138LikesSame hereOriginally Posted by JLuvs
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Loved that all four of the Australian women on the 4x100 swimming relay team sang along with their national anthem as they stood atop the Olympic podium. I don't know how they sounded, but I always like it when the winners sing with the music, though I realize some of them may feel too choked up to do so. I also like listening to all the different national anthems. I seem to remember a Winter Olympics when a gold medal winner was from Lichtenstein, which, if I recall correctly, turned out not to have its own national anthem. Or else they just couldn't find a copy, since no one from Lichtenstein had ever won before.
Watching dressage at the moment. I was kind of hoping that the lighting of the Olympic flame might have been done on horseback, since the British have done well in equestrian events and so far as I know, the torch has never been lit by someone on horseback.
I have so many feelings about that 4x100 relay. As a former swimmer, the benching of Natalie Coughlin is almost offensive to me. Bad coaching decision, I can't even understand it.
However, I, too, enjoyed the Australian women singing on the podium. They were the picture of joy and triumph - the spirit of the games!
Is that floor exercise mat extra bouncy or something? I don't think I've ever seen so many gymnasts go out of bounds at a single competition.
Lots of things seem a bit questionable about this go-round and the games in general. First, (re: gymnastics) how can you say the olympic games are about the best athletes in the world if you can't send the best athletes to the overalls? I understand that they want some country diversity but in all honesty, if China had the top 24 gymnasts in the world Id say "looks like China is winning Gold this year." It is not right that they should penalize some athletes because they happen to be from the same country. Second, whats up with using different balls for basketball? Apparently they use one that has different panels and is different from a textural perspective. Now, if the majority of the globe is using that ball well, thats fine, but apparently the one they handed the players in the game today was different than the ones they were given to practice with...how the heck is that ok? Finally, I understand that almost every sport is governed by subjective judging, refs, etc... but these gymnastic deductions seem a bit extreme on EVERYONE...and not necessarily accurate (?)
Not sure if I can post this link but there is a petition on change.org for FIG to scrap their ridiculous 2 person per country rule. If the link is valid here it goes (please remove if not : https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitio...asts-per-final )). From reading articles, several gymnasts from multiple countries (China, Russia, USA and Romania) placed in the top 24 or top 8 for individual events and cant compete (even though they are the best!) because of this ridiculous rule. Also of note, no other gymnastics competitions use this arbitrary nonsense..its all about merit.
I can understand they 2 man/woman rule in gymnastics as they wanted to see as many countries as possible represented in the all around and not see the top 6 Chinese, Russian and American but again if you want to see the best in the world then the best 24 scores in the qualifying should send you to the all around round regardless of your country.
I think that rule was set to maybe help with the promotion of the sport in the rest of the world. But yes, it is a crappy rule. At least the top 3 from each country should advance or at least the top 10 qualify automatically. When an overall top 4 and 6 don't make it to the finale, you know this is crap.
I am just overall hating these Olympics, when i am not am obsessed fan. I don't seem to care.
and please the opening was lane, the James bond think was corny and the balloon countdown was the worse idea ever. and don't get me started on the lightning of the Caulderon. it should be done by athletes not "potentiall future athletes".
oh well, ready for Rio 2016.
According to the official Olympic site, there are 18 teams of 5 women competing in artistic (as opposed to rhythmic) gymnastics. I believe there are only twenty-four spots in the all-around, so I assume that only the top twelve teams qualify even to send anyone to the all-around. So, instead of making it two from each country, why don't they do something like have each country get one representative and have the remaining twelve spots filled by the next twelve highest qualifiers, no matter what team they were from? Seems to me that's a reasonable compromise. Since there are only five women per team, and only four from each team would be left after the automatic one (presumably the top scorer) would be entered from each country. That means that all of the rest of the qualifiers would have to come from at least three other countries, since no country would have more than four athletes left from which the remaining twelve top scorers would be selected. Sure, it might mean that the remaining slots would likely be filled by Russia, U.S., China, and Romania, but there'd still be some variety--and realistically, even under the current system, we see most of the individual and all-around medals go to the same countries anyway.
Speaking of which, they could even open up the remaining twelve spots to high scoring athletes who happened to be members of teams that didn't qualify for the team competition. Honestly, it doesn't seem fair to penalize a phenom for being from a country where she's the only one who's as talented as the top performers in her field. It isn't likely, but it's also not impossible, that a viable all-around medal contender might simply come from a country where she's the only real gymnastics star. It's certainly happened in other sports--Yu Na Kim won the last ladies Olympic title, but it's not as if South Korea has a huge skating dynasty. Heck, when Chen Lu started skating, China didn't even have a decent rink on which she could practice, but she took the bronze at the Olympics.
The reason I asked about the floor exercise mat is I distinctly remember an Olympics--the Sydney Games, I think---when competitors who were excellent vaulters were having unprecedented problems. Russia finally lodged a formal complaint and the vault was examined and found to have been set two inches higher than it was supposed to be set. That doesn't sound like much, but these young women had refined their technique to such an extent that two inches simply felt very wrong and was affecting the way they vaulted.Lots of things seem a bit questionable about this go-round and the games in general. First, (re: gymnastics) how can you say the olympic games are about the best athletes in the world if you can't send the best athletes to the overalls? I understand that they want some country diversity but in all honesty, if China had the top 24 gymnasts in the world Id say "looks like China is winning Gold this year." It is not right that they should penalize some athletes because they happen to be from the same country. Second, whats up with using different balls for basketball? Apparently they use one that has different panels and is different from a textural perspective. Now, if the majority of the globe is using that ball well, thats fine, but apparently the one they handed the players in the game today was different than the ones they were given to practice with...how the heck is that ok? Finally, I understand that almost every sport is governed by subjective judging, refs, etc... but these gymnastic deductions seem a bit extreme on EVERYONE...and not necessarily accurate (?)
Not sure if I can post this link but there is a petition on change.org for FIG to scrap their ridiculous 2 person per country rule. If the link is valid here it goes (please remove if not : https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitio...asts-per-final )). From reading articles, several gymnasts from multiple countries (China, Russia, USA and Romania) placed in the top 24 or top 8 for individual events and cant compete (even though they are the best!) because of this ridiculous rule. Also of note, no other gymnastics competitions use this arbitrary nonsense..its all about merit.
Last night, it looked like athletes who typically had high, fast tumbling runs were having an unusual amount of trouble staying in bounds--it wasn't just the United States athletes either. The Russians and Romanians had similar problems. When that many athletes are having unusual issues, it could just be a bad night--ala the 2006 ice dancing competition--but it seems like it would still be worthwhile to check the equipment and make sure it wasn't something that could be fixed.
And the different basketball issue is just dumb--if they wanted to use a different ball, why didn't they provide such balls to all the teams as soon as they were selected, so they could have time to practice with them?
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