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Olympics 2021

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djpbaltimore

Jun 9, 2014
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The open water swim events are very difficult to watch. Even the announcers struggled to tell the mass of swimmers apart yesterday in the women's 10k. The only one I could identify reliably was the Aussie because of her yellow swim cap. The rest wore white caps with different lettering that was indecipherable while they were in the water.

Koronin said:
It's something you play at picnics.
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I am waiting for the addition of bocce ball to get my Olympic moment. Fingers crossed.

jmdirt said:
Judges. :p
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Some of the boxing decisions in years past boggled the mind. You don't hear as many stories like that now, but too much subjectivity can ruin a sport.
 
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sir fly

sir fly

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djpbaltimore said:
The open water swim events are very difficult to watch. Even the announcers struggled to tell the mass of swimmers apart yesterday in the women's 10k. The only one I could identify reliably was the Aussie because of her yellow swim cap. The rest wore white caps with different lettering that was indecipherable while they were in the water.


I am waiting for the addition of bocce ball to get my Olympic moment. Fingers crossed.


Some of the boxing decisions in years past boggled the mind. You don't hear as many stories like that now, but too much subjectivity can ruin a sport.
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Some mean pensioners around here too.
 
Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

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djpbaltimore said:
The open water swim events are very difficult to watch. Even the announcers struggled to tell the mass of swimmers apart yesterday in the women's 10k. The only one I could identify reliably was the Aussie because of her yellow swim cap. The rest wore white caps with different lettering that was indecipherable while they were in the water.
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No, it's definitely not a spectator friendly sport, and I wouldn't want to watch the full race either, but it would still be better than the 50 race walk.
 
tobydawq

tobydawq

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Libertine Seguros said:
The problem with a lot of the judging events is that, apart from the long-established traditional ones (figure skating, gymnastics, diving), a lot of the time these events fit into the category of the X-games crossover stuff which really feel they're more about the Olympics trying to be "cool" and appeal to "the youth of today" than about actual elite sport. I mean, not to take away from what they do, because a lot of it is incredibly impressive, and certainly not to pick on the athletes personally, but when you're seeing 13 and 14-year-old kids, wearing gear that I could buy on the high street, falling in the majority of their runs and still winning medals, it's hard to accept that I'm watching a sport which is at an elite enough level to merit the prestige which an Olympic gold medal has inherent.

I know that's reactionary and élitist and I get flak for that every time the Winter Olympics come up for it too, but it's long been my opinion. It's not that the X-games events don't have their place, because some of them can be impressive to watch for sure. But that place is the X-games, not the Olympic games. That's what their demographic is, that's the environment that they thrive in.
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Well, you're certainly not getting any flak from me for that :)

I am quite annoyed with all these new sports, although after BlueRoads' write-up of the rock climbing, I think I will watch that at some point. It also sounds a lot more interesting than skateboarding and surfing (are you kidding me?).

Wrestling could easily go as well. What a ridiculous concept. Grown men trying to flip each other around. And this night our national broadcaster even cut from the first two semifinals of the 110m hurdles because of a freaking wrestling match that had the potential to send a Danish dude into a match where he could obtain a bronze medal! Heresy!
 
BlueRoads

BlueRoads

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Libertine Seguros said:
The problem with a lot of the judging events is that, apart from the long-established traditional ones (figure skating, gymnastics, diving), a lot of the time these events fit into the category of the X-games crossover stuff which really feel they're more about the Olympics trying to be "cool" and appeal to "the youth of today" than about actual elite sport. I mean, not to take away from what they do, because a lot of it is incredibly impressive, and certainly not to pick on the athletes personally, but when you're seeing 13 and 14-year-old kids, wearing gear that I could buy on the high street, falling in the majority of their runs and still winning medals, it's hard to accept that I'm watching a sport which is at an elite enough level to merit the prestige which an Olympic gold medal has inherent.

I know that's reactionary and élitist and I get flak for that every time the Winter Olympics come up for it too, but it's long been my opinion. It's not that the X-games events don't have their place, because some of them can be impressive to watch for sure. But that place is the X-games, not the Olympic games. That's what their demographic is, that's the environment that they thrive in.
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The skateboarding was actually disappointing, I really thought the level was higher.
Also I somehow dislike the attitude that most of them show, too much kissing and playing cool in comparison to the actual competing.
 
