The 2012 London Olympics Sports Thread

[CountDeMoney]

My God, fencing is a ridiculous sport.  First one to dart in: wins.  Where are the parries?  Where's the swordplay?  Where's the art?

Fucking rock-paper-scissors would be more interesting.

[Threviel]

And a 16 year old Chinese swims her last 50m faster than Ryan Lochte or Michael Phelps with 30 pounds less of muscle, beats the record by more than 1 and a half second, yet she doesn't dope.

Lochte* and Phelps ran out of steam, while the Chinese girl was hanging around the pack until the last leg. Kind of disingenuous to only compare parts of races.

*Yeah, he won, but he'd been ahead of WR pace until the last leg where he fell well behind it.

Everyone talks about how she was faster the last 50 meters or so, what they don't mention is that she was 23 seconds slower in the first part of the race. And she was not unknown, she has won medals in the world championship.

[Ed Anger]

Every time I see the ping pong on the TV, I see Christopher Walken hamming it up.

[Eddie Teach]

Everyone talks about how she was faster the last 50 meters or so, what they don't mention is that she was 23 seconds slower in the first part of the race.

Exactly. She had a different strategy for the race, that doesn't mean she outswam the men.

[CountDeMoney]

Every time I see the ping pong on the TV, I see Christopher Walken hamming it up.

[Sheilbh]

I know the young Chinese swimmer has had fellow swimmers come to her defense but to beat her own personal best by 5 secs is going to cause suspicion.

Not when she's that age.  Ian Thorpe was talking about this and said he did that sort of leap more than once when he was 15/16.

The BBC interviewed Chad Le Clos's (South African who beat Phelps) dad after lots of footage of him crying, shouting and waving the flag.  It was hilarious, and very sweet.  He was just repeating things like 'look at him!  look at my boy!'

Edit:  Incidentally Phelps was an absolute gent (he's Le Clos's hero).  He reminded him to hold up his medal for the cameras and then walked him round to all the different press points etc.  Really good to see.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Some sort of betting thing or whatever going on with three four women's doubles badminton teams.  China, South Korea, and Indonesia were all tossed out of the games for trying to lose on purpose. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/worlds-top-badminton-pair-play-to-lose-group-match-at-london-olympics/2012/07/31/gJQAPoerNX_story.html

Did anyone actually see this? 

[DGuller]

I wish I did.  It sounded like fun, with both teams trying to lose.

[mongers]

Wiggins takes gold in the individual time trial.   


He literally put Froome in his place, bronze that is.

Bad luck to Sanchez, his chain broke on the start, the team where slow to arrive with the spare bike and later he had a puncture. 

Cancellara wasn't in contention, clearly affected by his crash in Saturday's road race.

[The Larch]

Spain has some very good basketball players.  Just watched Spain put away Australia.

Iorm, Larch, is hoops a very popular recreational sport in Spain?

As Gups said, Basketball is probably Spain's 2nd most followed sport after footie (and definitely the 2nd team sport in following). Plenty of players in the national team have NBA experience too. Calderón, the Gasols and Ibaka are all there now. Rudy Fernández played there for several seasons and will come back to Spain next season, Sergio Fernández and Navarro played there for a few years before coming back, and Claver will be a rookie there next season.

[Admiral Yi]

As Gups said, Basketball is probably Spain's 2nd most followed sport after footie (and definitely the 2nd team sport in following). Plenty of players in the national team have NBA experience too. Calderón, the Gasols and Ibaka are all there now. Rudy Fernández played there for several seasons and will come back to Spain next season, Sergio Fernández and Navarro played there for a few years before coming back, and Claver will be a rookie there next season.

I was asking more about mass participation.  How common is it see kids playing unorganized ball in the park?  How common is it for a family with kids to put a net up in their driveway?  That kind of thing.

[crazy canuck]

The thing about being 16 is you are still developing and growing. It is possible that, combined with holding back until the Olympics, everything just came together at the right time. Not saying it is legit, but being 16 is a fact in her favor.

Yes, when young swimmers are developing they are expected to drop seconds from their time; however that is when they are still developing into a competitive althlete.  Once they reach the elite level it is very rare to drop that kind of time.  She could be a phenom but there seems to be a more ready explanation.

[Sheilbh]

As Gups said, Basketball is probably Spain's 2nd most followed sport after footie (and definitely the 2nd team sport in following). Plenty of players in the national team have NBA experience too. Calderón, the Gasols and Ibaka are all there now. Rudy Fernández played there for several seasons and will come back to Spain next season, Sergio Fernández and Navarro played there for a few years before coming back, and Claver will be a rookie there next season.

I was asking more about mass participation.  How common is it see kids playing unorganized ball in the park?  How common is it for a family with kids to put a net up in their driveway?  That kind of thing.

That sort of stuff's common even in the UK where the pro game's not got a massive following. I suppose it's pretty easy and cheap for a sporty kid to start and, like football, you can play with just a few people.

[Josephus]

So I guess we no longer wait until someone's proven guilty to put someone in the stockade? If this was a 16 year old American, or western, girl who did so well, there would be two movies already in the works about her, and a stamp in her honour, obviously. But because she's Chinese....well.

So far as I know she hasn't failed any doping tests. I know that there are ways around that, perhaps, but the fact is, let the poor girl take her medals.

Wonder what happens when a Chinese athlete wins more than 19 medals. Shock and horror, no doubt.

Prior to Beijing, incidently, the Chinese invested a lot into their swim program. She's probably the result of that.

[Valmy]

That sort of stuff's common even in the UK where the pro game's not got a massive following. I suppose it's pretty easy and cheap for a sporty kid to start and, like football, you can play with just a few people.

How come there are so few good British or Irish Basketball players then?