Olympics

[tomcat360]

Ok just watched the mens 100m fly. Everyone watch the end of it and tell me what happened?


Pretty much it looks like this dude from Czech I think beat Phelps by a good bit, but they were talking about him not getting all the way there or something?

Also Abdington just got ya'll Brits a gold. And WR

Phelps actually won, the guy that came in second represents Serbia, I say represents because he was born in my home town and raised in the same county, went to college at Berkeley, and now trains in Florida, so he really is an American, not a Serbian, at least in my book.

Yeah I wrote that slightly after the end of the race. It was contested while the medal ceremony was going on. But when watching the race, the Serbian appears to be victorious. How does he swim for Serbia?

[SDCali]

Phelps actually won, the guy that came in second represents Serbia, I say represents because he was born in my home town and raised in the same county, went to college at Berkeley, and now trains in Florida, so he really is an American, not a Serbian, at least in my book.

Yeah I wrote that slightly after the end of the race. It was contested while the medal ceremony was going on. But when watching the race, the Serbian appears to be victorious. How does he swim for Serbia?

The underwater shot shows much more clearly the stroke of phelps hitting the wall first. Arms move faster above than under water, it was very close though.
As to how he competes for Serbia, I don't think he had ever competed in an international competition for the US, making it easier to meet the requirement to compete for another country(if he had competed for the US he would have had to establish residence in the country for a year before competing for them). He has duel citizenship based on the fact that his parents were both born in Serbia, or whatever it was called at the time.

[tomcat360]

8 for 8!

[Kabazz]

Wooop! Great Britian are 3rd overall!

[Real Pol]

Okay a few sports which I believe should NOT be included in the Olympics;

Football
Basketball
Tennis
(these sports pay their athletes stupid amounts of money and don't need the Olympics to showcase their sports).

Dressage (sp?) People dancing on horses!?! WTF
Syncronised Diving.......bit weird.

[thaya]

I've been LOVING it. High perve factor for the mens swimming too.....mmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yes i agree

i like the mens gymnastics too

[SDCali]

Okay a few sports which I believe should NOT be included in the Olympics;

Football
Basketball
Tennis
(these sports pay their athletes stupid amounts of money and don't need the Olympics to showcase their sports).

Dressage (sp?) People dancing on horses!?! WTF
Syncronised Diving.......bit weird.

Football isn't an Olympic sport--that would be soccer . and soccer players in the States (the only nation that really matters when it comes to determining the future of sports in the games, more on that in a bit) don't make insane amounts of money, unless their last name starts with a B and they are from Great Britain.
Basketball-- it's only the men who make the money.
Tennis-- I've got no agrument for that, except it was interesting to see some of the medal favorites eliminated in early rounds.
Dressage-- come on, this is the only sport (equestrian as a whole, including show jumping and cross country events) where you are not judged by gender, horse or rider, it's a unisex sport and people of advanced age can do quite well in this sport, I think they even had a rider in his sixties competing this year.
Synchro diving-- this was an attempt to get more than 4 gold medals for this sport, also try to get some of the medal tally away from Chinese, as they could only enter one team in each of the synchro events.

They will be eliminating softball and baseball for the 2012 games, because of the US dominance in softball... but why baseball, the US sends an Under 23 minor league team to the games and they cannot compete with the other countries on the same level as the women... it's all in an attempt to maintain gender balance. If they just decided to eliminate softball there would be an uproar because they were eliminating a women's sport.

[RJD]

Football isn't an Olympic sport--that would be soccer . and soccer players in the States

I think your hugely mistaken on your very US centric view there.

Out of 6+ billion people 300million in the US call football soccer, its officially called football everywhere else.

What the US term & play as Football isn't, its American football. And they barely kick the ball, that's a kind of hint.

As for sports, I know the Olympics ideal of amateur sports has gone but WTF is Federer and Nadal playing there? Kick out all the sports that the Olympics isn't the time competition.


Oh and you do know that 'Great Britain' don't field a 'soccer' team at the Olympics, due to the fact that internationally each country of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Island) fields their own team (England, Scotland, N.Ireland, Wales).

[Real Pol]

I'm glad RJD took up the soccer/football debate so I didn't have too!!

But I agree with you SDCali on the gender issue. No woman makes real money in football compared to men and I did think similar in basketball, but just because the number of male/female players is similar is not enough. I still believe that the obscene amounts of cash the male players earn is justification to ditch these sports from the olympics.

