If I had known that beforehand I would have rooted for the Ukrainian fencer even harder in the final than I already did.
Curiously the ARD commentator never once mentioned any controversy about the semifinal...
XXXth Olympiad - London
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If I had known that beforehand I would have rooted for the Ukrainian fencer even harder in the final than I already did.
Curiously the ARD commentator never once mentioned any controversy about the semifinal...
Any time you have some kind of hazy, subjective scoring system, there's bound to be controversy from time to time.
Gymnastics, figure skating, boxing, diving, etc.
It's tough when you don't have a hard metric for deciding a winner, be it time in track, points in hoops, or goals in hockey.
And yeah, the US men's gymnastics team really pooped the bed yesterday.
I never saw it and had to google what happened
As for this Chinese swimmer- apparently her sudden surprising speed burst only came in the last 50 metres, so it's hard to see how she could have doped herself in mid-race at that point...
And the US coach who's complaining didn't say a word when his protege Michael Phelps got banned for doping in 2009 or so... Fuck him. The Chinese girl won
That's the French word for pee pee drinker.
I am watching the tennis right now. Wimbledon looks all weird decked out in purple and the players not wearing white.
Speaking of colors, who picked out the color scheme for these Olympics? It's purple and pink everywhere. It's enough to make a guy feel a little light in the shorts after watching for a couple of hours.
WTF was going on in the women's fencing though? I was out and about this evening, periodically checking various results on my phone but from what I gather, a South Korean competitor just sat there in protest for an hour after she lost? You'd think they'd say, come on, enough's enough now, and escort her firmly off the stage!
That's not quite what happened. As I understand it, the South Koreans were appealing a decision and the rules of the event meant that she had to stay put on the stage while the appeal process went through.
Reuters
So she wasn't causing trouble (as many in the media are seeming to portray), she was exercising her right to appeal a decision.
In a sport where times are measured to the hundreths of seconds, I think anyone who shaves 5 seconds off their best time is going to be questioned, be they Chinese, European, American or whatever. I don't know- maybe competing in the Olympics gave her a hell of an adreneline rush and she really did top her personal best by that much, but that's an awfully big improvement.
Doping is a part of sport for such a long time now that I'm always amused when people act like they just discover it.
You mean, swimmers cheat !?! Cyclists !?! I shocked, purely shocked
Sadly it's part of the game and you have to accept it in a way to still enjoy sport.
I rather like the beginning of those games, it took us some times to find the right chemical recipe to give to our swimmers but now, it works
You mean, swimmers cheat !?! Cyclists !?! I shocked, purely shocked
Sadly it's part of the game and you have to accept it in a way to still enjoy sport.
I rather like the beginning of those games, it took us some times to find the right chemical recipe to give to our swimmers but now, it works
I'm starting to feel bad for the Russian team. It sounds like they've been falling on thier face and I just watched a routine for them on the floor which was a great routine until the end. This is just really sad.
I think Jordyn Weiber just stuck a huge middle finger to the judges with that Floor Routine. Incredible.
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Judo.
WTF was going on in the women's fencing though? I was out and about this evening, periodically checking various results on my phone but from what I gather, a South Korean competitor just sat there in protest for an hour after she lost? You'd think they'd say, come on, enough's enough now, and escort her firmly off the stage!
That's not quite what happened. As I understand it, the South Koreans were appealing a decision and the rules of the event meant that she had to stay put on the stage while the appeal process went through.
Oh, well, that makes a bit more sense! Not as much fun as the version I got from skim-reading the headlines though.
Hey, if you can't prove it, it's not cheating. Assuming you mean the fuss about the young swimmer. If you mean the badminton, that wasn't cheating, that was just gamesmanship and not the fault of the athletes but the format of the competition.
More controversially, personally, I think the whole fuss about doping is overdone anyway. It hasn't been one person's unadulterated mind & body against the world for decades anway. What's really the ethical difference between all the multi-million pound training facilities, computer analysis, coaches, legal supplements, etc, and letting them augment themselves with currently non-legal supplements. To be honest, I wouldn't even mind if they genetically modified themselves or used cybernetic enhancment when those advances become feasible. Money makes a massive difference as to which athletes are successful; does it really matter in what way it helps them succeed, provided the athletes choose freely, and with adequate information, what augmentation they employ? Better still, make it so they have to publically declare what enhancements they're using, and let the spectators decide what matters and what doesn't.
