Olympics thread

[matriarch]

I hate NBC. The Olympics have been on for over 2 hours and all they've shown is the marathon. There is a ton of live events going on right now!

ARRRRGGGGG!!!

You should watch BBC.........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/default.stm

 

[Belegon]

You should watch BBC.........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/default.stm

we can't, My Queen... video feeds form the UK are often blocked for us, and that includes here.

While I celebrate Michael Phelps like the rest of the sports fans in the US, I am more proud of the U.S. athletes in the Olympic sport closest to my heart.

The US has won five medals in Fencing, and with the Mens Sabre Team upsetting Russia to get into the Gold Medal bout, we are now guaranteed six.

To put this into perspective, in the previous 100 years the United States had won a total of 3 medals in Fencing, two of them bronze.

Mat, very impressed by one of Britain's runners in the women's marathon. She was obviously in great pain, but refused to quit and finished the race after not being able to finish in Athens.

 

[Belegon]

Update: France beats Italy, 45-41

USA vs. France for the Gold Medal in Men's Team Sabre.

 

[matriarch]

we can't, My Queen... video feeds form the UK are often blocked for us, and that includes here.

While I celebrate Michael Phelps like the rest of the sports fans in the US, I am more proud of the U.S. athletes in the Olympic sport closest to my heart.

The US has won five medals in Fencing, and with the Mens Sabre Team upsetting Russia to get into the Gold Medal bout, we are now guaranteed six.

To put this into perspective, in the previous 100 years the United States had won a total of 3 medals in Fencing, two of them bronze.

Mat, very impressed by one of Britain's runners in the women's marathon. She was obviously in great pain, but refused to quit and finished the race after not being able to finish in Athens.

I'm sorry you can't get BBC video feeds, they are very comprehensive for all sports...library video and live feeds.

Personally I get bored with all the hype for 'the greates olympiam of all time', I'd rather see the efforts of those little people who have given up much, just to be there, with no realistic chance of any medal reward. They, for me, are the true olympians.

I also prefer to watch the 'lesser' sports....archery, shooting (target and the clay pigeon), field hockey, riding cross country......I love them all.....and my two personal favourites, badminton and cycling. The track cycling is incredibly fast and explosive. I love it. And, of course, good old Britland has done so well in that.

Indeed, Paula Radcliffe, one of our best athletes, unfortunately, she broke her leg earlier this year, and she just hasn't had time to train and get back to full fitness for these olympics. Part of me says she was stupid to have even bothered, who knows what damage she's done to herself, the other part of me is in awe of the strength of will that got her round the course.

 

[Trombonus]

Is it just me, or is the NBC commentary especially bad? All throughout the Olympic coverage I hear the announcers interrupting each other and getting a bit snippy when they get interrupted. This was especially true during Gymnastics. It seemed like every time one of them started to talk another would interrupt them, and you can tell they didn't like it when it happened. It almost seem like a childish game of one-upmanship. It seems to me that if you're broadcasting the biggest sporting event in the world you'd want to find people who can work together.

Just another thing NBC is messing up. Why the heck is Mark Spitz not in Beijing? He practically begged to go. Instead they hooked up the satellite and had him talk to the guy who broke his record for gold medals from home. Is that how you treat a legendary athlete? And while we're at it, what's up with the coverage? Thank goodness I have the USA network, because otherwise I'd be missing a lot of the events I want to see, including Basketball! I wish we could see more games that included the other countries, not just the US. I'd love to see Greece, Spain, Germany and China play some closer games. But no, only the USA is important. Plus why can't they show some during the middle of the day? I can't stay up late enough to watch everything, and there's always a huge block of non-Olympic stuff on from late morning to earl afternoon. I wanna se`em more dagnabbit!

Okay, rant over.

Still, it's been awesome to watch, and I've especially enjoyed the swimming and gymnastics.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Is it just me, or is the NBC commentary especially bad? All throughout the Olympic coverage I hear the announcers interrupting each other and getting a bit snippy when they get interrupted. This was especially true during Gymnastics. It seemed like every time one of them started to talk another would interrupt them, and you can tell they didn't like it when it happened. It almost seem like a childish game of one-upmanship. It seems to me that if you're broadcasting the biggest sporting event in the world you'd want to find people who can work together.

