2012 London Olympics

Ever seen the movie Good Hair. It explains the whole thing.

Henrik Ingebritsen got fifth in the Men's 1500m, a new Norwegian record!

Haha, an Australian won in the cycling.

Aww, no! Kazakhstan got a medal that wasn't gold. I was backing them to continue their gold-or-nothing streak for a while yet.

Yes, Medicus. Only because she tried to elbow Victoria Pendleton in the rib cage as she was being beaten like a red-headed stepchild. /slow golf clap for that one.

So, Ireland has guaranteed itself another medal. Once again, Boxing.

Tomorrow, we find out if John Joe Nevin manages to increase it from guaranteed Bronze to the Gold-Silver match, or if we get stuck with Bronze.

I would love to see a Gold though, because a) The last time we won one, in a correction from my previous statement, was 1996, the year of my birth. Sixteen years people!* and b) The Irish National Anthem, to repeat, translates to "SHOOT THE BRITISH". If we can get that played in London....


*Ireland did receive a Gold in Individual Showjumping in 2004, however, said Gold was stripped from us in 2005 after it was revealed that the horse, Waterford Crystal, had failed the doping test, specifically the tests for Fluphenazine (an Anti-psychotic used for Schizophrenia and Manic Bipolar Disorder, which can also be used to calm horses, but is illegal to do so because it makes them more responsive to requests and can lead to something akin to Parkinson's in horses) and Zuclopenthixol (also an anti-psychotic, illegal in the US. Can also cause something akin to Parkinson's as well as Cancer).
...
DEAR GOD, he gave the horse shit that would give it Parkinson's and CANCER. WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE THINKING?

edited 7th Aug '12 4:45:22 PM by GeekCodeRed

Oh, that wan't a rhetorical question? Foalish of me, I know.

He wanted to win. Plain, simple and brutal as that.

That's just... Despicable.


But anyway, the Austrailian national anthem really sounds like a Mashup of "Star Spangled Banner" and "Amhrán Na Bhfiann", at least instrumentally.

Gold-medal swimmer admits to cheating in 100-meter breaststroke.[1]

edited 7th Aug '12 5:11:54 PM by saintbraeburn

It seems "Fourth-Place Medal" is the name of the blog or subsite that that appears on. Any need to include it in the text here? It just confuses unless you set it off in some way.

As to the news, I'm surprised he admitted to it, not surprised he did it.

Ban him. Twice. No, make that three times. Once for doing it, twice for admitting it, the third time for lying about it later. Sine Die. (Latin for "without day", otherwise known as "til the heat death of the universe")

More importantly, if you're going to ban things that can't be observed from above, use underwater cameras for judging. Otherwise, there's no point.

I wouldn't doubt the guy is right that most of the competitive breaststroke swimmers are doing it, knowing they probably won't get caught.

You know, I think the Irish might have something in their genome that makes them good at boxing. I mean, we enjoy success in Amateur and Professional Boxing, we've done well in the Boxing in Beijing and London, and hell, Muhammed Ali was of Irish Descent.

The Olympics makes me think that sporting in general is stuck in the dark ages and that in a lot of cases, human referees are highly unnecessary. At the very least, meatbags need to be supplemented with machinery.

That foolishness with women's epee? Either a clock malfunction or just a clock that doesn't keep increments of a second. stupid.

100m breaststroke? Like y'all said, underwater camera. How hard can it be?

Surprise upset of Chen Yibing by Arthur Zanetti? If we're not there already, then we can't be too far off from video cameras that can be initialized for a given gymnasts's height and weight and take off points for alignment, movement, wavering, etc. Gah, that one was annoying, all the media outlets are treating it like the most natural thing in the world and no one is questioning how is it that, given at best equal performances, the one who did not stick his landing pulls an upset.

Sports main problems are their governing bodies. I don't care frankly what other cyclists feel about, for example, the UCI. For me, they will always be a bunch of technophobic, Franco-centric a-holes who if they had their way would have guys going round asphalt tracks on penny farthings. Bikes like what the British won all those medals on are anathema to them. Expect a ban as soon as they can come up with "justification" for one as soon as possible. After all, they did it to Graeme Obree. Twice.

this sounds like every conversation my friends and I have when we talk about how american football is strictly better than everywhere-else football—despite making the game last a million years, most things can be reviewed and every call can be challenged.

Bias and officiating error should not have a significant impact on a game which has well defined rules.

(Just here for the gymnastics)

gymnastics and diving always seemed the most dubious to me because they use judges instead of referees.

It's definitely an incredible feat of the human body, but it's kinda hard to say one person is definitively better than someone else when they're both competing at the same level.

On the other hand, it's less susceptible to doping than the purely strength-based or speed-based events. All of the competitions have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to fairness.

The scores are dubious to me as well, particularly as so many of them are prone to choking under pressure. It's not like a competitive sport.

Aly Raisman, however, was a Terminator.

edited 7th Aug '12 8:54:48 PM by johnnyfog

Why are there no perfect 10 scores? Edit, just read why on Wikipedia.

What the fuck?

I'm fairly sure Raismen shouldn't have gotten either of those medals she got. I would've been very amused if Ponor had challenged for the Floor Show (at least, I'm pretty sure it was Ponor who came after Raismen and totally killed it in her routine) because she most certainly deserved to win that - though Raismen was easily Silver worthy.

But I did learn something important about Olympic Gynastics - it's not so much about doing well as much as it is about difficulty level. You can perform more poorly than others and still win if your difficulty level is high enough, whereas you can be flawless but still be in danger of losing to someone with a much higher difficulty level - they don't really judge higher difficulties harsher, everyone tends to get the same deductions (even, as I noticed in some of the events, if they fall) so it only really gives them a buffer zone.

I think one day judges are going to have to account for their deductions, to be honest.

edited 7th Aug '12 9:02:58 PM by KnownUnknown

I thought the points were cumulative. Ponor had a better floor show, but not enough to surpass the US team. Was I mistaken?

To an extent Judges do. Certain mistakes have set deductions. For instance, in gymnastics stepping out of bounds is a .3 deduction.

The buffer of difficulty makes sense to me. It's easier to perfectly perform a simple routine so any mistakes should be judged more harshly. A difficult routine conversely merits some mistakes and if done well deserves a bigger payout.

I thought Ponor did great too, but admittedly her routine was not only less difficult but it looked like she slightly erred in the landing of her first crossing. She's a better showwoman than Raisman though.

Germany has overtaken Kazakhstan. Apparently they've finally won their sixth gold medal.

Although I'm usually quite supportive of Germany, I couldn't help but say 'Damn!' at this news - because now our chances for overtaking them are a lot slimmer. That would have been hilarious, the Netherlands higher on the medal count than Germany.

Still, I guess 10th place, where we are now, is a pretty decent score for some tiny country of 16 million people which half the world wouldn't be able to find on a map.