The 2012 London Olympics Sports Thread

[DGuller]

  I still don't believe that that South African dude is a girl.

[CountDeMoney]

I still don't believe that that South African dude is a girl.

Me neither.  There's masculine, there's feminine, and then there's her.

[DGuller]

I still don't believe that that South African dude is a girl.

Me neither.  There's masculine, there's feminine, and then there's her.

It also looked like he/she laid back, and didn't even try to run fast, until the very end.  I've seen some impressive sprinting near the end of long races, but that was something else entirely.

[DGuller]

Usain Bolt may be a very fast runner, but he's no champion. 

[Syt]

It's a shame the Decathletes get hardly any coverage whereas the sprint events have turned into the main stage for track & field. Usain Bolt the greatest athlete ever? I wantot o seem him do the shot put, javelin, discus, 1500m, pole vault etc. to see how he really measures up outside his niche. Or do a triathlon.

[katmai]

It's a shame the Decathletes get hardly any coverage whereas the sprint events have turned into the main stage for track & field. Usain Bolt the greatest athlete ever? I wantot o seem him do the shot put, javelin, discus, 1500m, pole vault etc. to see how he really measures up outside his niche. Or do a triathlon.

[Admiral Yi]

Decathalon took a permanent hit in the US when Bruce Jenner decided to buy Michael Jackson's face and financed it by doing as many retard infomercials as possible.

[Syt]

I guess it's also a sport that's a bit complicated for mainstream viewers - in the singles events you understand quickly what's going on: who runs faster/throws farther/jumps higher or farther. In decathlon it's translated into opaque point scores, and on top of that you have a lot of tactics involved (which athlete puts how much effort into which event to maximize chances and scores).

[Richard Hakluyt]

It wasn't even that Anglo-Centric.  The whole story was about British trying to hold on until Americans would arrive and rescue them.  Doesn't exactly seem like an unambiguous endorsement of British strength. 

In any case, I understand things like focus, but there is a difference between focusing on something, and distorting the story to the point it becomes a falsehood.

And where, exactly, in telling the story of Churchhill's ascent, the Blitz, the Battle of Britain, and interviewing the 85 year old who lost his mother at age 7, were the falsehoods?

Hey, maybe you'll luck out at the next Winter Olympics, and Brokaw will do a piece in Sochi on the cossack pogroms in murdering a half million Circassians? Will that make you feel better?

Fucking Russians, man.  ZOMG THEY DIDNT MENTION STALINGRAD IN A STORY ON THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

The setting of the story.  If British lost the Battle of Britain, Britain would be invaded and occupied, and Hitler would be unstoppable.   Let's forget that somewhat sizable and populous country in the east on the same fucking continent, that's irrelevant.  Churchill getting FDR on his side, that was the reason for Hitler's defeat.

EDIT:  And this has nothing to do with me being a Russian.  I just hate the trend in pop history lessons where ever single event in history was shaped and determined solely by the subject of this hour's special.

Maybe we are indifferent as to which evil empire gets to dominate Europe?

Because Britain survived in 1940 the western allies were at least able to liberate Western Europe, without Britain as a base it is hard to see what the USA could have done to help countries like France, Netherlands and so on.

[DGuller]

I just read that the jolly white-mustached guy and the dried out old lady with the glasses, who were always shown on TV when US gymnasts were competing, were beating their students savagely when they were coaches in Romania.  My faith in the humanity of communist block gymnastics is shaken. 

[Sheilbh]

We get medals ceremony and sports live. Thank God there's no segments about their 'journey'

I don't know I've seen at least one, there was a rather naff one about Bradley Wiggins, before the time trial, sufficently long along with all of the other studio bound presenter crap, that they didn't bother show many of the starts.

I didn't see that. You could probably have red buttoned past it.

What happens to all the specialist commentators for the next four years?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Thorpe and Johnson were a great relief compared to some of the British presenters, they both behaved with decorum and allowed their expertise to inform their comments, they were worth listening to. Denise Lewis and that Jackson fellow were bloody ridiculous 

I thought Boardman did pretty well and Steve Redgrave was also calm and informative.

[Sheilbh]

Thorpe and Johnson have been great. I like Denise Lewis though. A good team explains the sport or the technical details, but also give a sense of the excitement and atmosphere of the event. I think Lewis is just maybe a bit better at the latter

And even Thorpe was referring to Britain as 'we' by the end of the swimming.

Except for the Ye Shiwen thing, I think Clare Balding's been brilliant too.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, I wish she hadn't said that, it verges on the slanderous.

There was little film about Denise Lewis's roots in Birmingham and her family's in Jamaica which I found interesting. I found her comments in the studio to be a vast collection of platitudes   - maybe I'm being too harsh, she is a personable enough woman and there is no reason why a former athlete should be a wizard with the spoken word.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The most important thing now, though, is to stop McCartney from "singing" during the closing ceremony