Eh, I think dressage is an abomination and makes a mockery of an athletic competition. I hope all those competitors are excluded from all the Olympic village orgies.
Even the ones hung like a … Oh, nevermind.
USA vs Japan in men’s water polo is a great match, airing live right now. Going into the final quarter right now, super close.
Check it out.
I think I just saw a huge mistake on the NBC primetime coverage. They said that a lady who won a gold medal this year was the first America woman to get a gold in taekwondo but I was there when Lynnette Love won the heavyweight gold in '88. I’m trying to track down their claim again and I can’t find it so maybe there is a caviot by weight class or because it was only the national sport in '88.
This isnt really true. The 1984 Olympics in LA was supposed to be a traffic apocalypse but it turned out to be just the opposite. Some work schedules were adjusted and the traffic was better than a normal August.
Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1984 and the World Cup Final in 1994. Rather than a burden it was a massive party. It was people from all over the world coming together to have a good time.
Discussion on Sumo Forum http://www.sumoforum.net/forums/topic/38619-sumo-and-the-olympics/?do=findComment&comment=448355
Hakuho is the most dominant sumo wrestler ever. He has 45 top division tournament victories; the next most is 32 (6 have been held a year since the mid-50s, less often before that). His father was a medalist in wrestling for Mongolia in the Olympics (as well as one of the more dominant Mongolian wrestlers in their national sport), and Hakuho had indicated for years that he wanted to stay on until the Olympics. He’s been injured a lot the past few years, and though he won the most recent tournament with a perfect score, he’s definitely far from his peak and probably would have retired years ago near the top of his game without the Olympics figuring into it. Given that Akebono (who was American) did the Yokozuna ring-entering ceremony for the opening of the Olympics in Nagano, it was assumed that Hakuho would do one for this year’s games. But that just wasn’t part of the plan apparently; whether Hakuho wanted to participate in them or not, the Yokozuna ring-entering ceremony just was not included. And it seems as though it probably wouldn’t have fit very well in with the rest of the ceremony - they’ve just gotten increasingly elaborate and busy in the years since Nagano, and everyone being still and watching one guy perform some stomps and shimmies probably just wasn’t going to work.
An example of a Yokozona ring-entering ceremony (featuring Hakuho) during a regular tournament (starts around 5:00, lasts a little over a minute) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CxAnZ5VIZg
Taekwondo was only a demonstration sport at both the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, and it didn’t become a full medal sport until the 2000 Olympics. So whether Lynnette Love should be considered the first American woman to win a gold medal in Taekwondo is more a matter of semantics.
That’s too bad that we’re not going to count the US winning both heavyweight Taekwondo golds in Korea. They certainly counted in the medal count at the time and the hardware was real. I was there for both and got to meet them in advance and it’s by far my favorite Olympic memory.
I was trying to figure out the lane marker thing too. Are the floating things connected by ropes? Because I’ve seen those boats that come in behind the racers cross lanes without disturbing the lane markers. How do those boats not disturb the markers?
On gymnastics: The NBC commentators are more useless than rubber lips on a woodpecker. The guy commentator opened the broadcast by asking his partner in the booth: “Now exactly how important is it for Team USA to come out strong tonight?” and it only got worse from there. In addition to their hit-you-across-the-face stupid questions to each other, they don’t explain anything that’s going on. They use terms that only serious fans would understand (“Wolf turn?!?” That’s fancy. Maybe if you didn’t spend five minutes explaining how important it was for Team USA to “come out strong tonight,” you could have explained what this “wolf turn” is), and I swear they don’t know any more about Olympic gymnastics scoring than I do, and I only watch this sport once every four years. “Yeah, she might get a third of a point deducted for that. Or maybe a half. We might ever see her get a full point deducted. But I’m thinking it may be a third.”
Then there was a Jamaican gymnast who did about five seconds on the lower bar of the uneven bars, did a simple dismount, and walked off with a big smile. My wife and I were like “WTF?” The commentators just said how great she was. I mean, WT-everloving-flying-F??! We had to actually pause it and Google to see what the heck was going on because these two numbskulls, who are paid to talk about what’s going on, were too stupid to let the viewing audience know what was actually going on. Turns out this gymnast had torn her ACL on Friday, had to withdraw from most of her events, but still wanted to compete, so she did a short routine on the uneven bars. How hard would it have been for these cheddar-brains to say that?
My wife loves watching the gymnastics. I like it too, but I may have to keep it on mute going forward.
All that being said, the sport I’m gravitating to the most so far is tennis, followed by the rowing and softball.
Wikipedua tells me rowing and associated events use the Albano buoy system. The long cables are about 1.5 metres below the surface with buoys clipped to them. I guess the judges boats have a shallower draft to avoid the cables.
Anyone else watching the rugby 7s? Japan almost beat the defending champs in the opening match.
I thought the Olympics had a minimum age, IIRC 16, but maybe that’s just for gymnastics. Anyway, meet 12-year-old Hend Zaza, a Syrian table tennis player. She’s really something else! I’m guessing that she’s a Syrian citizen who lives elsewhere.
Yes, she looks older than 12, but I can relate because I did too at that age.
My inquiry into the youngest Olympians led me here. This young lady, then aged 11, left skating altogether when her mother died in 1971, when she was 14, and she lost her father 4 years after that.
I’m back in the UK just in time to see how awful the BBC coverage of the olympics is.
Apparently Discovery+ bought the pan-European rights, and channels like BBC can only show one sport on TV and one online, and a lot of stuff is getting cut.
I wouldn’t mind if they were just showing one thing at a time, but right now it’s a lot of switching to try to follow British medal contenders and way too much discussion about how the athletes are feeling.
The U.S. softball team went 5-0 in the group stage, capped by a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over Japan, who finished 4-1 in group play. The Americans got a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 7th.
Next on tap: The gold-medal game, a rematch against Japan.
Right now I’ve got more men’s handball on. Egypt vs. Denmark.
Congrats to the Tunisian who won the swimming event - beating out all the favorites.
Not all the events are in Toyko - some soccer/football games are being held as far away as Sapporo (832 km/500 miles away)…
The official site also mentions that " Sapporo Odori Park has been designated as the venue for the Olympic Marathon and Olympic Race Walking events." I thought that the marathon traditionally ended at the main stadium (i.e. Tokyo). Maybe because of cooler weather in the North?
I heard one of the NBC commentators explain to us about 4 times in two minutes how the Olympics only come once every four years. Thank goodness you’re here, Captain Obvious!
The marathon is being held in Sapporo because its too hot and humid to hold it in Tokyo. They are holding the Footy in different cities because with so many games it would destroy the turf otherwise.
Same with London. It was a huge worry going into the Games, and Londoners were more grumpy about it than usual, but once the games started, everything ran like clockwork. I think those that didn’t fancy being here just went on holiday for a couple of weeks.
I heard a big discussion about this on BBC Radio 4 today. The Olympics has traditionally been classed as a ‘crown jewels sporting event’ - which means, it must be free to air for everyone, and hence been on a traditional broadcast channel (other such events are Wimbledon and the football World Cup). But the BBC has been told to cut costs. Lots of fuss being made by the very Tory MPs who think the BBC should lose its license fee.