Watched a bit of Trap Shooting with my family this morning.
Except none of us really understood what was going on...
Except none of us really understood what was going on...
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The Japanese did their thing, China hanging on for dear life in their women's volleyball group match against ROC, and the organizer kept playing Kalinka on the speaker.
On a better note, their football team trounced France 4-0, Kubo on show.
Indonesia got their third medal from weighlifting, this time the bronze came from Group B (containing non-favorites, played earlier, no tv time), nailbiting time since all the country could do was watching and wishing the favourites to fail, somehow most of them did. I believe it didn't happen too often that the B lifter won a medal.
On a better note, their football team trounced France 4-0, Kubo on show.
Indonesia got their third medal from weighlifting, this time the bronze came from Group B (containing non-favorites, played earlier, no tv time), nailbiting time since all the country could do was watching and wishing the favourites to fail, somehow most of them did. I believe it didn't happen too often that the B lifter won a medal.
So far, the China victory in the 4x200m in swimming last night has been the most exciting event of the olympics. 3 teams broke the world record and Ledecky came from a long way back to almost secure the victory. For some reason, Australia put their weakest swimmer as anchor and ended up dropping to third in a race that they seemed like locks to win.
Dutchman Kiran Badloe has mastered the element of air and cannot lose the Gold medal in windsurfing
Woooo- track and field!
The Clinic is about to get busy, but I still like to watch. And I'm sure Redhead D will be glued to her TV during the shot put events.
The Clinic is about to get busy, but I still like to watch. And I'm sure Redhead D will be glued to her TV during the shot put events.
USA DQ'ed for a bad handoff in a relay. Vintage performance. With the addition of more relays this year, even more chance to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Somehow the US women survived against the Dutch in PKs (2 (4)- 2 (2)). The USA keeper also saved a PK in regulation and each team had a goal ruled out by VAR. Great Britain, Japan, and Brazil also went down. 3 of the final 4 teams were from the same group.
Somehow the US women survived against the Dutch in PKs (2 (4)- 2 (2)). The USA keeper also saved a PK in regulation and each team had a goal ruled out by VAR. Great Britain, Japan, and Brazil also went down. 3 of the final 4 teams were from the same group.
The US have dropped the baton already? I have only just now turned on the TV...
Well, there is something to be said for tradition. This is not a good one, but there is some comfort to be found in the familiar.
First time at the olympics. It has been ran at the last couple World Championships.
Ohhh, it is much worse than dropping the baton. I ran 4x400m in my youth, so it is near and dear to my heart. What they were attempting to do was have the men run farther than the women. Because the handoff zones are about 20m, if you plan it right, you can have your faster runners run ~415m and the slower ones run ~385m. The US man started the relay and they placed the female way at the end of the exchange zone for the first handoff. But it looks like she started outside the zone or ran outside before the pass. See images. Either way, the pass happened outside the zone.The US have dropped the baton already? I have only just now turned on the TV...
Well, there is something to be said for tradition. This is not a good one, but there is some comfort to be found in the familiar.
View: https://twitter.com/camecoT_F/status/1421070133120880643
What makes this extra stupid is that this was a prelim where the US blew everyone out of the water because they have the fastest runners at this distance, so this strategy was pointless. And neither of these people were going to compete in the final, so it not like it was practice for a later race either. DQs are a lot more common in 4x100 because the handoffs are blind and they are running faster. This should never happen in a 4x400. Gahhhhhhhh.
ETA. It seems pretty clear that the 2nd runner thought the zone ended at the white line, but the zone was actually between the purple marks on the track (Blue highlights in the second image).
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Oh you poor soul, running the 400 is bad enough without the baton and teammates, did you like it? I tried the 400 once in a meet because no one else on the team wanted it, it didn't take. (I ran so hard I pissed myself, and even then I still came in DFL.)
Evidently the US is appealing - stay tuned, the drama on the track has only just begun!
No, I Loved it!
In one meet, I ran the 1600m, 800m, and the anchor leg of 4x400m in that order. I was thiiiiiis close to falling on my face before the finish line out of exhaustion. But all 400m races are grueling, which is why most people do not strategize the handoff. The runner is usually dying, so just get the baton to the fresh person and not f- around with it.
Unless the runner was incorrectly told by the meet official where the exchange zone was, I don't see any grounds for appeal.
For people who want to see how brutal the legs can feel in a race like this, check out the anchor leg of this relay (3 min in). The first 200m looks totally normal, but then the last 200m is absolutely bonkers with runners just dying one after another. And the Irish announcers losing it is the best part.
