London 2012 Olympics Thread

[Bala Verde]

Woohoo Bosch gets the bronze in judo - women up to 70Kg

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

What are your/UK's (supposed) best events?

Anything sitting down; we'll take our fair share in the cycling, sailing, rowing, horsing around events.

Medal table looking much better this evening with the Aussies below us.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

New Olympic Record for Ranomi Kromiwidjojo on the 100m freestyle

I think in the final she will be below 53 seconds probably

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Haha, if it's any consolation to you, Alpe, there are NFL officials who believe that (American) football has a serious chance of becoming an Olympic sport. There are so many problems/obstacles with that idea I don't know where to begin, but you and Foxy should be drooling at the prospect. "And Rodgers throws a 70 yard bomb to Calvin Johnson to win the gold medal!"

In that case lets have darts & snooker too. And cheese chasing.

 

[thrawn]

Chinese an S.Korean badmindon players got DQ'd. Harsh.

Harsh? No. Not only should they be DQ'd, they should be given a year long ban (minimum) for match fixing. I wonder how much money they put on the result of the match...

Magnussen fails again. What a tool.

 

[Cancellator]

Not trying to be disrespectful to the swimming fans, but just how many Olympic swimming events are there? Is every possible combination of [gender] x [100,200,400m] x [4 strokes + meddle] x [single or relay] in the Olympics? It's all I see on Eurosport these days!

 

[thrawn]

In that case lets have darts & snooker too. And cheese chasing.

Don't forget bog snorkeling.

 

[taiwan]

Harsh? No. Not only should they be DQ'd, they should be given a year long ban (minimum) for match fixing. I wonder how much money they put on the result of the match...

Magnussen fails again. What a tool.

Not saying they didn't have money on, but I thought they were just throwing the match for tactical reasons...

 

[labratty]

Harsh? No. Not only should they be DQ'd, they should be given a year long ban (minimum) for match fixing. I wonder how much money they put on the result of the match...

By that measure Tony Martin should be banned as well, he withdrew from the RR for no other reason than match fixing, i.e. to improve his chances in the TT. A chaser of his quality would have improved the chances of closing the break down.

 

[DominicDecoco]

Harsh? No. Not only should they be DQ'd, they should be given a year long ban (minimum) for match fixing. I wonder how much money they put on the result of the match...

Magnussen fails again. What a tool.

Money had nothing to do with the two fixed matches.

 

[DominicDecoco]

By that measure Tony Martin should be banned as well, he withdrew from the RR for no other reason than match fixing, i.e. to improve his chances in the TT. A chaser of his quality would have improved the chances of closing the break down.

There's quite a difference between saving yourself for later and just deliberately hitting the net half of the time on the serve. And the result of these matches affects other athletes than themselves as well.

 

[kurtinsc]

Not trying to be disrespectful to the swimming fans, but just how many Olympic swimming events are there? Is every possible combination of [gender] x [100,200,400m] x [4 strokes + meddle] x [single or relay] in the Olympics? It's all I see on Eurosport these days!

100 and 200 in Back, Breast and Fly.
200 and 400 in IM.
50, 100, 200, 400, 1500 freestyle.
4x100, 4x200 free relay
4x100 medley relay.

For men.

For women they replace the 1500 with a 800 freestyle.

They've also added a 10K swimming event... but it's relatively new and I think it might be open water instead of in the pool.

To be honest, using "number of medals" to judge olympians gives swimmers an unfair advantage. If you are a swimmer specialized to the 100-200 meter distance and have a few good strokes, you can compete in a lot more events then other atheletes. Yeah, a good track sprinter can win in the 100 and 200... but a swimmer can win in the 100 and 200 back, fly and freestyle... and maybe the 200 IM as well. 2 medal chances vs 7. It's hard to be elite in the breaststroke and the other three events... but there's a lot of crossover for the other three. If you spread the events out more to let them rest, you really could have a guy like Phelps in the last olympics win 10-11 medals. Could he have won the gold in the 100 free, 100 back and 200 back? Probalby not. Medal? Possibly. He qualified for the 200m backstroke in 2004 but dropped the event prior to the olympics, and he gets selected form the 4x100 free relay each year despite not competing in the event (and swam the best leg of the US team in the relay).

 

[Magnus]

Not trying to be disrespectful to the swimming fans, but just how many Olympic swimming events are there? Is every possible combination of [gender] x [100,200,400m] x [4 strokes + meddle] x [single or relay] in the Olympics? It's all I see on Eurosport these days!

There are 17 events for each gender:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_Summer_Olympics#Men.27s_events

Just be thankful that they only have long course and not also short course

 

[snackattack]

instant journo

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/cyclist-killed-collision-olympics-shuttle-bus-202659611--oly.html

"The cyclist, a man believed to be approximately 30 years old, was pronounced dead at the scene at 20.14 (1914 GMT),"

 

[jens_attacks]

pretty much a night full of new records.

my favourite was the brutal one of weightlifting

205 kilos right there:

the other chinese finished second,but the impressive thing is that he lifted 190 kg with a fucced up hand in tears....wow

the swimming contests were again high class

 

[The Hitch]

Harsh? They were bang out of order.

