London 2012 Olympic Games

NecroJoe said:
synchronised swimming only makes sense to me if there was a gymnastic, land-based version. Like...synchronised floor routine. (There isn't, is there?) But...that just sounds like a UN-Tribute episode of "America's Next Great Dance Crew" or whatever the show is called...
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there is something incredibly similar in the Rhythmic Gymnastics team finals event where a team of around 6 individuals take to the floor and perform a dance routine using various objects in time to their chosen music.
 
All of which is seen by me as bullshit simply because at the end of it everyone turns to some guy to tell them who is the best in the world at something. That's just not right. Usain Bolt is the fastest man over 100 and 200m, and this can be proven.
 
Other sports that are real sports have judges too. In freestyle wrestling today I watched a quarter final match and myself, the commentator and all the fans thought the match should be tied up 3 all. The score isn't updated so the US throws a challenge. First the judges give Azerbaijan 3 points and the US no points. Then there was some back and forth then more discussion the us coach arguing. Finally after a couple of minutes they give the Azerbaijan wrestler 6 points and a tech fall to win the match.

Everyone in the arena is booking and none of us watching could figure out how they figured out those points.
 
I thought that the judges and the system in the diving worked OK. The best three got the medals in the right order.
 
Synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics are 2 of my favorite events.

I'm not too keen on the "what should/shouldn't be an olympic event"....but Dressage shouldn't lol.

I am a little interested in who should be allowed to compete in the olympics. In soccer I noticed that a lot of the huge names weren't there, as opposed to in basketball. I would like to see some of the NCAA players compete instead. It also pisses me off then when I read about how some NBA stars want to get paid to play in the olympics.
 
In football you have to be under 23 I believe but you are allowed two over age players I think. I agree it is sad that representing your country in the greatest international contest is not honour enough - this sort of thing contrasts starkly with those people who volunteered to defend their nation (Poorly paid) when they could get much more outside, as well as not get shot at or blown up.
 
Speedtouch said:
All of which is seen by me as bullshit simply because at the end of it everyone turns to some guy to tell them who is the best in the world at something. That's just not right. Usain Bolt is the fastest man over 100 and 200m, and this can be proven.
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I have to agree with you (as I have have thought the same for years; ie: that subjective scoring is prone to subliminal influence). For years (particularly during the Cold War) I watched the gymnastics and diving and came out of it thinking that being from the Eastern Bloc gave you an automatic advantage. Yeah, they probably were the best, but the down scoring of athletes from other nations used to leave me wondering what they would've scored if they were wearing Russian togs.

With the technology available now though, I think you could make diving objective. I would like to see diving success measured by the height of the splash made. Nice, simple, Newtonian measurements.

As an aside (on diving), I went to school with a guy who won a Commonwealth Games gold medal in diving (Shaun Panayi; won the 1986 3m springboard in Edinburgh). As at many schools, we used to have an interhouse competition through the year, which included a swimming (and diving) competition. One of the funniest things I have seen in my life, was the interhouse diving event where Shaun was competing. He was doing reverse backward somersaults in a pike position against the the other guys who were just doing bombs ... no-one does diving as a sport!

As another aside, my cousins daughter won a silver medal at Weymouth over night in the Women's Match Racing :banana:... if her skipper hadn't fallen overboard in the third race, it might have been gold; but the Spanish girls they were racing were very solid and consistent and deserved their win in the end. Still trawling the interweb for analysis and interviews atm.
 
Football & Boxing shouldn't be there in their current form. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of that sport and those two aren't because of the restrictions.
 
Peter3hg said:
Football & Boxing shouldn't be there in their current form. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of that sport and those two aren't because of the restrictions.
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I agree. I'd get rid of soccer, tennis and men's basketball. In none of those sports is an olympic gold medal the pinnacle of achievement. I would particularly get rid of men's basketball. When the "dream team" came to the Sydney Olympics, they didn't even stay in the Olympic Village. Rather they stayed in the best hotels in Sydney. They don't deserve medals and either they get legislated out of the competition or the sport should be dropped. It is as boring as watching paint dry anyway.
 
