Made me think of someone we know who was an alternate for a short track speedskating team. He went to the Os, didn’t skate a lap in competition, but has his gold medal. I don’t really care, but it seems a tad odd.
Coach Steve Kerr was talking about the fact that Jayson Tatum didn’t play either. He explained it pretty well: in a 40-minute game, even a 10-man rotation might be too many players. He wanted to play a center-dominated lineup against Serbia. Next game it will probably be a totally different rotation.
There is a difference between individuals and teams. You can be in the football (soccer) team in the olympics, not play a minutes and get a gold medal becasue team sports are allowed reserves . But for an individual event if Joe Blogg’s qualifies you can’t go as Joe Blogg’s back-up.
I understand that. And all members of the Superbowl winners get a ring, whether or not they get off the bench.
And I don’t want to undervalue the significance of making the team. Just observed that it seemed a tad odd to me.
Highly entertaining women’s basketball game between the USA and Japan. USA leads 50-39 at half, but it seems like it should be more. USA women are bigger and stronger, and are shooting 55%, but just 1-12 from 3. Japan, meanwhile, is staying in the game by shooting 9-22 from 3.
I watched a couple minutes of Air Rifle. What is with the bizarre outfits these folks are wearing?? Looks like heavy leather straight-jackets and matching pants. Them guns are kinda funky looking too.
American women pulled away in the second half with a dominating performance. Final score was 102-76.
Today I found out that the Surfing competition is in French Polynesia, Tahiti.
And that Surfer Gabriel Medina from Brazil got an epic picture taken after his tubular performance. By photographer Jerome Brouillet.
Video of the final part with the big jump:
Some years ago, the French fled the city for vacations. Those left behind died from the heat in tens of thousands. As did much of Europe. Just saying.
With the athletes coming down the river in boats, it occurs to me there was no opportunity here to lob rotten tomatoes and cabbages at USA! USA! seeing as how 'Murican politics shitshow is making us into laughingstocks.
I was a competitive shooter. Not in air rifle, I shot smallbore rifle, but I imagine that the rules would be similar.
And there are written rules. Not just about distances and rifle weights and trigger weights, but also about the clothes that the shooter is wearing. Generally, street clothes do not present a problem. I’d typically have an undershirt, a flannel shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. When I checked in to have my rifle inspected, the judges would take a look at me and say, “Yeah, you’re good.” What they don’t want to see is anything that will give you support beyond what is permitted by the rules.
A shooting jacket—that heavy leather straightjacket you mentioned—is indeed heavy and made of leather. Mine had to be inspected too, but it always conformed to the rules, so that was okay. The thing that makes it look like a straightjacket is the sling, which is attached to my upper left arm and twisted around my lower left arm; and the other end hooks into a catch on the underside of my rirfle. The end result is that my left hand is squeezed against the underside of my rifle, providing a lot of stability. That necessitated the use of a padded glove too, and it also was inspected.
Anyway, hope that explains why shooters look so bizarre.
Fun tidbit: there were air rifle shooters at the competitions I went to. They’d be at one end of the firing line, with their own targets. We who shot guns that shot real rounds, used to refer to the air rifle part of the range, “the fart section.”
Thanks! The strangest thing was they had no eye protection. Looked like they could take a .45 round to the body, but nothing over the face/eyes.
“You’ll put your eye out!!”
Summer McIntosh wo the women’s 400m medley for Canada in one of the most lopsided swimming races I’ve ever seen at the Olympics. She was ludicrously superior to the point that it was almost weird. The race was clearly over when it was only half done.
She’s a phenom.
That’s odd. At all the competitions I attended, and even practice sessions at our shooting club, eye protection was always required. Even for the shooters in the fart section.
If the air rifle shooters don’t need eye protection in Olympic competition, and they don’t use it, well I guess that’s up to them. Me, I preferred my yellow shooting glasses. Not just safety against ejected brass, but the black target on a yellow background had much more contrast than black on white, which is what I’d see if I didn’t wear them.
Watching the (very close and exciting) 10m air pistol final between Serbia and Turkey and some of them were wearing no protection. But there also appeared to be no recoil whatsoever. Are they shooting some tiny dart or something?
They’re shooting a .177 calibre pellet. Here’s an example:
I don’t know if that brand is what the shooters you saw were shooting, but whatever it was, it would be close to what is pictured and described. I did speak with a few air rifle shooters on breaks at competitions, and that (or similar) was what they used.
I cannot speak to the recoil, as I’ve never shot an air rifle or pistol.
Let’s keep any politics not directly related to the Olympics out of this, please.
I wish they’d stop saying there’s a piece of the Eiffel Tower in every medal. They’re using scrap metal from the contruction that was never used in the tower. It’s like going to the ancient quarry in Wales they used to mine the stones for Stonehenge, picking up a bit of the same type of rock and saying “Look! It’s a piece of Stonehenge!”
Sorry but it just isn’t.
Best image of the games so far…
I find that the coverage isn’t too bad. I DVR the later night events on USA network, or the two dedicated channels that showed up on our cable box, and the coverage is fair. You can’t cover everything, but it isn’t All-USA All the Time like NBC primetime. You get the se some of all the teams in gymnastics, and the swimming heats. Like they covered all the 800m swimming heats. You know how long that is! 
I got to see the two team archery gold medal games, one of the kayaking events, the rowing, the men’s skateboarding, all fascinating stuff. The coverage also included judo, badminton, table tennis, boxing. More than I can watch!