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2008 Olympics!

Is that a burqa the woman from Bahrein is wearing in the 200m race there??
edit: oh well, she didn't qualify for the final anyway.
If it's the same sort of scarf she wore in the opening ceremonies, it's a hijab, not a burqa. I can't imagine any of the women being allowed to wear a burqa because it would restrict her vision too much. Plus, they're bulkier and she'd be much more likely to trip.

Yeah you're right, it wasn't exactly burqa. It was more or less skin-tight and the face wasn't covered; but still it looked very odd next to all those women who compete almost naked in the track&field events. ;)
 
Me! I was pretty upset that the men's semi didn't get live coverage, but at least NBC loves women in bikinis...not sure if that's a coincidence, but hey, live coverage!


-nobody
 
Wow, Bolt was amazing! Again!

However, Wallace Spearmon has been disqualified for stepping on the line (and stupid NBC is asking him "What's your emotion?! What are you going to do?!" and he's still in a daze having just found out). Chruandy Martina may also be disqualified for the same reason.
 
at least NBC loves women in bikinis...
I found out the other day that that's actually an official, IOC-mandated uniform.

Which bothers my inner feminist.

We (family, friends and I) were wondering about the uniforms yesterday. No one was sure if they were more comfortable than the alternative or just for show. I'm just happy we get live beach volleyball. :)




-nobody
 
If the scores were objectively assigned, I might agree with you, but given how subjective they clearly are, the notion of having three significant figures after the decimal point is absurd. Thus, the tiebreaker essentially comes down to noise in the signal and is effectively random.

That doesn't make any sense. Noise in the signal implies that the scoring system produces quantization error. AFAIK the scoring system is just a simple average of all the judges' deductions. Nastia lost because her middle 4 scores has a greater range. This isn't random at all as it indicates that her exercise routine resulted in a wider range of opinions at least in the middle 4 judges. Now you can claim that the judges are too subjective or as some people like to claim "random" but of course the entire gymnastic competition has been depending on the same objective/random opinions of these judges for the last 10 days. The 3 significant figures are merely used to differentiate the averages. Would you rather they add the scores and compare the cumulative result? It's the same difference.
 
But China won't realize this, since they won team gold in womens and the uneven bars gold.

They are also at home. The team gold and another individual gold would be more of a disappointment especially since their men pretty much swept the events.

I disagree with Bela, if it were open competition, countries like China and Romania would be putting even more pressure on younger girls whose bodies aren't developed, young girls who'll be pressured to keep out of puberty as long as possible. It's just not good for prepubescent girls to do physical training at the strenuous level of olympic skills in this sport. Bela would compete with 12 and 13 year olds if he could get away with it, that old blowhard. The higher age levels are much better for the female gymnasts. The sport needs more Shawns and Nastias. I just wish the IOC wasn't afraid of China.

IOC is not so much afraid of China as they are most likely sucked in by the royal treatment no doubtedly lavished upon them by the Chinese government. Believe me anyone can make idealistic speeches about China but when it comes to the real business they usually shrivel back or even become cohorts. It has nothing to do with courage.

The biggest news agency in the country seemed to think He Kexin was 13 last November. So did the Chengdou Sports Bureau but no, they're both wrong and a passport is right.

You see this is why I support an open competition. One if you are good enough then you should be at the Olympics. Two the older gymnasts should be able to show that they can win against all the competition. Finally there are ways to fake your age all the way down to your birth certificate. It's a logistic nightmare for the IOC to try to figure out the correct age of all the gymnasts. In this case you can't just demand a blood test.

You'll notice, I have no problem with Chinese men kicking ass. They're eligible to compete, so it's all good. The best men won.

Speaking of men's competition there is another possible fix. Add an exercise in women's gymnastic which requires more strength.
 
THEY DID IT!!! Back-to-back Gold Medals!!! All hail Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh!

461-18 since Athens! :eek:
 
Wow! Great game to watch! May-Treanor/Walsh haven't lost in over a year, that's pretty damn impressive.



-nobody
 
If the scores were objectively assigned, I might agree with you, but given how subjective they clearly are, the notion of having three significant figures after the decimal point is absurd. Thus, the tiebreaker essentially comes down to noise in the signal and is effectively random.

That doesn't make any sense. Noise in the signal implies that the scoring system produces quantization error. AFAIK the scoring system is just a simple average of all the judges' deductions. Nastia lost because her middle 4 scores has a greater range. This isn't random at all as it indicates that her exercise routine resulted in a wider range of opinions at least in the middle 4 judges. Now you can claim that the judges are too subjective or as some people like to claim "random" but of course the entire gymnastic competition has been depending on the same objective/random opinions of these judges for the last 10 days. The 3 significant figures are merely used to differentiate the averages. Would you rather they add the scores and compare the cumulative result? It's the same difference.

Actually, I think it does. With the tiebreaker system, inter-judge variation in scoring becomes important as successive scores are dropped. Given the subjectivity in judging this sport, I consider such inter-judge scoring differences (for a single gymnast) to essentially be noise. Theoretically, if the scoring were truly objective, all judges would give the same score for a particular performance. And by "three significant figures" I mean that a score with precision to a thousandth of a point (or five thousandths as it seems scores are always in increments of 0.005 points?) doesn't make sense to me given the variability in the scoring process.
 
You know what really impressed me (beyond the incredible playing by May-Walsh)? The match went completely uninterrupted by commercials! :eek:
 
Thank god for that, I hate when they cut away during the middle of the action for a commercial. It is the gold medal match, so you can't justify that like you can in a regular match.


-nobody
 
Amazing tournament by May and Walsh. Winning the entire thing without dropping a set. Congratulations to them for winning a second consecutive gold.
 
40680933qp9.jpg


Michael Phelps on the cover of Sports Illustrated wearing all eight medals.
That's some righteous bling there.:techman:
 
Speaking of men's competition there is another possible fix. Add an exercise in women's gymnastic which requires more strength.

That's not a half bad idea. It would provide a little equalization from the elite programs always being after the teensiest, tiniest, youngest little prepubescent girls for their teams. My husband had a great idea, too-- not an age requirement, but a minimum weight requirement. Weight can be easily verified before every competition. Shawn Johnson is only 4'10" (the lowest end of normal height for an adult female) but she weighs 90 pounds. The Chinese gymnasts in dispute are between 68 and 75 pounds. Shawn's small, but she's healthy, at a proper weight for her height with a bit of muscle tone. My husband reasoned that if they changed the age requirement to a weight requirement (just put a scale right out there on the competition floor) that the change in emphasis to keeping the weight on would make for a much healthier psychology. The unbelievably small and lightest younger teen girls probably wouldn't make the requirement, but if they did, they'd be the healthier 14 and 15 year olds with a bit more height (He Kexin is 4'7". Deng LinLin is 4'5") and a proper weight.

Add a strength apparatus to the womens competition and a minimum weight requirement of 90 pounds to compete in olympics and worlds, and that would take care of a lot of problems. :bolian:

You're right, too, about the IOC happily raking in the cash from the Chinese games so they won't rock the boat about the girls' obviously non eligible ages. :rolleyes: Sad, but true.
 
In ski jumping they used to have problems with underweight athletes too, including some very public (and ugly) cases of anorexia; then they introduced a rule that dictated a minimum body mass index of 18.5, which had a significant effect on the sport.
 
Hehe, watching the Americans fuck up both 100m relays was funny. :D

Not the USA's day today, you can't even win gold in sports that are played exclusively in the USA (softball). ;)
 
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