Peter3hg said:
Football & Boxing shouldn't be there in their current form. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of that sport and those two aren't because of the restrictions.
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What are the restrictions on boxing? I don't pay any attention to combat sports nor read up on them and their olympic statuses.

I don't get the footie age restriction. As far as I can tell the olympics are a third rate competition for the sport, but maybe they wouldn't be if it weren't for the restrictions. :/

And what's the point of olympic tennis and soon to be golf? It's just another big tournament for the same people who are at every big tournament several times a year. Hell, they were playing tennis in Wimbledon less than a month after Wimbledon. :lol:

Also my mom said she heard talk about basketball possibly going the way of baseball in the olympics. I think it should, olympic sports are sports that are supposed to have global competition and not be dominated by one or two countries with no contest (I'm looking at you badminton and table tennis!). Basketball has one country. A few times the US has dropped a game and only gotten bronze in their summer fun tournament, but really, come on, no one's going to dispute that they're easily the best nation and always have been, even counting before NBAers were allowed to play in the olympics because all that they could send were kids or losers because every single other basketball player from the country couldn't go.



Anyways, gripes aside, by far the most summer olympics I've ever watched! Watched a bunch of events that I never even watched before, liked some more than others. I've enjoyed it a lot, even if Canada had a bitch of a time getting more than a bronze, but as a Canadian I don't watch the summer olympics expecting much from my countrymen so that's alright then (hey, that's what winter's for). Seemed like London did a great job altogether. Slick venues and presentation. Weird design type choices though, all the modern-y design stuff and a retarded logo and playing chariots of fire during every medal ceremony and an entire arena swathed in pink... but yet it all worked and the atmosphere looked great through my TV. Host nation put on quite a show too, obviously not as successful as a certain two nations with massive populations, but a very impressive showing for team blue and white. And only one or two days with rain!
 
avanti said:
Didn't you guys watch it? Of course I mean the officials, Bolt wanted to keep the stick as a souvenir, the woman on the right tried to grab it out of his hand right after the finish line, he hadn't even stopped yet. When he ignored her, she and grandpa followed him and they literally argued with bolt infront of the cameras and an open mic refusing to let him keep it, in the end he gave it to them, looking quite pissed.
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Are they not taking them so people can not make money selling them on e-Bay? Any way if the poor woman was told to collect it, then (to keep her job - er well you know) she would have to.
 
Ramseus said:
Anyways, gripes aside, by far the most summer olympics I've ever watched!
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Agree, it has been a really well presented event. London has done a terrific job. My only gripe is that they didn't shut down the British tabloids during the event and they awarded the Australian television rights to Channel nine. A great event has been tainted down under ( not by lack of gold medals but) by images and audio of Karl Stinkovic, Lunchbox and fucking Eddie Maguire. After they finish with the Australian Olympic Commission post-mortem, they need to look at preventing these fuckwits from ruining another event like this.
 
Ramseus said:
What are the restrictions on boxing? I don't pay any attention to combat sports nor read up on them and their olympic statuses.
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Basically the boxers have to be amateurs, so non of the world's best boxers can compete because they are professionals.
 
Cobol74 said:
I thought that the judges and the system in the diving worked OK. The best three got the medals in the right order.
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In my honest (trying not to be biased :p) opinion I'd say Daley deserved the Silver and Bo the Bronze. The Chinese guy faltered with a Dive, Tom didn't :dunno: The American by far was the best, though, no doubt.

GerFix said:
I have to agree with you (as I have have thought the same for years; ie: that subjective scoring is prone to subliminal influence). For years (particularly during the Cold War) I watched the gymnastics and diving and came out of it thinking that being from the Eastern Bloc gave you an automatic advantage.
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I'm convinced that being Chinese now adds the same advantage. Yeah they're probably the best, but to win by huge margins should really be bringing up questions.

