Olympics Thread

MajorRage

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="mariner4life" data-cid="605897" data-time="1471388908">
<div>
looks at photos. Inserts dirty pole joke
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Wrong thread to be talking about your honeymoon photos fella ...

KiwiPie

In the "things that make you go hmmmm" department, both the 10,000m races appeared to be a bit dodgy.
 
Womens - well a new world record by someone running the distance for the second time - can't get much dodgier than that.
 
Mens - the Farah/Rupp combo was really weird. Farah was taking the piss waving to the crowd early on, Rupp was running up and down the field like he was on a training run, trips Farah up, then drops back to pace him for a while. After all of that and a blisteringly fast race, neither of them seemed fatigued. Rupp had no problem sticking with the leaders but didn't have the pace at the end. Farah won as usual with his final kick. No problem with him winning but they both just seemed to know that they could cope with any pace and there were plenty of other top runners left by the wayside when the pace came on.
 
Now Salazar the coach and the Oregon Project (sounds sinister just in the name) have had allegations about doping with Mary Decker-Slaney and Rupp but managed to shrug them off. So is something dodgy going on?

SammyC

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="KiwiPie" data-cid="606012" data-time="1471411537">
In the "things that make you go hmmmm" department, both the 10,000m races appeared to be a bit dodgy. 
Womens - well a new world record by someone running the distance for the second time - can't get much dodgier than that. 
Mens - the Farah/Rupp combo was really weird. Farah was taking the piss waving to the crowd early on, Rupp was running up and down the field like he was on a training run, trips Farah up, then drops back to pace him for a while. After all of that and a blisteringly fast race, neither of them seemed fatigued. Rupp had no problem sticking with the leaders but didn't have the pace at the end. Farah won as usual with his final kick. No problem with him winning but they both just seemed to know that they could cope with any pace and there were plenty of other top runners left by the wayside when the pace came on. 
Now Salazar the coach and the Oregon Project (sounds sinister just in the name) have had allegations about doping with Mary Decker-Slaney and Rupp but managed to shrug them off. So is something dodgy going on?</blockquote>
 
Short answer: yes

MajorRage

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="SammyC" data-cid="606013" data-time="1471412288">
<div>
Short answer: yes
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Somehow I can't see Farah going from New Briton to Dodgy Immigrant. The guy is idolised.

Nepia

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Chris B." data-cid="606007" data-time="1471409908">
<div>
You're welcome to have him as the greatest swimmer of all time. Athletics can have Bolt as the probably the greatest sprinter of all time.
 
But to say Phelps is a greater Olympian than Bolt, because he's won more medals? I think that is just wrong.
 
Actually, for me, there are two medals that are fundamentally better than all the rest - the athletics 100 metres and the marathon. Fastest and best endurance.
</div>
</blockquote>
I agree, but then that shouldn't rule him out of contention either.

Stockcar86

Close up of boxing judges scoring card

Chris B.

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="hydro11" data-cid="605986" data-time="1471405214">
<div>
There are 5 medals given out in track cycling for each gender. The nature of the track is that you can only have so many different events and they already had a big cut down before 2012. Brazil built a $62 million velodrome and there is only six days of competition.
</div>
</blockquote>
 
30 cycling medals - Britain won 11 (including six gold) and no other country won more than two. Their competitors are casting a few aspersions.
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3743708/Team-GB-s-gold-medal-winning-cycling-stars-success-questioned-Olympic-rivals-following-Rio-success.html'>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3743708/Team-GB-s-gold-medal-winning-cycling-stars-success-questioned-Olympic-rivals-following-Rio-success.html</a>
 
I'd be inclined to look at what sort of "Lydiard factors" are at work. Wouldn't surprise me if they were replicating some of the stuff the Brownlee brothers do i.e. sleeping in an oxygen tent. They've certainly stolen a march on the rest of the world and are a fundamental explanation of why our cycling team didn't achieve its targets.

