2016 Rio Olympics Thread (Sport Only)

[newtogolf]

2 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Jesus, I was getting so annoyed watching the gymnastics last night - and I'm rooting for the Americans.  But I couldn't help but notice that during each American routine, all he does (the color guy - Tim Daggett I think???) is point out how beautiful and technically difficult the routine is, and when anybody else is going he nitpicks the shit out of every single move.  "Oh, did you see that lean?  That's a tenth.  She was suppose to connect those, that's another tenth.  There's three tenths there."

I'm glad it's over now so I don't have to listen to him anymore.  I'm all for the announcers showing a bit of enthusiasm for the Americans and/or the favorites, but he was so over the top that it was beyond annoying.

The announcers were annoying and the way they dragged it out with 20 minutes of commercials and 5 minutes of gymnastics was painful too.  Way too much hype for the Americans in all sports.  I am the first to push for country pride but there needs to be some objectivity in the coverage or it just seems fake.  

[Golfingdad]

11 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

The announcers were annoying and the way they dragged it out with 20 minutes of commercials and 5 minutes of gymnastics was painful too.  Way too much hype for the Americans in all sports.  I am the first to push for country pride but there needs to be some objectivity in the coverage or it just seems fake.  

Yep.  Too packaged.

I was rooting for the volleyball girls to come back and win the second game but I knew 100% that they wouldn't.  Why?  Well, because it was 11:50pm and since everything is pre-packaged and on tape delay, I already know that it has to end at midnight.  If they had won the second game and forced a third, then NBC producers would have started it earlier and probably shown a couple fewer track prelim. heats, or less of the high jump competition (not sure how that's possible, but they'd have found a way I'm sure).  Because Heaven forbid they show fewer than 40 minutes of commercials per hour.

[nevets88]

I haven't bothered checking the medal tables and FF through the coverage when it does but just saw a table. Holy s**t, the US has 86 medals and the next best 50. With that count, NBC hardly needs to play up anything. Results speak for themselves.

[natureboy]

4 hours ago, nevets88 said:

I haven't bothered checking the medal tables and FF through the coverage when it does but just saw a table. Holy s**t, the US has 86 medals and the next best 50. With that count, NBC hardly needs to play up anything. Results speak for themselves.

Would have been different if Russia had more athletes present. Would still be different even if  Russia had attempted to compete clean.

[nevets88]

This is awesomesauce, sorry, no embedding allowed by Comcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK3eRt2e7TU

 

[nevets88]

Funny little bit w/Andre de Grasse from The CBC. The thing about him compared to the other 100 guys is he looks noticeably slighter. Maybe you don't need to be so bulked up for the 100?

Quote

Wearing basketball shorts and Converse shoes and using no starting blocks, he won his first 100m race with a time of 11 seconds.[4] He was spotted by future coach Tony Sharpe who noticed his potential because of this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_De_Grasse#cite_note-panamgold-4

Gonna be an epic 200 tonight.

 

[nevets88]

Uhhhhh.... No.

[Chilli Dipper]

It takes balls to run a 1500 meter race from the front like Matt Centrowitz just did. Everyone in that final can run 15 seconds faster than the gold medal time, but none of them had the courage to lead.

The Kenyans used to dominate the distance events on the track with their race tactics, but the only Kenyans in the 5000 final tonight are wearing USA singlets.

[Chilli Dipper]

I said the only Kenyans in the 5000 meter final were representing the United States; one of them just won the silver medal. Paul Chelimo of the U.S. Army, represent!

UPDATE: they're now saying Chelimo has been disqualified for pushing on the final lap, and he can't believe it (neither can I; that was a stumble). That means Bernard Lagat will finish with the bronze at age 41; it's an American on the podium either way, but the USA team should appeal that ruling.

[nevets88]

Wow, Rupp raced the 10K 8 days ago, then bronzes the marathon. That's what you call a fast recovery. 

[Chilli Dipper]

24 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

Wow, Rupp raced the 10K 8 days ago, then bronzes the marathon. That's what you call a fast recovery. 

I wonder if Rupp is ever going to go back to the track after that marathon performance. Eliud Kipchoge may be the greatest marathoner of all time, and Galen ran side-by-side with him for 22 miles in tough conditions. No American-born runner has gone sub-2:05 on a legal course; Rupp has that potential, but he probably can't do that and compete on the track circuit at the same time.

[nevets88]

1 hour ago, Chilli Dipper said:

I wonder if Rupp is ever going to go back to the track after that marathon performance. Eliud Kipchoge may be the greatest marathoner of all time, and Galen ran side-by-side with him for 22 miles in tough conditions. No American-born runner has gone sub-2:05 on a legal course; Rupp has that potential, but he probably can't do that and compete on the track circuit at the same time.

Going by his Gilmore comments he might, grudgingly.

I gave NBC a lot of grief in this thread but the best part of its broadcast are the opening and closing segments. It's very good at those.

 

[nevets88]

Breakdown of floor routine. You see NBC, this is the sort of stuff you should be broadcasting, not that silly swimmer with the initials RL interview crap.

How a GIF of Aly Raisman's Floor Routine Got Me Permanently Banned From Twitter

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-gif-aly-raismans-floor-routine-got-me-permanently-jim-weber

[boogielicious]

20 hours ago, nevets88 said:

Breakdown of floor routine. You see NBC, this is the sort of stuff you should be broadcasting, not that silly swimmer with the initials RL interview crap.

How a GIF of Aly Raisman's Floor Routine Got Me Permanently Banned From Twitter

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-gif-aly-raismans-floor-routine-got-me-permanently-jim-weber

I did gymnastics when I was young (not very good BTW). I even got to witness the first double back somersault done in the US in competition. It is stunning how far gymnasts have pushed the sport since then. Runners have gotten a bit faster, as have swimmers. Other sports have a had incremental changes as well. But gymnasts have improved an order of magnitude or more. My gym owner won the bronze in 1960 on the balance beam doing back walkovers. 6 years old do that now.

[nevets88]

3 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I did gymnastics when I was young (not very good BTW). I even got to witness the first double back somersault done in the US in competition. It is stunning how far gymnasts have pushed the sport since then. Runners have gotten a bit faster, as have swimmers. Other sports have a had incremental changes as well. But gymnasts have improved an order of magnitude or more. My gym owner won the bronze in 1960 on the balance beam doing back walkovers. 6 years old do that now.

I don't follow ice skating closely, but the men are attempting some sort of quintuple spin nowadays, right? I'm pretty sure they've landed some kind of quad.

All this without the equivalent of new ball technology and newer shafts and heads although I'm guessing high speed video helped. 

[Golfingdad]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/01/these-charts-clearly-show-how-some-olympic-swimmers-may-have-gotten-an-unfair-advantage/

Somewhat fascinating article ... that is, if the physics or fluid dynamics of a swimming pool and how they might affect a race are interesting to you.

[boogielicious]

18 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/01/these-charts-clearly-show-how-some-olympic-swimmers-may-have-gotten-an-unfair-advantage/

Somewhat fascinating article ... that is, if the physics or fluid dynamics of a swimming pool and how they might affect a race are interesting to you.

Drew,

This has been known by competitive swimmers since pools were invented. Pools have currents. If you don't want to get stuck in the lanes that have the most issues, you swim the prelims faster to get lanes 3 to 6!

This is why they have added two more lanes on the outside that are not used for the finals in some pools as well.