Thanks for posting this vid, that's just about the best and funniest commentary I've ever heard!
(Also, I can commiserate with the runners who had a great first 200m, but then later on just died.)Kudos to you for running so many events in one meet, did you just have a very small team?
No worries, I'm sure they will find a way to drop the baton somewhere along the line. There is still much running to be done...
Ethiopia won the men's 10,000m, not very surprising. If all else fails just bet your money (real or Monopoly) on either Ethiopia or Kenya.
I did 100, 200, pole vault, and usually 4x200. All that short stuff and I end up being a cyclist who frequently raced 2-3 hours...go figure. Hated the 400 or as I referred to it, the 300, because after that it wasn't racing for me.
I would encourage you to watch the video of the athletes coming onto the track, the officials directing them, and then not redirecting them. They showed it on the Olympic coverage last night and it clarified things for me.
And yet every other team managed it without any such problems or even close, and it's not like they can have failed to notice their athlete was standing about 15m out of line with every other team's athlete trying to tag in. The Americans tried to sandbag by keeping their main team out of it and just using the depth squad so sought to gain an advantage by maximising something to make things easier for themselves, made a mess of it, and then blamed the organisers, who acquiesced. Not saying that the organisers couldn't have done their job better, but I'm not seeing this as an innocent mistake, I'm seeing this as them using the organisers' errors to find their way out of a problem which was actually of their own making.
Waiting for some posters in the forum to tell us how ‘money talks’ and that the Americans paid off the refs to get reinstated….oh wait…
OK, I'll go with your take that the USAers are a bunch of cheaters. It doesn't appear that any official ever warned her about her cheating ways. Is there any circumstance where the officials don't warn a person who is starting ahead of the line (be it start line, exchange zone, etc.)? I read that there were others (in other heats) who did the same thing but either got corrected or corrected themselves before the stick got to them.
Yes, she was ahead of the others, and that should have been obvious to her, but is Irby a seasoned Olympic veteran/star (FYI: the answer is no, this is here first Olympics and this event is the only one she is doing (as a quali runner in a new event)? If you watch the video at the end she doesn't seem like a master cheater, unless she's also a master actor as well. She asks to see the replay again because she's not sure exactly what happened, and then goes off and cries.
I'm going to stick with giving her the benefit of the doubt that it was just an error in a time of tremendous stress/focus/stress/focus.
I'm not saying they were cheating, because I don't think what they were trying to do was illegal, but it required greater precision of execution to stay within the bounds of the rules, and they made a complete mess of it which resulted in them falling foul of the exchange rules. It wasn't a mistake, it was a calculated risk that backfired. They've then looked to avoid the egg-on-face embarrassment of the situation not because they think the organisers are at fault (because their poor execution of the plan was), but because there was enough leeway there in the organisational flaws that it afforded them the chance of a do-over.
Do I blame them for it? Hell no. Do I think it really, really sucks for the Dutch quartet to lose a medal to a team that should have been DQed in the heats? Hell yes.
Lining up outside of the exchange zone was a calculated risk? How could greater precision of execution keep them within the bounds of the rules? Neither of those make sense. I'm not trying to be rude here, but I'm not sure that we are talking about the same race.
Photo
The bottom line is that an official should have said 'hey you are outside of the exchange zone, back up'. If you look at the photo above you can see that she is in 'a zone' just not the correct one.
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Every other team was lined up in the correct place, and I don't personally buy that they didn't realise they were lined up somewhere different from the rest of the teams. Therefore I feel there was a deliberate ploy to maximise the distance ran by the men which meant they saw no issue in that they were lined up differently, but they made a mess of where they actually needed to be in order to execute that plan.
It's not really even being ahead of the others. It's standing right plum outside the exchange zone markings that should have been a dead give away.
And if you are going to plead inexperience on her behalf, the more relevant questions would be how many 2nd legs of the 4x400 relay has she ran in her life and if the track markings in the relays she ran were any different to the ones used in the Olympics so that she genuinely did not know where the exchange zone was.
Also, I don't know the exact rules (that is who is responsible for athletes lining up correctly), but it seems to me that being ok with the athletes ignoring the markings if an official does not tell them about it, is a wrong way to go about it.
Edit: ok, it seems that it as the responsibility of an official, Doesn't feel right that there is literally nothing to lose from standing outside the exchange zone if the worst thing that can happen is being told to back up, but whatever.
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