Jump to content
IGNORED

Tokyo Olympics 2020(1)

dino_jr

By dino_jr
in Sport

 Share

Recommended Posts

Plissken

Plissken

Posted
Posted

I said that I found it dull.  In the same way that watching golf is dull, but playing golf isn't.  I appreciate that what they are doing is highly skilled and I'm never going to deny that.  The fact that there is a social aspect is great, fine, whatever, all I was saying was that it didn't really translate into good television for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Darren

Darren

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, layten said:

Now the BBC are showing the horse dancing as a Brit is taking part. 🥱

 

Not only does it look utterly ridiculous but am I wrong in thinking that horse looks quite distressed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
esar

esar

Posted
Posted
22 minutes ago, Plissken said:

I said that I found it dull.  In the same way that watching golf is dull, but playing golf isn't.  I appreciate that what they are doing is highly skilled and I'm never going to deny that.  The fact that there is a social aspect is great, fine, whatever, all I was saying was that it didn't really translate into good television for me.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to single you out, just the word dull stuck out to me. Now Horse Dancing, that I think we can all agree, is very dull.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fry Crayola

Fry Crayola

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Sirloin said:


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

 

Wouldn't be surprised if they both decided late on that it wasn't worth it, as a defeat for either could mean an exit. As it is, Australia are through unless China can beat the Netherlands, which just isn't very likely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
MarkN

MarkN

Posted
Posted

Yeah, the horsey dancing is utterly dull, and seems a bit of a relic to me. To quote Des Lynam when asked about his least favourite sport (which turned out to be showjumping) - "if it was going on in my garden, I'd draw the curtains".

Link to comment
Share on other sites
strawdonkey

strawdonkey

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, esar said:

they were doing crazy tricks down a 12 stair handrail!! Thats flipping huge!

It's difficult to tell just how big some of this stuff is, on TV. The angles used don't convey just how big the gap into the "shogun" rail (as they were calling it) is, nor how high it is, how high you have to pop to get on to it and how far you'll fall if it goes wrong. All of these things and it's being navigated by a teenager on a plank of wood. It's extraordinary. 

 

The scoring system doesn't do them many favours (and in the women's first heat the run scores were extremely stingy). Don't really have a good solution to offer for it, but a smith grind down the big rail is extremely difficult and coming out with a 3 for your trouble suggests that the trick is poor, rather than it being that the trick is good but the potential human ceiling is higher. The nuance of scoring is also something that might not be perfect - I've seen Margielyn Didal trying to land the 50-50 on the flat rail into kickflip in a few competitions, so it was amazing to see her one-up it with 50-50 to 360 flip out, and then baffling to see it get something like a 3.3. It feels like the scoring criteria values trick into grind higher than grind into trick.

 

Random thought on the men's competition, I found it really interesting that Yuto Horigome won whilst incorporating very few flip tircks in his best trick lineup. Lots of nollie backside 270 variations which are super tough still but flips are kind of the bread and butter of skate tricks. Either way, you can't undrestate the difficulty of what these people are doing. It's weird to see people fail so often at the highest level in any sport, but some of the best skaters in the world might make these tricks one time in ten, so pulling it off in a competition on demand is bananas. 

5
Link to comment
Share on other sites
ryodi

ryodi

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, MarkN said:

Yeah, the horsey dancing is utterly dull, and seems a bit of a relic to me. To quote Des Lynam when asked about his least favourite sport (which turned out to be showjumping) - "if it was going on in my garden, I'd draw the curtains".


I assume any event that involves horses is included because it’s what rich people like spending their money  on and they are the ones making the decisions of where sponsorship money which the IOC craves goes. It’s the same reason horse racing hasn’t been banned.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Nick R

Nick R

Posted
Posted

A user on r/olympics has been posting this in reply to people dismissing the Horse Dancing (it's silly/it's cruel/it's not a sport/the rider is irrelevant because the horse is doing all the work), explaining the skills involved from the rider, horse and trainer:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/olympics/comments/os7w45/comment/h6oz9zf

 

 

Quote

Let me explain some background of why dressage is a thing and how it works.The horse will not do anything if the rider is not giving every detail in signals. Hands: different pressues on the two different reigns, with differentt pressues left and right, different hand position (inwards vs outwards. Legs: different pressures, left vs right or both, different leg positions, which can be differnet for let and right leg as well. Different seat: pressure left right, light, or more sitting in saddle, as well as upper body movments. All that combine in different forms are used to give signals. And it's not that one signal does this and other does that. While that's true, it's far more delicate. You're costantly balancing what's too much, what's not enough, depending on how the horse feels, what the horse does, even changing details in signal during movement to correct things etc. etc. It's not that if you know the signals that you can do this. There years of skill, knowlege, experience, training different horses etc. before you can even attempt to sit on one of these horses and make them do even the basic things. Additionally you need to have trained and competed with this specific horse to really perfect that communication between rider and horse.

 

It's very different from training a dog to do a trick and then get a treat. You do not just give a voice command and have the dog do something and then give it food.