I forgot all about softball (there's no coverage over here), which I agree should be ditched, though I know it's big in the far east. Do professional baseball players get to play it or is it american women playing against men?

I think boxing is the only olympic sport which is still truly amateur, possibly, correct me if I'm wrong.

I think they should introduce more sports where the playing arena is already there. For example they took the Kilo out of the cycling 4 years ago, what was the point of that? The velodrome will still get built. They also took karate out some time ago too, but thats just done on the same surface as judo. It doesn't really cost any extra to do keep it in. But where has BMXing appeared from, a great big dirt track has to be built for it adding to the costs, (though they keep going on that GB will get a gold here so I'll keep quiet).

Anyhoo I'd better get back to work, I'll untie my shoe laces and see if it makes me work any faster.

[tomcat360]

The BMX track is cheap, my dirt poor impoverished city managed to build one with the left over dirt that they took out for a drainage project in the ghetto. Also, the amount of income that the olympics generates for the local economy is outrageous, plus they have created a new place for large sporting competitions since the infrastructure is already there, such as world champs, etc.

[SDCali]

Football isn't an Olympic sport--that would be soccer . and soccer players in the States

I think your hugely mistaken on your very US centric view there.

Out of 6+ billion people 300million in the US call football soccer, its officially called football everywhere else.

What the US term & play as Football isn't, its American football. And they barely kick the ball, that's a kind of hint.

As for sports, I know the Olympics ideal of amateur sports has gone but WTF is Federer and Nadal playing there? Kick out all the sports that the Olympics isn't the time competition.


Oh and you do know that 'Great Britain' don't field a 'soccer' team at the Olympics, due to the fact that internationally each country of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Island) fields their own team (England, Scotland, N.Ireland, Wales).

Regarding the football/soccer, I was just trying to be funny...note the smiley face after the word soccer...I understand the difference, I used to play when I was a kid.

[isaluteyou]

Football isn't an Olympic sport--that would be soccer . and soccer players in the States

I think your hugely mistaken on your very US centric view there.

Out of 6+ billion people 300million in the US call football soccer, its officially called football everywhere else.

What the US term & play as Football isn't, its American football. And they barely kick the ball, that's a kind of hint.

As for sports, I know the Olympics ideal of amateur sports has gone but WTF is Federer and Nadal playing there? Kick out all the sports that the Olympics isn't the time competition.


Oh and you do know that 'Great Britain' don't field a 'soccer' team at the Olympics, due to the fact that internationally each country of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Island) fields their own team (England, Scotland, N.Ireland, Wales).

Regarding the football/soccer, I was just trying to be funny...note the smiley face after the word soccer...I understand the difference, I used to play when I was a kid.

I figured that as to why i did not respond. But while we are on the debate. when i moved out to the states i really really tried to get into american sports. i get baseball (even though the world series shouldnt be called that) - basketball i understand, but american football looks like a seriously boring degraded form of rugby please rename the sport "throw ball with lots of stops and standing arround for no sensible reason"

No offensence intended

[tomcat360]

Yeah I'm not big on baseball, too much of nothingness going on. I enjoy watching football and basketball occasionally, but on the pro level (basketball more so) it is just so ridiculous. College level is fun, also my high school being a power house that was fun when I was there.

[SDCali]

I figured that as to why i did not respond. But while we are on the debate. when i moved out to the states i really really tried to get into american sports. i get baseball (even though the world series shouldnt be called that) - basketball i understand, but american football looks like a seriously boring degraded form of rugby please rename the sport "throw ball with lots of stops and standing arround for no sensible reason"

No offensence intended

Baseball is boring to me...used to go to a lot of games with my mom and brother as a kid, never really got it, of course this was at a time when the hometown team (Angels) really stunk. It is more of a world series now than ever before considering the influx of players from outside the US on Major League teams. still it's old tradition.
Football (the american version).. this can definately be boring, especially on the pro level. As tomcat said, it's much better on the high school and college level.
That said.. the two sporting event highlights have been at football games (both kinds) the 1984 Olympic games I got to go to a football game, though I don't remember too much about the actual game... then in 1992, I went to the Freedom Bowl (collegiate american football game) played then at the Anaheim Staduim.. Fresno State vs. USC and Fresno State won (my mom's alma mater at the time, I ended up goingthere several years later), a major upset, and we had endzone seats and saw the winning touchdown up close.