2024 Paris Olympics megathread

[Josquius]

As I said before it's just so weird. The girls lining up look like they're on a senior school trip.
The guys lining up... Grizzled 20 somethings. Iirc some in their 30s. How you expect athletes to look.
Why the gender difference.?

Is women's skateboarding just new or is there something more to this?

Also particularly odd I find is quite how dominant Japanese girls are in skating. Both those representing Japan and those of Japanese heritage elsewhere. Not a sport that is traditionally encouraged in Japan at all. Weird.

Totally unrelated. Interesting contrast in sports when the athletes step out. The swimmers mostly all strode out super businesslike ignoring everything. The shot putters were all smiles and waves and funny poses.

[Grey Fox]

I think it's because there isn't a women's professional circuit.

You hold tryouts and the best girls gets in and for some reason few older women make it.

Maybe it's like gymnastics before Biles forced the federation to change how they score.

[Tamas]

Totally unrelated. Interesting contrast in sports when the athletes step out. The swimmers mostly all strode out super businesslike ignoring everything. The shot putters were all smiles and waves and funny poses.

In Hungary, at least, swimming is SERIOUS BUSINESS. You are put to rigorous (and maybe not anymore but a couple of decades ago certainly quite brutal) training from a very young age. And if you are getting considered competitive on the international stage then that was the easy part because now you have rigorous training AND boundless expectations. And now there is the whole sport-centric fascist autocracy to dial that to eleven.

In fact the probably best swimmer of the current generation (Milak something can't remember his name) just trolled the whole system. Months ago he seemed to had been abandoning his training and preparation work and it was a scandal of the "how dare you abandon the nation" variety. Then he shows up on the Olympics better than ever, having already won a gold I thin. He probably did continue to prepare just had enough of the attention and the hype. Continuous with a very openly "zero fucks given" attitude, so good for him.

[garbon]

The swimming events I saw had the swimmers often walking with swagger.

[crazy canuck]

Swimming in NA is also taken very seriously.  And then the Aussies turn that up to 10.

[Sheilbh]

Swimming in NA is also taken very seriously.  And then the Aussies turn that up to 10.

True of Aussies and any sport though

I was speaking to an Aussie colleague about this today and they were saying about how they didn't really enjoy swimming as a kid and were trying quit at about 12/13 - but zero tolerance. Still mandatory, competitive swimming at school and after school for state competitions. Swim meets are just a core part of Aussie culture apparently

[HVC]

Swimming in NA is also taken very seriously.  And then the Aussies turn that up to 10.

True of Aussies and any sport though

I was speaking to an Aussie colleague about this today and they were saying about how they didn't really enjoy swimming as a kid and were trying quit at about 12/13 - but zero tolerance. Still mandatory, competitive swimming at school and after school for state competitions. Swim meets are just a core part of Aussie culture apparently

Guess that's what happens when your PM dies drowning, swimming education becomes very important

[Sheilbh]

Honoured with a memorial swimming pool:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_Centre

[DGuller]

I think it's because there isn't a women's professional circuit.

You hold tryouts and the best girls gets in and for some reason few older women make it.

Maybe it's like gymnastics before Biles forced the federation to change how they score.

Biles didn't force the federation to change how they score, they went away from the perfect 10 system years before Biles started competing at the highest levels.  The scoring change did enable someone like Biles to be competitive, and to be competitive as an adult. 

I guess the way gymnastics applies to this discussion is that changing the success criteria to benefit adult bodies was what finally drove 14-year-olds from the highest levels of the sport.  Well, technically, it was the minimum age requirement of 16 that did it, but countries like China could produce the paperwork to prove that a breastfeeding infant was 16 if they needed to be.

[Valmy]

So that Onion article about that five year old watching the Olympics and deciding she wanted to be a gymnast was deluded because she was already years behind in her training might no longer be true. Nice.

[Josquius]

So that Onion article about that five year old watching the Olympics and deciding she wanted to be a gymnast was deluded because she was already years behind in her training might no longer be true. Nice.

They should publish a version where they just strike through references to gymnastics and put in skateboarding instead.

[Syt]

So that Onion article about that five year old watching the Olympics and deciding she wanted to be a gymnast was deluded because she was already years behind in her training might no longer be true. Nice.

The Chinese girl who won silver the other day started age 3 according to he profile. But it's China

[DGuller]

The gymnast that really blows my mind is Rebeca Andrade.  She's not that much younger than Biles, but unlike Biles, she's had many serious injuries.  I have no idea how you can tear your ACL three times and not only still do gymnastics at 25, but do it the best you've ever done it.  In my mind ligament injuries were forever injuries, you can never quite come back 100% from them.

[HVC]

What happened with the Romanian gymnast? How does one go about appealing points?

[DGuller]

What happened with the Romanian gymnast? How does one go about appealing points?

You can't appeal the execution score, but the difficulty score is supposed to be objective based on the skills you attempted, so you can appeal it if you got something different compared to what you think you should've gotten.  Usually the judges are familiar with your routine so they know what skills to look for, but sometimes you add something at the last minute, or sometimes the skill you attempted came up so short that it's not clear that you should even be credited with the difficulty for attempting it.  If you file an appeal, the judges will look at all the video angles to come to a decision.