2024 Olympics - General commentary

bluedevilwildcats said:
I like that perspective but just don't share it, especially how poorly the men did. Losing the 4x100 for the first time - even though it was to obvious juicers - was tough.

Does anyone know if having the next Olympics in the US gives us hope of legitimate drug testing?


"As the Paris Olympics head into their second week, the World Anti-Doping Agency faces a credibility crisis. WADA is responsible for keeping the Olympics and other global sports competitions free of performance-enhancing drugs. The agency’s lack of transparency about alleged doping of Chinese athletes has left a cloud over Olympic swimming. It needs to come clean lest it harm both its own reputation and that of the Games."

"At issue is the fallout from WADA’s handling of positive drug tests for 23 Chinese swimmers seven months before 2020 Tokyo Games (held in 2021 because of the coronavirus0. WADA cleared the athletes to compete despite the positive tests; several went on to win medals, including three golds. Eleven of the 23 who tested positive for those Games are participating in Paris now."
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It's sad that this medal result will ultimately cost the US the outright gold title over China (assuming WBB takes care of business). It's likely ending in a 40-40 tie. This was the equivalent of losing to SFA in Cameron (too soon for those of us at that game).
 
cato said:
I jokingly called my daughter a Commie for not joining me to root for the US in some event the other day.

She turned to her mom and asked, “What did Daddy just call me? A communist? I don’t get it.”

We tried to explain but she quickly lost interest and went to watch a different show in a different room.

My mic drop was suggesting that she go watch the show in Soviet Russia!

She ignored me completely.
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In Soviet Russia, events watch YOU!

(apologies for Yakov)
 
Got up to watch the women's volleyball gold medal match this morning. It's up there with men's basketball and women's soccer as my favorite sports to watch in the Olympics. Italy went through us like a buzz saw. We were never once competitive in any of the three sets.
 
duke2x said:
It's sad that this medal result will ultimately cost the US the outright gold title over China (assuming WBB takes care of business). It's likely ending in a 40-40 tie. This was the equivalent of losing to SFA in Cameron (too soon for those of us at that game).
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Given the history of issues with the men's 4x100, why would anyone expect Gold from them?
 
duke2x said:
It's sad that this medal result will ultimately cost the US the outright gold title over China (assuming WBB takes care of business). It's likely ending in a 40-40 tie. This was the equivalent of losing to SFA in Cameron (too soon for those of us at that game).
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Blame the high jumper who could have shared a goal but said no and then lost the jump off.
 
ClemmonsDevil said:
Got up to watch the women's volleyball gold medal match this morning. It's up there with men's basketball and women's soccer as my favorite sports to watch in the Olympics. Italy went through us like a buzz saw. We were never once competitive in any of the three sets.
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Yeah, we had nothing for Italy today and they deserved the gold!
 
acdevil said:
Blame the high jumper who could have shared a goal but said no and then lost the jump off.
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I've heard different descriptions of how that happened, my impression is McEwen was amenable to splitting the gold but Kerr wasn't.

“He said it first, and I agreed to it,” McEwen said, according to the Washington Post. “At some point, I kind of got fatigued. I maybe would have shared it with him, for sure. But I agreed to it, and it was all good.”

From my perspective, Kerr was more easily clearing the bar each jump, so I had a feeling he was going to win the jump off.
 
75Crazie said:
Are you kidding me? A woman wins bronze in 5000M and 10,000M and then wins gold in the marathon, all in one Olympics? That is super-human.
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As a long distance runner myself, those don't seem all that different. Lots of marathoners do speed work which would come in handy for the 5,000M and 10,000M. I don't know anything about this woman but it wouldn't surprise me if she started in long distance and then added those shorter races.
 
bluedevilwildcats said:
As a long distance runner myself, those don't seem all that different. Lots of marathoners do speed work which would come in handy for the 5,000M and 10,000M. I don't know anything about this woman but it wouldn't surprise me if she started in long distance and then added those shorter races.
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The other way around. She started at the shorter distances, then recently decided to add the marathon.

The idea of running all three distances is not crazy. But running Olympic level 5k and 10k twice each and THEN running a gold winning marathon all in the span of 10 days? Crazy.
 
CDu said:
The other way around. She started at the shorter distances, then recently decided to add the marathon.

The idea of running all three distances is not crazy. But running Olympic level 5k and 10k twice each and THEN running a gold winning marathon all in the span of 10 days? Crazy.
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I was just checking her Wiki and was about to post the same thing in terms of adding the Marathon afterward.

She also has medaled in the 1,500. So yeah, crazy talent.
 
duke2x said:
It's sad that this medal result will ultimately cost the US the outright gold title over China (assuming WBB takes care of business). It's likely ending in a 40-40 tie. This was the equivalent of losing to SFA in Cameron (too soon for those of us at that game).
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I don't know about that. China walks into the Olympics with nearly 20 near-certain gold medals -- eight diving events, five table tennis events, six weightlifters per country. They took 18 of those 19 events.

They overachieved a bit in shooting (where the USA certainly underachieved, Vincent Hancock notwithstanding) and boxing. Then they picked up a few surprising gold medals elsewhere (tennis??!!).

The USA was weaker than usual in men's swimming, where Arizona State took more gold medals than the USA did, and women's water polo, whose loss is nearly as surprising to me as a women's basketball loss would've been.

Generally, the USA has more breadth and depth. China simply owns three sports and is competitive in several others.
 
CDu said:
The idea of running all three distances is not crazy. But running Olympic level 5k and 10k twice each and THEN running a gold winning marathon all in the span of 10 days? Crazy.
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Extremely impressive.

I don’t have a good sense of the way elite runners train, but all the marathon training programs I’ve looked at involve a lot of tapering in the week or two before the race.

I’ve yet to come across a training program which recommends winning an Olympic 10K bronze medal less than 36 hours before your marathon.
 
budwom said:
did they have a naked bike race? Burlington has that...
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Well, that helps explain why this all seems normal by comparison.

The best thing about the French, and I truly mean this: they don’t give a rat’s rear end if you like what they do or not. They express themselves. I doff my chapeau and call any complaint a silly thing.
 
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