Disgusted of TW

re India and sport, I read an article on the BBC site a couple of weeks ago that made a reasonable case for this being a multilayered issue 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-36941269'>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-36941269</a> 
If I understood it correctly: 
Participation in sport is relatively low because:

Lower tiers in society are still too dirt poor and unhealthy
Middle class is still too busy nurturing the old stereotypical doctors, accountants and lawyers and increasingly the new stereotypical software engineers and shared services centre workers/managers 
Both of those factors limit the pool for serious athletic competition, whilst the lack of funding compounds things further. 
There are probably holes in that hypothesis, but it's got to be more plausible than, say, the notion that a nation of a gazillion people is somehow genetically incapable of competing on the world stage.

booboo

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="SammyC" data-cid="605966" data-time="1471402031">
Yeah medley relays are a big part of swimming, I'd way prefer they had that instead of the 4 x 200 
I'd like to see 400 Back, breast and fly added to the games also. There's a lot of athletes that excel in these that never get the chance. 
But then again I wont make any friends on here suggesting adding events...... It's obviously the cool thing to hate on swimming.</blockquote>
 
No just butterfly for me.

Donsteppa

I see Rattue is cynical about the act of Olympic spirit overnight. If he's downplaying it, then by definition it must be a great moment of sportsmanship

Ben

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Chris B." data-cid="606007" data-time="1471409908">
<div>
You're welcome to have him as the greatest swimmer of all time. Athletics can have Bolt as the probably the greatest sprinter of all time.
 
But to say Phelps is a greater Olympian than Bolt, because he's won more medals? I think that is just wrong.
 
Actually, for me, there are two medals that are fundamentally better than all the rest - the athletics 100 metres and the marathon. Fastest and best endurance.
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Those distances are actually arbitrary so even being the fastest and having the best endurance is just racing what's in front of you. Every single Olympic event is questionable if you really want to question it.
 
I agree re Phelps, mind. Steve Redgrave won golds at five different Olympics. He had one chance every four years (at a brutal sport) and succeeded every time. That's pretty bloody good, and no less of an achievement than what Phelps has achieved. To my mind, anyway.

hydro11

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Chris B." data-cid="606029" data-time="1471415415">
<div>
30 cycling medals - Britain won 11 (including six gold) and no other country won more than two. Their competitors are casting a few aspersions.
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3743708/Team-GB-s-gold-medal-winning-cycling-stars-success-questioned-Olympic-rivals-following-Rio-success.html'>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3743708/Team-GB-s-gold-medal-winning-cycling-stars-success-questioned-Olympic-rivals-following-Rio-success.html</a>
 
I'd be inclined to look at what sort of "Lydiard factors" are at work. Wouldn't surprise me if they were replicating some of the stuff the Brownlee brothers do i.e. sleeping in an oxygen tent. They've certainly stolen a march on the rest of the world and are a fundamental explanation of why our cycling team didn't achieve its targets. 
</div>
</blockquote>
 
5 golds for each gender which gets you the 30. I just don't see why having 5 events in track cycling could be seen as too many. Especially when track cycling is a tough place to win medals and, IMO, one of the better spectator sports.

TeWaio

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="KiwiPie" data-cid="606012" data-time="1471411537">
<div>
In the "things that make you go hmmmm" department, both the 10,000m races appeared to be a bit dodgy.
 
Womens - well a new world record by someone running the distance for the second time - can't get much dodgier than that.
 
Mens - the Farah/Rupp combo was really weird. Farah was taking the piss waving to the crowd early on, Rupp was running up and down the field like he was on a training run, trips Farah up, then drops back to pace him for a while. After all of that and a blisteringly fast race, neither of them seemed fatigued. Rupp had no problem sticking with the leaders but didn't have the pace at the end. Farah won as usual with his final kick. No problem with him winning but they both just seemed to know that they could cope with any pace and there were plenty of other top runners left by the wayside when the pace came on.
 
Now Salazar the coach and the Oregon Project (sounds sinister just in the name) have had allegations about doping with Mary Decker-Slaney and Rupp but managed to shrug them off. So is something dodgy going on?
</div>
</blockquote>
It's actually less dodgy than you think. The 10k is hardly ever run on the track, basically only at major championships and at the Oregon diamond league each year. Usually at champs its a very tactical sit-and-kick race off a slow pace, so the records are much "softer" than they would be if the elite athletes ever raced for time. 
 
Ayana isn't much of a sprinter so just went for it, and smashed the world record. But this has basically never been done before at a major champs. Tirunesh Dibaba, probably the greatest 10k runner of all time (2x Olympic gold before these games) ran a 12 second PB in this race to get bronze, simply because in the past she'd always won everything off a slow pace with a fast final lap. In her prime (2008-2012) she could've probably run close to 29mins flat, but never needed to.
 