With the technology available now though, I think you could make diving objective. I would like to see diving success measured by the height of the splash made. Nice, simple, Newtonian measurements.
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Definitely - quite a lot of the sports that are based on judges could be adjusted to be much better. Diving could also have angle of entry to water as a parameter. One thing to at least start with is I would instantly give the judges access to multi-angle slow motion replays. They have a second to decide a score which varied (in the 10m final) the top 3 by 0.15 marks going into the final round. They go by such accuracy when the error margins are just stupid. /engineer.

As a completely different point - its interesting to have a home games to see what its like and how the world views the British Olympics. My house is about an hour on the train/tube from the Olympic Park and a few of my mates are working as volunteers (even my sister as security for hospitality :p) and it all seems so close. I was completely uninterested in all previous Olympics (and I even visited the Sydney park while it was under construction! :lol: - I was 8 at the time, though) but for the past two weeks I've been glued to the TV watching absolutely anything that is on. As I said 24 BBC channels showing something; so just tune in to anything going.
My personal opinion on the games is they are absolutely perfect (ignoring the issues with security initially - those problems just got ignored once the games started); and I'm really looking forward to the Closing Ceremony tonight (not least because Muse but also because the Opening Ceremony was so epically better than the Beijing one as it went a completely different direction and without trying to out-epic it, it managed it).
 
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Ramseus said:
by far the most summer olympics I've ever watched! Watched a bunch of events that I never even watched before
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Me too. I didn't even know whitewater canoeing and kayaking were organized sports that people competed in, but those were suprisingly fun to watch! Also all of the epicness that went down in track & field. Hopefully Bolt will return in 2016. The sprints just wouldn't be the same without him. And I almost never watch tennis, but Murray's upset over Federer was awesome! got me thinking maybe I should watch more tennis.

Speedtouch said:
I'm really looking forward to the Closing Ceremony tonight (not least because Muse but also because the Opening Ceremony was so epically better than the Beijing one as it went a completely different direction and without trying to out-epic it, it managed it).
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So am I. I have to say that opening ceremony was by far the most memorable one I've seen. It will definitely be the one I compare all future openers to. (even if someone manages to have a better opening ceremony in general, I don't think there will be any outdoing the Queen's bit :D )


Anyone watching the NBC coverage see Tom Brokaw's bit on Britain in WWII? I remember he did something similar during Vancouver for Canada. I wonder if he'll make another one for Sochi. (somehow I'm doubtful...)
 
Britain just won another Boxing Gold, leaving one final medal up for grabs for us in the Modern Pentathlon. A good end to the games anyway :)

That having been said - The first thing the Italian boxing silver medallist (loosing the fight against GB) did after the closely marked match? Put in a complaint an ordered a review of the decision. Another thing I don't like with judge-run sports; the fact that long after a match has finished, a decision can be reversed. I know it's there as a buffer for a bad/bias referee, but at the same time the referee's decision is final, right? And the fact that a referee can be bias and affect the match isn't right anywhere - it sad how sportsmanship has almost completely gone from so many teams and sports.

Edit: the decision basically came back that the Brit won by a higher margin than first given and the Gold medal stands. Hideous move by the Italian - he beat you fair and square; be a gentleman and deal with it.

Edit; if no-one noticed; we're proud of our achievements at these thar home games. :lol:
 
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I'll double post for this - the games are officially over :D

Modern Pentathlon Gold (the final event to end) goes to Lithuania, Silver to GB and Bronze to Brazil. Congrats to them; now on to the closing ceremony and the Paralympics :)
 
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Final medals have been decided. We began with Lizzie Armisteads Silver medal in the track cycling two weeks ago. We close today with Samantha Murrays silver medal in the pentathlon.
This means Team GB have earned a grand total of 65 medals, 29 of which are gold. Fantastic result!


On August 29th the action moves to Channel 4 with the Paralympic games. I had believed that the BBC would be a tough act to follow but from the looks of it. They look like good hands.
 
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