Just another thing NBC is messing up. Why the heck is Mark Spitz not in Beijing? He practically begged to go. Instead they hooked up the satellite and had him talk to the guy who broke his record for gold medals from home. Is that how you treat a legendary athlete? And while we're at it, what's up with the coverage? Thank goodness I have the USA network, because otherwise I'd be missing a lot of the events I want to see, including Basketball! I wish we could see more games that included the other countries, not just the US. I'd love to see Greece, Spain, Germany and China play some closer games. But no, only the USA is important. Plus why can't they show some during the middle of the day? I can't stay up late enough to watch everything, and there's always a huge block of non-Olympic stuff on from late morning to earl afternoon. I wanna se`em more dagnabbit!

Okay, rant over.

Still, it's been awesome to watch, and I've especially enjoyed the swimming and gymnastics.

I have to turn the sound off during the swimming because of that one guy who becomes a 'screamer' in the last leg.

I noticed that during the gymnasts floor exercises they mostly shut up, which I appreciated.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Personally I get bored with all the hype for 'the greates olympiam of all time', I'd rather see the efforts of those little people who have given up much, just to be there, with no realistic chance of any medal reward. They, for me, are the true olympians.

I also prefer to watch the 'lesser' sports....archery, shooting (target and the clay pigeon), field hockey, riding cross country......I love them all.

concur

 

[voluptuary_manque]

concur

~yup!~

 

[matriarch]

The wife and I have been recording everything, BBC has live coverage during thenight, which we record,then a breakfast catch, which we record, and usually another programme during the day, which we record.

As you can imagine, both being out at work we are having a hard time catching up with everything. We have spent most of today, something like 8 hours just watching, fast forwarding,watching, fast forwarding, and at the moment, I think we're almost olympiced-out, but we've seen gold medals for Britain in cycling, rowing and swimming, and loads of athletics......at the moment, we are watching some of yesterday's stuff, the final 800m for the women's Heptathlon.

Then I think we'll take a break, have something to eat, and then watch some more.

The plan was a good one, but we are days behind, and it's very disconcerting watching something that we knew about (it's impossible to hide from the headlines) before we watched it.

 

[matriarch]

Having just watched Bolt win the 100m (we already knew, we're catching up), I wondered about previous winners, and found this site.

Amazing, from 12 seconds in 1896 down to 9.69 in 2008. Just how fast can the human body run, before it is impossible to go any faster without help? Who knows.

 

[Chantilyvamp]

is there anywhere up that has the opening ceremony to watch? as I missed it with working on the class final

 

[3113]

Why the heck is Mark Spitz not in Beijing? He practically begged to go.

Here's an article on the why of that. Seems Spitz didn't know why not either, but it came down to there just being no sponsor willing to invite him/give him a ticket.

 

[matriarch]

is there anywhere up that has the opening ceremony to watch? as I missed it with working on the class final

Try here.

 

[Chantilyvamp]

Try here.

you know i loveyou dont ya? Have min give you a giant hug from me

-edit and why the hell my brain did think of checking there *rollseyes*

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Here's an article on the why of that. Seems Spitz didn't know why not either, but it came down to there just being no sponsor willing to invite him/give him a ticket.

What a bunch of tightwads!

 

[only_more_so]

Having just watched Bolt win the 100m (we already knew, we're catching up), I wondered about previous winners, and found this site.

Amazing, from 12 seconds in 1896 down to 9.69 in 2008. Just how fast can the human body run, before it is impossible to go any faster without help? Who knows.

I think there is definitely a limit to human capability without help. Although we are potentially a long way from finding that limit. With the ever growing population, there are more and more genetic anomolies. People who have an unusual ratio of fast twitch muscles to slow twitch muscles, or limb ratio, or heart size. So naturally there will be ever more optimized athletes. There will also be a tendency in the near future for unnatural optimization. Gene therapy is coming and will mean higher muscle mass, better cardio systems, etc. Then there are training techniques which have evolved for years but are still not optimal.

