Summer Olympics 2008 Thread

[Coast2CoastHoya]

That relay was the most exciting olympic event I've ever seen! What an anchor leg!!

We were talking about the same thing, Buff. Still though, watching the "WR line" behind five teams at one point, and of course the amazing American comeback, was thrilling.

[kchoya]

Aug 11, 2008 9:16:30 GMT -5 buffalohoya said:

Agree with the above sentiments regarding the men's relay late last night EST. Freakin' sweet, especially considering all the trash the French swimmer was talking.

That said, I still can't get over these stupid swimsuits and the "world records" these people are setting. Four teams beat the WR? You're telling me all of those people got that much better in just four years??? I don't buy it. Stupid technology...

1. Wouldn't it be late last night EDT?

2. It was also late last night MDT as stupid NBC tape delays the west coast feed. Idiots, why make us wait until 10:30 to watch the race when we could watch it live at 8:30? They don't do that for the super bowl or any other sporting event. Not only do I have to translate between Beijing time and US time, but I have to figure out when NBC is showing it locally. Idiots.

3. Oh yeah, awesome race. I can't believe someone could make up that much distance over the last 25 meters.

[kchoya]

Jul 26, 2008 18:57:40 GMT -5 Nevada Hoya said:

Actually, even track and field has three judged events, two for the men and one for the women. These are the walks, 20K and 50K for men, 20K for women. I have been on the wrong side of the chief judge's red paddle one time myself. Quite embarrassing! The judge's calls appear sometimes very subjective. The same two judges (man and wife) who each issued me a card did not say a peep my next race with them as judges. I have a suspicion that they were not experienced judges and the more learned judges gave them the word after the race. The only Olympian I know personally this year is Philip Dunn, who is the US only entry in the 50K walk.

The other events in track and field are judged just for overt foul-ups like running out of your lane in one lap or less events. But that is like having referees in bball.

Seems like the judges are just like any other event - to make sure you're following the rules. It's not like gymnastics or diving or something where the judges are scoring. There's obviously some interpretation involved, but it would be same as an official deciding if a runner interfered with another runner in, say, the 1500M.

[Filo]

That was an awesome race and an unbelievable job by Lezak to come back like that.

The faster times are pretty much due to everyone using the "dolphin kick," which Phelps has mastered and the rest of the world is starting to emulate. Watch how unbelievably fast Phelps' turns are - no one can compete with him on those.

[thebin]

We are only interested in the world's fastest man to run 100 meters right? We don't care who the world's fastest fat man for 100M is. We don't care who the world's fastest backstroker who was born with with short and skinny legs is. So why do we care who the strongest 110 pound man is? Why weight catagories for strength events but not speed events?

Starting with the premise that there are way too many medals, can we start eliminating or at least updating (for fighting sports) the absurd number of weight classifications? Too many of these weight classifications are geared towards sizes of people who don't really exist any more in real numbers. How many guys do you know under 170 pounds? Now how many good athletes who have a lot of muscle mass are under 170 or so pounds? Do you know how many classifications fall under this weight?

[thebin]

Keep in mind boxers are generally highly muscled and muscle of course is heavier than fat....of the 11 (far too many) weight classifications for Olympic boxing, a full 8 of them are for MEN who weigh LESS than 180 pounds. You weigh 155 pounds? You are a MIDDLE WEIGHT. Middle of what?

If you were 6 feet tall and 180 pounds, I think that would make you a dude in pretty good shape at average size. But you'd be a friggen light HEAVY weight and in the 9th biggest catagory of men out of 11.

Might be time to update those charts.

[SFHoya99]

I think it is ridiculous as well that's the world's most popular sport has two medals (one if you limit to men) while sports that exist solely for the Olympics have 10 times as many.

[strummer8526]

Totally agree about the swimming world records. My roommate and I were joking every time the announcer was yelling, "And ___ is ahead of record pace!!" OK...that record was set like 3 minutes ago in the previous heat. If I recall correctly, FIVE teams broke WR time in that relay. I think Sweden (or maybe Switzerland...same thing) came in 5th and broke the WR.

[PDRHoya99]

Aug 11, 2008 10:35:40 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

I think it is ridiculous as well that's the world's most popular sport has two medals (one if you limit to men) while sports that exist solely for the Olympics have 10 times as many.

Not only that, it appears that the majority of top international teams aren't even in the olympics. I'm unclear on the quilification process, but if the four teams from Europe are Italy, Serbia, Norway and the Dutch I feel we've skipped a few (like say the two teams that just played in the Euro final).

Actually, after reading this I'm starting to think it's silly that they give out any medals at all for the beautiful game.

[Boz]

Awww, let those other sports have their medals, you scrooges.

You're not going to hear about them again until London, so a moment in the spotlight isn't all that much to ask.

As PDR points out, this is hardly the most celebrated competition for soccer, there are many others, which we can all follow.

And while water polo, weightlifting or handball also have championships outside of the Olympics (or at least I assume they do), it's a pretty good bet that none of us will ever see, hear or read about them.

Hell, even swimming. We're all jazzed about that today. When's the last swim meet you watched on TV? My bet is it was Athens.

I'm fine with soccer, basketball and baseball taking a back seat to these other competitions (outside of the judged ones, which all need to go) once every four years.

[SFHoya99]

My big problem with swimming is Rowdy Gaines, or as I call him, Billy Packer and whoever is doing the "play by play."