Such a great showup at Wembley the last couple of days. They spend money to watch this and then they have to witness such farce. And it's not the first time they do this either.

However, someone really have to take a look at that group system. Either quit or reconstructure it. It doesn't work.

Are there rules against it though. The players went out thinking what they were doing was in the rules, so dq is harsh.

 

[SafeBet]

They've also added a 10K swimming event... but it's relatively new and I think it might be open water instead of in the pool.

Open water yes.
This is the course map: http://www.london2012.com/mm/Document/Documents/General/01/25/71/47/MarathonSwimGTW_Neutral.pdf

 

[DominicDecoco]

Are there rules against it though. The players went out thinking what they were doing was in the rules, so dq is harsh.

Rules against match fixing? Of course there are and of course they knew it wasn't tolerated. It's been discussed in every pre-tourneys up to the Olympics, because they did the same there as well to get as many (in this case) chinese players through, and the players were even told in the middle of the match - the match which was played yesterday - that they would get disqualified if they continued. They eventually kept on hitting the net with simples serves not being bothered.
The next match did exactly the same.

The sad thing though, is that the players will do everything to win but are told otherwise by people above them. Those are the ones who should get disqualified, kicked and banned from the sport.

And even if you wouldn't consider it match fixing it's definitely unsportsmanship. It's unsportsmanship that affects not only themselves but also the other athletes. Something you can get sanctioned for in every sport. And they rightly did. You don't see the European players losing like this. They play games to win them. The Asian players are - by far - the better playes and are pretty much guaranteed to win it all. Why can't they just do the same and play to win? Because they are greedy. It's a niche sport, it's a fun sport and it's a sport that's only discussed every 4th year - now for the wrong reasons.

Therefore can sod off somewhere else.

 

[hrotha]

Poland destroying Britain at women's team foil. Sylwia Gruchala is mighty fast.

 

[Merckx index]

I smell another controversy brewing. American Gabby Douglas won the women's gymnastics all-around. Her teammate Aly Raisman tied for third with a Russian girl, but the bronze went to the Russian because, if I hear this correctly, with ties they drop the worst of the four scores. The Russian did very poorly in one event, so the total of her other three scores were better than Aly's best three.

I think this sucks.* If you are tied to 0.001 point (and what are the odds of that happening??), give them both medals. They do that in swimming. With modern electronic equipment, it's possible to determine who hits the wall first to thousandths of a second, or millimeters apart. But they don't do it, because differences in the length of the pool from one lane to the next might be more than that. If the race is that close, they call it a tie. They only distinguish down to 0.01 of a second, which is about an inch. Given how subjective gymnastic scoring is, why should they try to distinghish between two competitors who are tied in their final score?

*Edit: OK, now I read it's determined by the combined execution score on three of the events. Still seems arbitrary to me.

Back to swimming: big day for Lochte, as he tries to win both the 200 back and 200 IM, 30 minutes apart. His toughest competition in both events is likely to be teammates. In the back, Tyler Clary has looked really good in the preliminaries, and qualified first for the final. Lochte will have his hands full beating him. Then in the IM, he and Phelps go at it for the final time. Could be 1-2 American finishes in both events.

Edit: Poor Lochte, no golds today. Finishes 3d in the back, behind Clary and a Japanese swimmer, and second behind Phelps in the IM. In the backstroke, following a familiar refrain, he led throughout the race up to 150 meters, then faded in the last 50. In the IM, Phelps built much of his lead in the back, and held it the rest of the way. I think Lochte was not 100% recovered from the back (which would explain why this leg of the IM was relatively his worst; swimming 200 m back 30 min earlier would most affect his backstroke, whereas the other strokes would use muscles that were somewhat more rested), and might have won if he had been fresher. It was close, but not a touch-out.

On his 3d try, Phelps finally becomes a 3-time champion in an event. Tally now 16 golds and 20 overall. Lochte finishes his career with 11 Olympic medals.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Video of the match fixing.

http://olympia.ard.de/london2012/vi...ideoarchiv197_page-8_videoID-olympia1329.html

I think those badminton players could learn a lot from soccer...
The way they did it here is not the way to do it. A good fix is not easy to detect. This one´s amateurish.

PS: Someone with a link of the complete thrown games?
--------------------------------------
And here´s a little footage of the fixed boxing fight

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/8/2...ideo-boxing-bad-decision-shimizu-abdulhamidov

Guys it´s a farce, it´s a farce.... so much of the olympic oath, sung by coaches, athlets and refs at the opening day ceremony.

 

[taiwan]

More contoversy: GB's Hindes admits to crashing out of the team sprint intentionally, although such practise is not sanctionable. That's a pretty big loophole in the rules.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Australian media really upping the criticism on the Australian team's lack of medals so far. Hopefully some more will come tonight.

What happened in the Badminton was a disgrace. I am glad those teams were relegated as it was not in the spirit of the Games.

 

[Eshnar]

Poland destroying Britain at women's team foil. Sylwia Gruchala is mighty fast.

Wtf? Britain didn't play with Poland at all...

 

[hrotha]

Wtf? Britain didn't play with Poland at all...

Sure did. 'Twas a match for 5th, apparently.