Anyway, in my lifetime, I wouldn't expect the record to drop below 9.5, certainly not below 9.0, unless i live to be 250.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I think there is definitely a limit to human capability without help. Although we are potentially a long way from finding that limit. With the ever growing population, there are more and more genetic anomolies. People who have an unusual ratio of fast twitch muscles to slow twitch muscles, or limb ratio, or heart size. So naturally there will be ever more optimized athletes. There will also be a tendency in the near future for unnatural optimization. Gene therapy is coming and will mean higher muscle mass, better cardio systems, etc. Then there are training techniques which have evolved for years but are still not optimal.

Anyway, in my lifetime, I wouldn't expect the record to drop below 9.5, certainly not below 9.0, unless i live to be 250.

I dunno about that. Given that Bolt actually pulled up the last 15 yards, the possibility that he could have broken 9.6 is real. And he's just a kid! Given another four years we may just see that 9.5 in London. But I agree with you, 9.0 is probably a long time coming.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Crush-time:

Milena Rosner, Polish volleball team.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Dl3EQTHa0

http://polish-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/milena-rosner.jpg

The whole team is really cute: http://polish-blog.com/tag/volleyball/

This one too: Katarzyna Gajgal
http://polish-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/katarzyna-gajgal.jpg

 

[only_more_so]

Crush-time:

Milena Rosner, Polish volleball team.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Dl3EQTHa0

http://polish-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/milena-rosner.jpg

The whole team is really cute: http://polish-blog.com/tag/volleyball/

This one too: Katarzyna Gajgal
http://polish-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/katarzyna-gajgal.jpg

I was watching the Polish-USA volleyball game... Almost all of the players on the Polish squad looked like a supermodel. Tall, slim, leggy, with beautiful sculpted features.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

NBC not ready for prime internet time.

I just tried to watch some badminton on their website and the only thing that worked was the ads.

I accept the ads - no prob - but obviously I won't see any more of them if the real content won't work - dumbshits.

 

[only_more_so]

NBC not ready for prime internet time.

I just tried to watch some badminton on their website and the only thing that worked was the ads.

I accept the ads - no prob - but obviously I won't see any more of them if the real content won't work - dumbshits.

I haven't really had a problem, as I've actually been watching some events. Last night I was watching wrestling on my computer, and prime time on the TV. Craziness.

BTW, before I forget, so far my favorite Olympic moment was when the guy from Togo won the bronze medal in white water kayaking. He was close to winning the gold too. In celebration he accidently broke his paddle in half! That guy was jacked!

 

[Trombonus]

I haven't really had a problem, as I've actually been watching some events. Last night I was watching wrestling on my computer, and prime time on the TV. Craziness.

BTW, before I forget, so far my favorite Olympic moment was when the guy from Togo won the bronze medal in white water kayaking. He was close to winning the gold too. In celebration he accidently broke his paddle in half! That guy was jacked!

Yeah I saw that too, I was totally rooting for the guy! Gotta love the underdog!

 

[only_more_so]

Alright, my latest Olympics crush: Anita Gorbicz. Hungarian handball player. Just the description is a triple entrendre.

http://cms.eurohandball.com/PortalData/1/Resources/2_cl/2_text_images/Gorbicz250_2.jpg

http://www.kezilabdagala.hu/images/players/Gorbicz2.JPG

http://dithyramb.blogs.com/my_weblog/images/anita_gorbicz.JPG

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Very nice, OMS!

~~~~~~~

So - will a day come when we learn that these Chinese gymnast girls really are 12 years old? (I gather that pre-pubescence is an advantage at this level because children's bodies fly through the air better, etc.)

 

[only_more_so]

So - will a day come when we learn that these Chinese gymnast girls really are 12 years old? (I gather that pre-pubescence is an advantage at this level because children's bodies fly through the air better, etc.)

Maybe, maybe not. The Chinese are as crooked as they come, so they will never come clean, but the athletes might defect to the US or another country and come clean.

As for the age... First of all there is the training. The Chinese gymnasts were selected at the age of 3 or so. So they are intensely trained for 9 years. At some point that training takes a toll on the body and it wears out. So in another 4 years their bodies will most likely be unfit for competition.

There is also the matter of puberty. Puberty can cause a weight redistribution that isn't condusive to gymnastics. Also a sudden growth spurt will severely throw off their balance and timing. So rather than risk puberty screwing up their best gymnast, they officially change their birthday.