Olympic 2020(1) Thread

Just watching the highlights of the skateboarding on BBC one - it's quite fun viewing.

They make it look effortless, really impressive stuff.

 

How many days before this borefest is over ? Couldn't name a British athlete taking part. Adam Peaty ? Andy Murray ? Oh, Ok i can probably name two. I'm sure I'll hear about a medal or two in the 200m backward running competition or similarly exciting.
Still 3 weeks til the real sport starts.

 

Agree with all of that. Same goes for tennis really. Four grand slams a year (like golf). Does it really need to be in the Olympics too?

Whatever happened to squash? It was in the Olympics for yonks. Why not now?

Shame Sinden lost out by 7 secs in the taekwondo. Mind you, we lost out by 1 sec in that discipline in 2016!

 

Squash has never been in the Olympics, despite many applications, although it is a sport recognised by the IOC. Who knows why? You might remember seeing it at the Commonwealth Games, but it’s only been in that since 1998.

 

It's a fair question - mens football is surely a bigger question though? It's basically u23s, not even the best senior players for all nations. With baseball you could argue the Olympics is the pinnacle of the international game? I never recall hearing of a baseball world cup

 

I agree regarding football as well, I know that apparently the South American teams see it as a big deal but that’s kind of irrelevant if some teams don’t, because it devalues it massively.

I think baseball is similar for different reasons. Would an American player care more about winning an MLB title, or an Olympic medal? Or for that matter a player of any nationality? Maybe they would but I don’t believe most would.

 

Interesting that the swimming finals are unusually being held in the morning thus far and times in those finals are, so far, slower than expected. The commentators don't seem particularly surprised.

So is that a known 'thing' then? That athletes (particularly in a 'high octane' sport like swimming) perform less well in the morning than in the evening? It would make some sense to me. In the evening your body's fully 'limbered up' (as long as you haven't knackered yourself doing something else strenuous earlier in the day).

What about football? Is there any evidence that lunchtime fixtures are 'less athletic' than evening ones?

Peaty goes in his final at 11.12 Tokyo time. 03.12 here. So we'll see. I'm sure he'd love to break his own world record again (and will be doing his utmost to try and do so) but maybe an a.m. start will be beyond him. I'd have thought that footballers would be pretty flat out in training at around that time though.

Reids?

 

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You may turn your nose up at what for most sports the competitors consider taking part is the pinnacle of their careers but I love the Olympics. It's great smaller sports get some coverage and I love the cycling, athletics. rowing. swimming. Also for some sports like boxing gives the chance to see talent before they turn professional... likes of Mohammed Ali, Lennox Lewis, Anthony Joshua etc all came through the ranks.

 

Agreed. Not sure why, if you think it's all rubbish, you'd bother to show up and comment on it really.

 

What day is the final of the men's rolling?

 

Shame we didn't in London 2012 introduce, British Bulldog, 1-potato-2-potato tag-team marathon, What's the time Mister Wolf, Knock Down Ginger, 3-and-in football tournament with it myriad variations, World Cup etc.

 

My brother, as President of his University Karate Society, met him when he visited the university. Said he had the limpest handshake of anyone he has ever met.

 

BBC is allowed to have 2 live channels broadcasting simultaneously. BBC1/2 and BBC Red button. It means online, you have 2-as-live streams which you can access right from the very start of broadcasting (12 midnight to 3pm) and stop and watch at your leisure. So in a few hours I've managed to watch most of the good stuff and skip through the inane chat and pseudo-celebrity bollox. Big shout out to Lutalo Muhammad, the taekwondo bloke who had gold clobbered away from him in the last sec in Rio. Great pundit and comes across as a classy guy.

 

Good broadcaster for sure but he was reduced to the inane BBC over-positivity after the British bloke blew it and even admitted he did.

My favourite bit was 'I know he will come back from this'. The problem is that Muhammad didn't from an almost identical position.

 

Welcome back,

 

Speculative and non-committal.

 

You can imagine somebody called Giles coming from Chelsea.

 

Well of course the American TV Networks must have their Prime Time Entertainment. Can't imagine the any Olympic scheduling changing for any other country. The IOC is the worst of the sporting global money wh0res. Anything, can be changed or re-scheduled for a price. I always remember the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where Michelle de Bruin nee Smith of that mighty swimming nation, Ireland, controversially won 3 Gold medals, p1ss1ng on the chips of the US Swim Team. Now, that was Prime Time viewing.

 

Ludicrous ****-up at the start of the men's triathlon.

 

Also for the hard luck stories. When bad luck or just plain corruption/incompetence strip someone of their chance of Olympic Glory. Like Alan Minter in the Boxing in Munich 72.



"at Munich 1972 Minter had been cheated out of a possible gold medal when, as an amateur, he lost in the Olympic semi-final to the West German Dieter Kottysch. It was a scandalous decision and many believe, including Britain's former national coach Kevin Hickey, who was in his corner alongside the late David James, that it had been planned the night before when the infamously corrupt referees and judges panel decided that West Germany needed a home townwinner as the Games came to a close.

Hickey points out that it was essentially down to the referee warning Minter about the sonorous "boom boom" noise he made as he threw his punches. He was repeatedly told to stop it and given warnings which destroyed his punching rhythm. Minter was left with the bronze and it was certainly no surprise when Kottysch went on to win the light-middleweight gold."

Sometimes it's just not your day. Just like Jade Jones today.

 

I dare say that has a whole lot to do with it.

 

Yes, but that was after his 2nd Olympics after winning bronze in his first. Bradly Sinden will get a crack at another Olympics. He wasn't as if he was leading for most of the bout then had it cruelly snatched away. His opponent was having his day of days and overall deserved to win.

 

Still being officiated by amateurs in every sense.

 

Yes, it was a good race in brutal heat. 2nd and 5th in a Triathlon is pretty good and bodes well for the mixed relay. The Olympics is now starting to really get going.

 

Rugby Sevens soon and hopefully will bring home the bacon in the pool a bit later.

 

To while away the time, a blast from the past. In 2002, Ronaldo stakes a claim to be Brazil's cultural ambassador to Japan. I think he's telling his delegation to concentrate and use their brains. In revenge, they'd already planned to p1ss in his sake and feed him traditional boiled bull's b0ll0cks.

 

Are our chances in the sevens compromised by most of our best 15s players being in South Africa? Or is it entirely different? As regards personnel.

 

Some 7’s players switch later on in their career’s to being players of the full code - but for the main part, Rugby 7’s has different players throughout. The games are much shorter and lower scoring too as a result. But it’s not as attritional as the fuller game and is exciting to watch as it’s full of running from deep etc.

 

You used to see players who represented their country in the full 15 version but now it's such a specialised version of the game, that most of the international players are just dedicated sevens specialists. Also, you generally play the tournament in a day, 2 days tops, so you need to have the stamina of an ox.

 

Well that's enough softball to be going along with ta very much. Although the speed generated by a female pitcher with a soft ball is quite impressive.