 

A bit more on on the background of dressage itself. Naturally, when you sit on a horse, his head goes up, his back hollows. Horses are not made for us to sit on, and that's their first response if weight is put on the back. However, this is not a good body position. It's bending in the wrong placese and long term can harm the horse (for example due to kissing spines). What we train for is to have the horse tense his belly, to support the back, so it does not hollow. Automatically the horse will bring it's head more downwards. Then to get them even stronger, we want them to put the hind legs more under their body. To have them step more forwards with the hind legs. This allows for the hind and to sick down a little bit, and allows the front end to move more upwards. The sign of a very strong horse. The roundness of the neck is not a goal in itself, but a result of all what I described above.Training dressage can be summed up in the Skala de Ausbildung, also known as the training pyramid. When you start training a horse, you start with having a horse with good rythm in their gaits with the right energy and tempo, work towards relaxation of the body with elasticity and suppleness, then work towards connection, which is accpetance of the bit through acceptance of the aids. Then towards impulsion which has an increase in energy and thrust, then towards straightness with an correct ballance, before working on coolection, which not only has an increased engangement, but also creates a better self-carriage of the horse, which allows for more lightness of the forehand. And that self-carriage is very important, that's that goal of having a horse that can carry a rider in the most healthy way.

 

So no, even a decent rider can't just get on one of those horses and ride a test. I'm on okay dressage rider and if I sit on one of those horses I can't even get it to walk in a straight line.

 

That said, the basis of any equestrian dicipline is dressage. maybe not at the level you see at the olympics, but in the basics it is. It has to be able to carry a rider well and in a healthy manner before you can make it jump or do other stuff. In the end it's about 2 atheletes at top level, the horse and rider. Both at the top of their game. Not every horse can do this, not every rider can. It requires years of training and perfecting for both horse, rider and the combination of horse with a specific rider.

Also the basics of the movments: Walk, trot, canter. Then there are 2 versions of each essentially. Extension, where they kind of stretch their front legs (very visable in trot). In walk over the diagonal for extension the horse gets more reign and really stretches the neck. In canter over the diagnoal you can really see them speed up. They cover more ground with each galop step. Then collection where the movements are shorter and far more upwards in each gaits. Especialy seen in piaffe and passage, the most extreme version of that in trot. Then canter tempi changes over the diagonal, where they change the dominant leg (the one that goes most forwards) every one or 2 steps. The pirouette where the horse makes a circle around it's own hind end. Then there's the sideways movments, where they cross legs and move sideways as well as forwards. Oh and the backwards stepping of course. Look for smooth transitions, a constant rythm per movement. Also faults in the tempi changes, where they do not do it every 1 or 2 steps (depending on which one) and if they also change every time in the hind end.

And then the judges also always keep in mind the training pyramid concepts: rythm, suppleness, contact, impulsion, straightness, collection.

this might give you a bit of better insight

 

... all of which may be true, so I'm not going to dismiss the skill involved, but I don't have any interest in watching it. Same goes for horse racing and show jumping.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gabe

Gabe

Posted
Posted
51 minutes ago, Festoon said:

Ah, the old 'that's not a sport' conversation. Yet no-one questions golf.

There was a huge amount of debate about getting golf into the Olympics, if I recall - so yes, people do question it (unless you mean in general, in which case what is your definition of sport that excludes it?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Marlowe

Marlowe

Posted
Posted

 

1 hour ago, ryodi said:


I assume any event that involves horses is included because it’s what rich people like spending their money  on and they are the ones making the decisions of where sponsorship money which the IOC craves goes. It’s the same reason horse racing hasn’t been banned.

 

I'm sure that's what keeps it going but like many of the oldest Olympic sports it has military origins:

 

Quote

The history of equestrian sport dates back more than 2,000 years when the Greeks introduced dressage training to prepare their horses for war. It continued to develop as a military exercise through the Middle Ages, with the three-day event including dressage, cross-country and jumping tests designed to reflect the range of challenges horses faced in the army.

 

Equestrian was first seen in the Olympic Games in 1900 in Paris however it disappeared until 1912. It has appeared at every Summer Olympic Games since. 

 

 

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Wallpaper

Wallpaper

Posted
Posted

The thing with the skateboarding is that most casual viewers only exposure to it is normally through video games or heavily edited videos with music and over the top camera angles so it takes a moment to adjust when it’s covered like a normal sport.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pete

Pete

Posted
Posted

Amazing to see Olympic surfing today, and in pretty relatable conditions for a UK surfer.

 

The real winner of the games though is surely Lutalo Muhammad, who brilliantly upstaged that awful BBC breakfast presenter. Give that man a job.

2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Stopharage

Stopharage

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Pete said:

Amazing to see Olympic surfing today, and in pretty relatable conditions for a UK surfer.

 

The real winner of the games though is surely Lutalo Muhammad, who brilliantly upstaged that awful BBC breakfast presenter. Give that man a job.

Someone should employ Lutalo to do the voiceovers for sleep assistance apps. Such a calming presence.


I know this is the type of event that the BBC excel at but they’ve done a pretty fine job with the experts they’ve had on so far. Chris Mears spoke really sensitively earlier about his struggles with mental health after Biles’ withdrawal. Muhammad just seems like the most calming and measured guy ever. Katherine Grainger is equal parts enthusiastic, knowledgable and realistic. They also got a guy in earlier talking about the swimming relay who analysis and talk over the individual splits was really engaging. 
 

 

3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Sidewaysbob

Sidewaysbob

Posted
Posted

Another bad day for British road cycling with G and Teo outside the top 10

 

But all credit to Roglic. That must go some way to making up for last year's tour de france final TT and this years crashes. 

And I almost shed a tear when Dumalin realised he'd got silver. Thoroughly deserved all round

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Use of this website is subject to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Guidelines.

  I accept