Every event is over before it starts -- whether the Men's 4x100 relay or the Women's 400 Free (badly wrong in both events). It's not that he's wrong with predictions -- that's fine -- it's the finality of his predictions. "There's no way the U.S. wins" predicting that the one woman couldn't lose the 400 (she finished fourth).

The play by play guy, or whatever you would call it, is awful. He's like Jim Nantz. He talks the stories in the race and if someone is winning who is unexpected, he completely misses it. In four or five races he didn't mention the winner until the race was over -- even though they led the whole way. I get that people like the stories and they like Americans (on the American broadcast), but if somebody else is winning, you might want to mention that.

[hifigator]

Pretty much echo the comments. The relay was awesome to watch. The announcing was dreadful to hear. We were laughing quite a bit after hearing the Frenchman's comment about wanting to "bury" the Americans. It made it that much sweeter. We turned it around and said they wanted to bury the Aurstrailians. In that case they accomplished their goal.

[thebin]

I'm also fine with certain Olympic sports taking the spotlight from big time team games. It's just that i think there are very legitimate olympic sports like swimming, gymnastics and track- which have huge grassroots cultures and are legit. THen there are TONS of sports where it looks like the IOC is just going out of it's way to toss medals around, often to countries that won't win them in the established sports. I want someone to explain to me with a straight face that we need to give away men's singles, men's doubles, women's singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles PING PONG medals. Seriously? No sorry, men and women that's it. Singles or doubles, not both. Bam! There's 13 Chinese medals right there. Diving is another one. Diving is an old Olympic sport, but recently they decided to start just inventing new diving events. Synchronized diving? OK, let's add another completely made up BS track sport the Americans can do well in again. Synchronized 100M- gold medal to the two guys who can cross the line closest to one another. Walking medals? OK, add a cycling event. Leisurely Beach Cruising. First team to cross the finish line that has not actually sweated a drop. Medals for the stongest women under 100 pounds? Then I want an event where we race fat guys and see who, despite natural limitations, is the fastest to cross 100 meters.

[Boz]

;D
Holy crap, bin. I just shot milk through my nose (no kidding, I am really drinking milk).

Fair enough. I couldn't argue with that even if I wanted to.

Still haven't stopped laughing, that was Dennis Leary-esque.

[hoyarooter]

Actually, I think there are far too few weight levels in many of these sports. Why not just have one level per pound? I hereby challenge any 177 pounder out there to a battle in the squared circle. I want my gold medal!

And wouldn't the play by play man in the pool be the stroke by stroke man?

[hifigator]

I don't have a problem with the weight classes. In events where there is an inherent advantage to being bigger -- boxing, wrestling, weightlifting etc.. -- it makes sense to have the weight classes. I'd never really considered racing events. I guess you could make a case that there is some advantage there as well. But I'm with you on all the new events. THe one that jumped out at me when I saw the preview edition in the paper was Trampoline. Yep, there is an olympic sport for trampoline. I haven't seen it yet, but I am "eagerly awaiting" ...

[Deleted]

Agree on too many events.

Agree on too many weight classes in boxing and weightlifting. Part of the reason I think boxing has become marginalized in recent years (besides corrupt promoters and the move to near exclusivity on pay-per-view) is because there are a ton of weight classes and even more title belts than ever before. Part of the reason I love mixed martial arts is the simplicity of five (in the case of UFC) weight classes. Its tougher to knock the king off the mountain top.

Synchronized diving, all this ping pong, badminton... just bring back pankration already.

[vcjack]

I think there should be even more imaginative weight classes.

Could you imagine the awesomeness of two 150 pound boxers taking on one 300 pound guy?

However I'm still holding out for chess boxing
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing

[thebin]

Aug 11, 2008 13:02:31 GMT -5 hifigator said:

I don't have a problem with the weight classes. In events where there is an inherent advantage to being bigger -- boxing, wrestling, weightlifting etc.. -- it makes sense to have the weight classes. I'd never really considered racing events. I guess you could make a case that there is some advantage there as well. But I'm with you on all the new events. THe one that jumped out at me when I saw the preview edition in the paper was Trampoline. Yep, there is an olympic sport for trampoline. I haven't seen it yet, but I am "eagerly awaiting" ...

Of course there need to be some weight classes in combat sports. But weightlifting? Why that and not weight classes for speed events like track and swimming? Why does it make more sense to give people of all shapes and sizes a shot at being strongest, but when it comes to foot speed we accept that we only give a damn about the fastest?

But even for combat sports, does there really need to be 11 classes? That seems like double a reasonable number. And they need to be recalibrated. 155 pounds is "middle weight" on a man? It's like these weight classifications are biased against those of normal height, to say nothing of tall people. I assume these classifications are very old and need to be refreshed. For the same reason, we need to re-visit shower head and toilet height. Check out how low to the ground a non-handicapped toilet is next time you are in the head. Now imagine that was a chair and picture how ridiculous it is. Can we make toilets for adults now and not just pigmies? Wait, am I on the wrong board for this?

[hifigator]

As long as we are on the subject, I think this would be an appropriate time to bring up a new suggestion for Olympic consideration: Mixed Martial Arts. They already have boxing, judo, wrestling and TaeKwonDo. How about an MMA discipline? With the popularity of the sport, that seems like it would be a natural to me.