Olympics 2024 - discussion thread

[getready]

If all athletes are to be treated as equals, they should all be required to live the Olympic village and not allow rich countries to send their athletes to stay in better conditions because then can.

I think it was in the Atlanta Olympics where there was an African-American swimmer that didn't make it on the USA team so he went to represent a Central American country's team. He won the gold medal beating all the Americans competing against him. And if I recall correctly he wasn't swimming the middle lanes. I think he was in the second or third lane from the side. How could that happen where he didn't qualify for the US team? It's like in women's gymnastics when the Karolyis were in control of picking the US team. You had female gymnasts that were better than other gymnasts and not picked to be on the US team. And now because they're not in authority anymore, you're seeing more minorities on the team. The present US team won gold on the team event with only one white female on the team. There's always a factor down the line where performance doesn't play a role in picking.

I never knew that about the Karolys. Interesting
Agree about the equal treatment for all athletes in Olympic village. Sadly it’s hard to enforce. Additionally, you also have richer athletes like nba and tennis players living in 5 star hotels.

 

[sndef888]

China's best hope for swimming gold coming up in around an hour (mens 100m freestyle)

Men's 200m breaststroke has a slight chance as well

 

[Xiongmao]

Just out of interest, does the average public school in China have access to swimming pools and swimming lessons?

 

[Maikeru]

Congratulations to Siobhan Haughey (Hong Kong) for earning Bronze in the Women's 100m Freestyle. She finished .01 seconds ahead of Mollie O'Callaghan (AUS). Haughey also earned Bronze in the 200m Freestyle, in which O'Callaghan earned Gold.

So that's gold and silver for Ireland then? If you're claiming US maths olympiad team for China...

 

[B.I.B.]

I think it's actually for China to get gold at newer events than older ones. Newer events, no one has really built up the infrastructure so there's not much to catch up on.

It's why China has a UFC champ while the rest of traditional Asia doesn't.

Japan has won 2gold and a silver in skate boarding.

 

[dingyibvs]

Wang Chuqin just lost to world ranked 26 Truls Moregard of Sweden and is now knocked out of the Men's Singles Table-Tennis for those who missed it. Possibly the biggest upset in ping-pong history? #1 knocked out by #26.... Even the paddle incident can't really account for this bad of a performance from Wang.

I play TT and follow it pretty closely. Moregard was the silver medalist at the 2021 World Championship, so he's no chopped liver. His play is inconsistent and he hasn't performed well the past few months, hence the low seeding, but at his best he's very, very good.

With that said WCQ is still better, but his play style is also a bit unstable and he's relatively inexperienced. Watching them play IMO WCQ played way, way below his normal level, hardly winning any longer rallies. TT is a game of precision, and I think his distrust of his equipment really showed during this match.

In the end, it's really on Wang. He needed to get over the fact that he's using new racket. Sure, no two blade is exactly the same, but his backup blades must be quite similar and wouldn't result in a huge difference in playing level. In a match you can adjust your tactics but you cannot adjust your technique. He looked like he was trying to make microadjustments to his technique to compensate for any perceived difference with the blade, and the longer the match went on the more he did that.

 

[B.I.B.]

It's shocking that India does so poor despite the high doping rate. I always assumed they perform abysmally because they have no dedicated training programs. Turns out they're drugging their athletes up to the gills at rates higher than US and Russia.

1.5 billion people, man. What are most of them even doing.

India should do alright if they introduce Yoga.

 

[henrik]

China's best hope for swimming gold coming up in around an hour (mens 100m freestyle)

Men's 200m breaststroke has a slight chance as well

Also womens 200m butterfly has a chance.

 

[henrik]

So that's gold and silver for Ireland then? If you're claiming US maths olympiad team for China...

If you claim Siobhan Haughey for Ireland, then they can also claim Torri Huske for China, as her mother is from Guangzhou.

 

[Jiang ZeminFanboy]

Woooooha