I appreciate that the above is a minority opinion, but to me, the drama and entertainment value of sport is not in whether athletes benefit from training or drugs, but in the contest between the athletes. That's why sport can entertain spectators even when performed the lowest skill level and not just the highest.
In other matters, congratulations to Phelps on his remarkable achievement, and... GB beat Brazil in a competitive football match at Wembley!
Not something I thought I'd type any time soon.
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Despite the questionable connectivity issues with "Live Extra" I really have liked that coverage. Because of all this banter about NBC failing and stuff, I wonder if people would actually pay for a package of channels covering nothing but the olympics, a la all the Sports packages like MLB and whatever. Then you can have just all the events and no sentimental stories and the commentating won't be so biased. Also, considering how much of a money grab the Olympics really is, this is a new revenue source. I would pay maybe like 30 bucks for an Olympic package for two weeks. It's better than the alternative, and this year it goes way beyond the tape delay.
NBC's coverage is something that even the biggest homer in Baseball Ken Harrelson would be proud of.
NBC's coverage is something that even the biggest homer in Baseball Ken Harrelson would be proud of.
Doping is a part of sport for such a long time now that I'm always amused when people act like they just discover it.
You mean, swimmers cheat !?! Cyclists !?! I shocked, purely shocked
Sadly it's part of the game and you have to accept it in a way to still enjoy sport.
I rather like the beginning of those games, it took us some times to find the right chemical recipe to give to our swimmers but now, it works
Of course, doping is nothing new, but it doesn't make cheating acceptable or legal in any way. They're coming up with more advanced performance-enhancement drugs and supplements that are hard to detect; on the other hand, scientists are becoming more aware and are constantly devising ways to detect such drugs. The recent issue of Smithsonian has a good article on "The Science of Doping."
Word.
The incident reminded me of Paul Hamm's victory in Athens as it was contested by South Korea.
Nice to see 'Team GB' continue to underachieve, negating even the tenuous 'the results will make all the Olympic expenditure good value' argument.
Meanwhile, pubs, clubs, restaurants, theaters and other emporiums in London report that trade is actually DOWN by up to a third !
Seven years of effort and more money than I can possibly imagine wasted...
Meanwhile, pubs, clubs, restaurants, theaters and other emporiums in London report that trade is actually DOWN by up to a third !
Seven years of effort and more money than I can possibly imagine wasted...
I'm bummed that CBC didn't get the Olympics again as that's the only Canadian channel I get (and just recently in HD...). Used to make for a nice alternative to the NBC coverage.
Only with the Canadian coverage did I ever hear things like "Brian, congratulations on your sixth-place finish, a new personal best!".
Laser-guided archery and cheetah girls, eh?
Only with the Canadian coverage did I ever hear things like "Brian, congratulations on your sixth-place finish, a new personal best!".
Laser-guided archery and cheetah girls, eh?
Tuesday was a really great day for Team USA. The Fab Five dazzled in the team final competition, earning them a well deserved gold. Michael Phelps won a silver, making him the most decorated Olympian. Schmitt won a gold in the women's 200m freestyle. USA took another gold in the men's 4x100 relay. Way to go!!!
I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit...
Jeez and I used to think I was a bit negative about the games before hand!
I love Boris' comment. Nice to see we're being polite hosts by not hording all the medals.
Anyway the games are only a few days old, we will get Gold and we will get a respectable haul of medals by the end. We really overachived in China 4 years ago and unfortunatelty that sets up expectation.
Probably because everything you said there is completely false? I'm not concerned about the Chinese swimmer, but this comment is so far off the mark that it needs to be corrected.
First off, the US "coach" who is complaining is American Swim Coaches Association (and World Swim Coaches Association) Executive Director John Leonard, as named in the article above. Michael Phelps' coach is named Bob Bowman, and he's said nothing about this that I'm aware of, since he's an assistant coach for the men's team in addition to coaching Phelps and it's not really his area of concern.
Secondly, Phelps was never banned for "doping" in the sense of using performance enhancing drugs. He was attending a college party in 2009 and someone took a picture of him using a bong and published the photo. As a result he was suspended from US swimming for three months. So, he was on dope, but not doping, and I highly doubt getting high helps you swim faster.
Phelps actually is part of a group that tests athletes over and above the standard Olympic drug testing (because he's received the same kind of doubts the Chinese girl has), and passed with flying colors:
So your hostility is directed at the wrong people. If you want to call John Leonard a dick for speculating in the press without proof, by all means go for it, but he's not actually the women's coach (her name is Teri McKeever) and he has nothing to do with coaching Phelps either.
