Olympics Thread
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@Windows97 said in Olympics Thread:
I could imagine that for a huge amount of the athletes that go the games they know they haven't got a snowballs chance in hell of winning a medal.
For some just getting to the games is a lifetime achievement, others winning a heat, doing a PB, making a final.
Whatever placing an athlete chooses to celebrate I'm not going to judge them on, we have no idea what they've gone through to get there, what they've given up in life to make it there or what they've suffered to get there.
You just have to see how overjoyed the 2 Kiwi vaulters (who aren't Eliza) were when they knew they had made the final. In years to come, people will forget that 20 made the final instead of 12, but they can always tell the grandchildren that they made an Olympic final.
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@Bovidae said in Olympics Thread:
@No-Quarter said in Olympics Thread:
I can't believe the Olympics allows soccer to use them as a development ground. It should be either the real deal or nothing at all, or it undermines the importance of a gold medal.
While I don't think football and other pro sports like basketball should be at the Olympics it is even more strange that the men's and women's competition have different selection criteria. The mens is U23 with three over-age players while the women's has no age restriction. Add to that because the Olympics falls outside the FIFA window, clubs don't have to release players, and many didn't.
Olympic basketball has been the pinnacle for a long time even before 92 and the US sending pros.
Whatever the motivations are, we do get the best from each country and the pride of country representation at the Olympics hasn’t been higher IMO.
Football is still the World Cup and the club stuff.
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@sparky said in Olympics Thread:
@Billy-Tell said in Olympics Thread:
Long jump final. OR dates from Mexico 1968!
Bob Beamon. It was the World Record until 1991.
Worth noting that the 1991 jump still stands as the World Record, too.
Something I love about events that are impervious to technology. The Greek bloke who won last night would have only won bronze in 1988. Not many events where you can say that.
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A Greek athlete has been disqualified from the Pole Valut for failing a doping test. That's the first failed dope test I've heard about from these games.
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I think that if a sport wants to be in the Olympics it should be prioritised as one of the pinnacle events on the calendar.
For example golf and tennis, if they want to be individual sports should offer ranking points equal to say 1.5 times a major. That will mean the best will go and try to peak for it.
I wouldn't be opposed to either sport changing the format to a team event. Make it country v country rather than the same format as a regular event.
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@sparky said in Olympics Thread:
A Greek athlete has been disqualified from the Pole Valut for failing a doping test. That's the first failed dope test I've heard about from these games.
And I think there was another one?
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@Machpants said in Olympics Thread:
@sparky said in Olympics Thread:
A Greek athlete has been disqualified from the Pole Valut for failing a doping test. That's the first failed dope test I've heard about from these games.
And I think there was another one?
they only catch stupid or cheap athletes.
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@taniwharugby And both look to be cruising. Times don't matter as long as you are in the top 2.
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@Donsteppa said in Olympics Thread:
First heat in the men's 5000m ended up carnage on the final lap after a relatively slower paced race left the whole bunch together. Five falls.
And a French and a Briton almost at fisticuffs at the end of it. But neither of those two seemed to have been caught up in the two falls?