling because the BBC is showing the highlights of it. 

[Graham S]

I’m interested in how GBR athletes are doing too, but it’s often at the expense of the sport. That nightly highlights show seems to be about 50% puff pieces about British athletes and their families and similar fluff, and not just showing a great edit of everything exciting that happened today. Even worse watching it on catchup, as I already know the person they’re bigging up would crash out in the first round early the next morning. 

 

Still, between the bbc and this discovery thing I should be well covered.

[Mr Do 71]

50 minutes ago, Graham S said:

I’m interested in how GBR athletes are doing too, but it’s often at the expense of the sport. That nightly highlights show seems to be about 50% puff pieces about British athletes and their families and similar fluff, and not just showing a great edit of everything exciting that happened today. Even worse watching it on catchup, as I already know the person they’re bigging up would crash out in the first round early the next morning. 

 

Still, between the bbc and this discovery thing I should be well covered.

Stupid BBC. Why don’t they put all that athletes family fluff on their crappy programmes like The One Show, Morning Live, and BBC Breakfast.

[krenzler]

Olymipic archery has surprisingly been one of the most tense and enjoyable disciplines so far. Even though it seems everybody is fighting for second behind South Korea. 

[Graham S]

It's cool that this Brazilian girl is now an Olympian.

 

 

[Nick R]

2 hours ago, Graham S said:

It's cool that this Brazilian girl is now an Olympian.

 

Although the standard in the women's skateboarding event was nowhere near as high as in the men's (I think one reason the scores were much lower was that they were launching off with ollies, whereas the men had done more tricks in switch stance or nollies, and much bigger spins), it was still a fun event to watch because it was very close, with positions changing all the time. There wasn't one person dominating from start to finish.

 

For example, in the qualifying heats the Belgian did two of the smoothest, highest scoring, and most consistent runs, one of the few who didn't fall off at all - but then had bad best trick rounds so didn't qualify for the finals. And in the final, the Dutch skateboarder built up what looked like an unassailable lead with her first two runs and first trick - and then didn't land anything else so ended up in 4th.

 

Also, the women's event had a bit more variety in which parts of the course were used. In the men's everyone was sticking to the big stair rails, but in the women's event there was occasional use of other things like this: 

 

 

 

There was a lot of talk about how the women's scores were so much lower because they'd requested to be judged on the same scale as the men. Is that the way it's handled in snowboarding in the winter Olympics too? I looked up some of the 2018 snowboarding results and the men's and women's scores looked pretty similar.

[Graham S]

3 hours ago, krenzler said:

Olymipic archery has surprisingly been one of the most tense and enjoyable disciplines so far. Even though it seems everybody is fighting for second behind South Korea. 

Watched the team final thanks to this post, it was a fun 15 minutes.

[AnimeExpert2003]

 

13 year old silver medallist congratulating 13 year old gold medallist is probably going to be one of my favourite moments ever.

[MarkN]

2 hours ago, AnimeExpert2003 said:

 

13 year old silver medallist congratulating 13 year old gold medallist is probably going to be one of my favourite moments ever.

Yeah - that was properly lovely.

 

I enjoyed the event, but it doesn't seem that well designed - too much empty space, or rather too few opportunities to improvise maybe. Lots of time spent setting up for another go, rather than just doing stuff. Maybe a long thin arena would work better, with more opportunities to gain speed along the way. Maybe I'm just hankering for THPS in real life. Hey, I'm no expert. Maybe this is exactly what the competitors want.

 

The scoring seems all wrong too - if I remember correctly every "best trick" counts to the score, which discourages going for a belter and failing. Playing safe and landing them all is better than going big and failing on one. It should be best 3 of 5, or something similar. Most of these girls had more in the tank for those rounds by a long way, I reckon. It wasn't worth risking their actual best trick, so they played safe.

 

Still, my favourite event of the games so far, and looking forward to the rest of it. And yes - the loveliest atmosphere around it.

[footle]

1 hour ago, MarkN said:

Yeah - that was properly lovely.

 

I enjoyed the event, but it doesn't seem that well designed - too much empty space, or rather too few opportunities to improvise maybe. Lots of time spent setting up for another go, rather than just doing stuff. Maybe a long thin arena would work better, with more opportunities to gain speed along the way. Maybe I'm just hankering for THPS in real life. Hey, I'm no expert. Maybe this is exactly what the competitors want.

 

The scoring seems all wrong too - if I remember correctly every "best trick" counts to the score, which discourages going for a belter and failing. Playing safe and landing them all is better than going big and failing on one. It should be best 3 of 5, or something similar. Most of these girls had more in the tank for those rounds by a long way, I reckon. It wasn't worth risking their actual best trick, so they played safe.

 

Still, my favourite event of the games so far, and looking forward to the rest of it. And yes - the loveliest atmosphere around it.

The scoring was best four or five scores from two runs and five tricks. 

[MrPogo]

My knowledge of skateboarding is solely from Tony Hawk games 25 years ago, so it all looked a bit tame compared to the “continuous string of tricks as you leap from one lengthy grind to another, occasionally launching 20’ plus in the air on the half pipe” I was expecting 😂

[Sidewaysbob]

I remember x games street being a bit more frantic. But it was still great to watch. 

[Plissken]

I thought that it was dull.  And a bit weird that one of them wasn't wearing a helmet.

 

Oh well, it's not for me.

[Fry Crayola]

I've stuck USA - Australia in the women's football on for some background while I work. Glanced at the screen as the commentator was excitedly announcing a goal, only to see the US play the ball around their defence. 

 

Figured it must be a weird audio delay only for the line "Sweden take the lead" to make things very apparent - the commentary is from the other match in the group.

[Stopharage]

Worth watching the GBR v USA Rugby 7s. Great game with at least one major dubious decision. 
 

And now the South Africa v Argentina has kicked off. Amazing first half. 
 

Edit - if you can watch both of those games without knowing anything, I’d heartily advise it. That S Africa v Argentina is my favourite event of the games so far. 

[bradigor]

Yeah that was amazing to put it mildly. 

[Sirloin]

45 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

I've stuck USA - Australia in the women's football on for some background while I work. Glanced at the screen as the commentator was excitedly announcing a goal, only to see the US play the ball around their defence. 

 

Figured it must be a weird audio delay only for the line "Sweden take the lead" to make things very apparent - the commentary is from the other match in the group.

Did the US and Australia agree a draw? Bizarre end to the game.

[esar]

As someone who has been into skateboarding for the majority of my 46 years, to dismiss what those girls were doing as dull is insane to me, they were doing crazy tricks down a 12 stair handrail!! Thats flipping huge! I couldn't do any of what they were doing. Its worth remembering that skateboarding has been a completely male sport until very recently, I had never even seen a girl at a skatepark until a few years ago such was the stigma attached to girls doing what's considered a boys activity but, as society has been changing, skateboarding for girls is huge now so I can well see them getting closer to the mens level for the next Olympics.

 

Also on the helmet thing, its a very long debated subject but from my own personal experience i've never hit my head street skating, only when on ramps.

 

Anyway, still got the bowl events to come, I saw the qualifications a few months ago and it was incredible, keep your eyes out for Andy Anderson and Zion Wright!