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tobydawq

tobydawq

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Samu Cuenca said:
I wouldn't want to do it myself either. I've never done more than 10, and that was in a pool.

The problem with having it on the program would be that unlike the 10K, none of the pool swimmers would want to give it a try.
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10 is still pretty hardcore! I don't know if I could ever do that even with a lot of training. I'm simply not fast enough so it would take at least three hours, I'm afraid.
 
Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

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tobydawq said:
10 is still pretty hardcore! I don't know if I could ever do that even with a lot of training. I'm simply not fast enough so it would take at least three hours, I'm afraid.
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I think I did it in just over four hours as a 14 year old, but I was also trying to conserve a bit of energy, because I had a swimming meet the next day. It turned out that it didn't really matter, cause my legs and upper body were pretty dead anyway.
 
Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

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tobydawq said:
That seems like a slightly inadvisable way to prepare :p
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Yeah, it wasn't the perfect way to do it.

In my club we always did "endurance" swimming once a year with 10K being the final distance, which meant you didn't have to do it ever again after completing it. I had failed the year before at the halfway mark, officially because I got a bad stomach after drinking some ice tea, which one of the other swimmer's parents have brought, but it was also partially because I was beginning to fall behind said swimmer.
 
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tobydawq

tobydawq

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Samu Cuenca said:
Yeah, it wasn't the perfect way to do it.

In my club we always did "endurance" swimming once a year with 10K being the final distance, which meant you didn't have to do it ever again after completing it. I had failed the year before at the halfway mark, officially because I got a bad stomach after drinking some ice tea, which one of the other swimmer's parents have brought, but it was also partially because I was beginning to fall behind said swimmer.
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Yeah, things like that are pretty annoying. At uni I had swimming as a subject (very academic, I know) and we had to swim a kilometre in less than half an hour. Easy enough of course but it was pretty demotivating being next to a guy I thought was at the same level as me and then after four or so lanes he just flew away.

Another of my friends didn't very much fancy not being the fastest (which he wasn't) so instead of just getting through anonymously, he chose to swim butterfly the entire km o_O It was on short course but still...
 
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sir fly

sir fly

Feb 24, 2014
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Samu Cuenca said:
Yeah, it wasn't the perfect way to do it.

In my club we always did "endurance" swimming once a year with 10K being the final distance, which meant you didn't have to do it ever again after completing it. I had failed the year before at the halfway mark, officially because I got a bad stomach after drinking some ice tea, which one of the other swimmer's parents have brought, but it was also partially because I was beginning to fall behind said swimmer.
Click to expand...
tobydawq said:
Yeah, things like that are pretty annoying. At uni I had swimming as a subject (very academic, I know) and we had to swim a kilometre in less than half an hour. Easy enough of course but it was pretty demotivating being next to a guy I thought was at the same level as me and then after four or so lanes he just flew away.

Another of my friends didn't very much fancy not being the fastest (which he wasn't) so instead of just getting through anonymously, he chose to swim butterfly the entire km o_O It was on short course but still...
Click to expand...
Why don't you, Vikings, do water polo if already so much into swimming?
 
Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

Sep 26, 2020
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tobydawq said:
Yeah, things like that are pretty annoying. At uni I had swimming as a subject (very academic, I know) and we had to swim a kilometre in less than half an hour. Easy enough of course but it was pretty demotivating being next to a guy I thought was at the same level as me and then after four or so lanes he just flew away.

Another of my friends didn't very much fancy not being the fastest (which he wasn't) so instead of just getting through anonymously, he chose to swim butterfly the entire km o_O It was on short course but still...
Click to expand...

Luckily we only had a short course pool and the water temperature was also slightly higher than in most other pools. I was quite close to a Dan Martin level of skinniness back then, so I didn't mind that all.
We had to the last 100 or 200 metres in medley, but other than those 25 or 50 metres, I think I completely avoided butterfly, cause I never mastered the stroke at all.
 
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