London 2012 Olympics Thread

[danny]

The olympics haven't started yet but we already have an athlete kicked out. Voula Papachristou was kicked out for making a racist comment on twitter, she is a supporter of Golden Dawn so I suppose it isn't very surprising.

[danny]

Phelps clearly isn't the swimmer he was in 2008, he couldn't even win a medal in the 400 Medley.

[danny]

Hating the hockey venue, I can't comforatbly watch it. What were they thinking?

Hockey? In Summer Games?

Field Hockey

[danny]

So, this Ye Shiwen character. Doping? Not doping? Fair to be suspicious?

No more than any other very well performing athlete (like Phelps).

[danny]

And the USA crushes at the 200m freestyle relay to give Phelps his 19th medal.

Which is proof that swimming has too many events.  If Athletics did things the way Swimming does, there would be separate 400 m races, one going clockwise and one going counter-clockwise.

They ought to ditch the the three B's (backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly) and the medley events and add the 800 m men's and 1500 m women's freestyle to the Olympics.  Maybe even add a 3000 m freestyle and a 5 km open water event to the mix.

Phelps has gotten so many medals by mastering a bunch of slow swimming styles.

Athletics actually has 12 more events, and have hurdles and steeplechase as slow running styles, and anyway I think it adds to the tournament.

[danny]

As far as I can tell the system is no different than the usual for multiple group competitions, including the world cup. This mean the winner of the group plays the second place from another group.

[danny]

I think Cricket was just too long to be included in the Olympics.

[danny]

Watch me. Seriously.

Ignore the twitter stuff, the video is at the bottom. I almost choked I was that shocked.

Some people look for racism everywhere, it was obviously not meant to be racist.

[danny]

Yay !

Halfway through and still no medal.

Well, at least Finland and Portugal also have no medals yet ...

Well, now Finland and Portugal have medals, and we are still waiting ...

So are we, but it's not going to come, and at least you have the winter Olympics to win lots of medals.

[danny]

Yay !

Halfway through and still no medal.

Well, at least Finland and Portugal also have no medals yet ...

Well, now Finland and Portugal have medals, and we are still waiting ...

So are we, but it's not going to come, and at least you have the winter Olympics to win lots of medals.

True. But I thought Israel might have at least a few good swimmers. But probably not.

Besides, our summer athletes (the ones who are active and not retired) are so unknown to me that I don't even have a clue at which sport we might still get some medal ...

Good enough for 1 finals and a few semis, not good enough for a medal.

[danny]

Oughtn't that to be "Hand Polo"?

It's a shame they got rid of the horses. God forbid we upset the animal rights people.

Is that why they don't have polo? How is it more damaging than jumping over barriers?