Harsh lesson for a supposed big prospect. Coasting, got complacent and ended up waving his arse in the air.
I was just hearing the Olympics opening ceremony described on the radio so not watching it. But.... different isn't always better. In this boat procession the smaller countries are combined into one boat. I think that goes against the spirit of the Olympics, but even if it doesn't, it certainly isn't for me. Surely it's better when you get a country with one competitor and the whole stadium gives the athlete a great ovation. Also you get the geography lesson... "is that a country?"
I'm probably the only one, but I don't get the balance of medals between the various olympic sports. The top two sports are athletics (48 or so events) and swimming (35 or so events). Here is the description of my obvious bias, but would be interested in other takes. My main problem is gold medals in swimming for completing the same distance *in different ways*, you know your butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. I'm actually thinking (please correct me if wrong) that in freestyle you can choose whatever stroke you want, but everyone does front crawl cos it's fastest. But that's the point. Why isn't the medal, like in athletics, awarded just for completing the distance fastest? It would be like (and I'm only being partly sarcastic here) in athletics, doing a 100m backwards, or a 100m hopping. Seriously, and it's not even as if anyone really does butterfly out of choice is it? I genuinely think racing butterfly in the pool is as valid as hopping a race on the track. Then you can even get a medal for doing all the different types. But while all these strokes look different, it seems that physically they are not. I say this because one athlete should not be able to get eight gold medals. If the sports were judged equally, then the maximum number of medals the best athlete ever could get should be broadly the same. So on the track, Carl Lewis once got four golds - and this is exceptional and will probably not be done again. But can you imagine how a track athlete could possibly get golds in eight events, like Phelps did?
Hurdles/steeplechase and walking are the clearest athletics comparison, in my opinion. I agree about freestyle, though. If everyone's using the same technique because it's the fastest, then it's not really freestyle. Lewis being a gold medallist in long jump shows how it could be done. You'd have to just be some sort of freak decathlete and win the individual events.
If you can objectively show that "front crawl" is the fastest technique possible for human swimmers, then change the name of that competition accordingly.
I did a quick bit of research. Turns out freestyle swimming was at the first olympics and it was indeed do any stroke you want to get to the end fastest, provided you kept to the same stroke. Backstroke and breaststroke were added in 1904. Butterfly wasn't added until 1956. Originally freestyle swimmers did a weird hybrid front crawl arms and breastroke legs thing called the Trudgen stroke. But the current front crawl technique has dominated since 1922, and the first person to win with that technique was none other than Johnny Weismuller. So indeed, freestyle was always supposed to be 'get to the end fastest', so it is clearly accepted that the current version of front crawl is effectively (but not technically) the same thing. So doing other strokes is clearly a matter of awarding a gold medal for getting to the end in a specific, but not most efficient, way. I guess in athletics the marathon and race walking approximate. Still think that all the other strokes, especially butterfly, are a bit dodgy for medals!
I like the different swimming types, as each type seems to have a different combo of raw power + technique to be best. Also the differences in time over given distances are not severe. If breaststroke was say twice as slow as front crawl, I suspect that interest in the latter would drastically wane.
They get multiple medals cause of relays. Swimmers usually can do 2 events 100/200 or 400/800, but also they have more relays, 4x100, 4x200 and as the freestyle leg of medley relays.
Who knew I would become a Canadian ladies rugby sevens supporter or is it I love to see the Aussies lose at any sport
I love the lesser known sports at the Olympics, just watched gbr win gold in the Trap shooting , loved the Archery and the table tennis looking forward to the face slapping and the one legged arse kicking contest Going to become an expert in track cycling and wall climbing again this year
The BMX antics remind me of some of the trips home from the pub on my trusty mountain bike on a BOGOF night
That Turkish don last night in the shooting is gonna be a meme for life. See all these other people go in with specialist lenses and eyewear that probably costs thousands, he just rocks up with standard reading glasses, hand in pocket and bags a silver medal. The womens rowers were superb as well. I thought at 200m or so they were done for, then roared back to a photo finish to win the gold. Done us proud.
Loved the 16yr old British girl who took the cross out at 70m in the Archery 1 arrow shoot out ,she made the last 16 Saturday