Mo Farah similarly could probably break the 10k WR in an even-paced "time trial" sort of race, but is so much faster than the others that a sprint finish race makes him near-unbeatable. The risk you have in going out at an even WR-beating pace is that someone comes with you, tucks behind drafting and saving energy, then pips you at the end when you've got nothing left. 
After saying all of that, they are still probably all on drugs Â¯_(ãƒ„)_/Â¯

booboo

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="hydro11" data-cid="605983" data-time="1471404739">
Phelps has won golds in four Olympics now. Even if you ignore the total number of medals, there aren't many people who have done that.</blockquote>
 
Yeah. He's up there. 
But Steve Redgrave has less than a quarter of Phelps's medal haul

JC

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Chris B." data-cid="606029" data-time="1471415415">30 cycling medals - Britain won 11 (including six gold) and no other country won more than two. Their competitors are casting a few aspersions. 
 <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3743708/Team-GB-s-gold-medal-winning-cycling-stars-success-questioned-Olympic-rivals-following-Rio-success.html">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-3743708/Team-GB-s-gold-medal-winning-cycling-stars-success-questioned-Olympic-rivals-following-Rio-success.html</a> 
 
I'd be inclined to look at what sort of "Lydiard factors" are at work. Wouldn't surprise me if they were replicating some of the stuff the Brownlee brothers do i.e. sleeping in an oxygen tent. They've certainly stolen a march on the rest of the world and are a fundamental explanation of why our cycling team didn't achieve its targets. </blockquote>
 
Lottery money - lots of it -, and expectations boosted by recent success have been the drivers by the look of things. You can't say it's come from nowhere, Obree and Hoy back in the day put cycling on the map in the UK to the extent it attracted significant funding. The current crop seem to have reaped the rewards of that investment.

booboo

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="NTA" data-cid="606003" data-time="1471408555">
They were in a shitload of trouble financially after FIFA WC. 
Here's Greece, 12 years on: <a class="bbc_url" href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned-athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures">https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned-athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures</a> 
Softball anyone? <img src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/13/1407945050442/4a454e6a-7537-4f44-b45d-9a8d40af7be7-2060x1361.jpeg?w=1010&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max" alt="4a454e6a-7537-4f44-b45d-9a8d40af7be7-206"> 
Admittedly, the hockey field has held up well - might show this to Mrs TA as proof we should astroturf the backyard :think: <img src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/13/1407944936403/56bca6d4-3df7-4827-a2f2-c589e148b811-2060x1371.jpeg?w=1010&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max" alt="56bca6d4-3df7-4827-a2f2-c589e148b811-206"></blockquote>
 
Have read about the Montreal Olympic Stadium ... and it's still in use ...

Ben

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="JC" data-cid="606052" data-time="1471421736">
<div>
Lottery money - lots of it -, and expectations boosted by recent success have been the drivers by the look of things. You can't say it's come from nowhere, Obree and Hoy back in the day put cycling on the map in the UK to the extent it attracted significant funding. The current crop seem to have reaped the rewards of that investment.
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Probably Boardman more than Obree but, yeah, success has bred success and Obree and Boardman were early pioneers for British track cycling.
 
On a kind of related note, the per capita medal table is a bit of a farce. Population has nothing to do with anything - I believe - it's all down to funding. If someone pumps money into (say) Brazil sport, we'd soon watch them fly up the medal table. Britain, like Aus before them, didn't suddenly get good at Olympic sports, they just got funded.

Cyclops

Yeah they sometimes do a by funding medal table which is always a good one to look at - even by GDP is a good proxy (although a country like India has a pretty good GDP but not a lot of funding so not perfect).

Chris B.

No doubt that money helps - but, everyone knows that now.
 
If you look at the countries that won track cycling medals - Aust, Germany, USA, Italy, Netherlands, France, Canada, NZ, Denmark, China, Russia - it's pretty hard to think any of them are on shoestring budgets. They were chucking around a figure on the radio of NZ$27 million from High Performance Sport NZ given to our track cycling programme - which I'd guess is pretty budget compared to many. But even so - that's going to buy you a shit load of training, gear and travel. We've supposedly got some great facilities.
 
About the only thing it's not going to buy too much of is science. So what have the Brits done with their money - it's got to be more than just marginally better bikes.

Chris B.

<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/83274254/panel-of-experts-links-hair-removal-to-cyclists-saddle-pain'>http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/83274254/panel-of-experts-links-hair-removal-to-cyclists-saddle-pain</a>
 
No stones left unturned, apparently.... :)

The Silver Fern

Olympics Thread