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London 2012 Summer Olympics |OT2|

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jesus christ, why can't i watch the swimming finals or the gymnastics finals on nbcolympics.com . I can watch a replay of every other sport except those.
 
Watching archery, pretty addicting. Didn't think it was going to be.

I am really enjoying it too, but now I'm kind of mad that I paid too much attention to archery and ignored this:
Just came in here to say why didn't anyone tell me about women's pistols

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I just realized that the M Archery guy, Jake Kaminski, is from Buffalo NY. Word.

jesus christ, why can't i watch the swimming finals or the gymnastics finals on nbcolympics.com . I can watch a replay of every other sport except those.

NBC has us by the balls; those are the events they chop up and only show the pertinent footage unless you catch it totally live. Seems like that is what most people want to watch, so that's why :/ It's bullshit, I agree.
 
Could you give us a summery of what he said?


Ugh, I feel like I would be doing a major injustice trying to summerize everything he wrote, especially since I didn't read through it all and just skimmed it. But from what I gather, it can be sorta boiled down to this:

The US is big, and when it comes to sports and culture we're very decentralized relative to the rest of the world. As such, while we have many athletes that are tremendously talented, they usually stick to either major US sports, or sports that are very culturally relevant to their surrounding and environment. The point kinda gets some what fuzzy, but ultimately what he means is that it's INCREDIBLY hard for the US to just focus on particular sports; it doesn't work like that for us. We have no control over where our athletes should go, and the best just don't go into weightlifting. While that by itself is a problem, it has the unfortunate side effect of the sport not being able to gather resources for proper training facilities, competitive national competition, recognition, etc, in order for it to be culturally relevant, whether that be to the nation as a whole or a dedicated subset. And even THEN there's still the issue of perception. There's no shortage of strong men in the US who can push all kinds of weight and such. Weightlifting is not just about being strong. Technique and proper training is specific and incredibly important in order to perform well in Olympic weightlifting, and we seem to just not value that from a cultural point of view.

With those powers combined, I give you Why The US is ASS at Olympic Weightlifting. Summarized anyway.

At least I think that's what the article said... I'm about 99% sure I missed or/and got something wrong. Really, skim through the article, its pretty good.
 
Ugh, I feel like I would be doing a major injustice trying to summerize everything he wrote, especially since I didn't read through it all and just skimmed it. But from what I gather, it can be sorta boiled down to this:

The US is big, and when it comes to sports and culture we're very decentralized relative to the rest of the world. As such, while we have many athletes that are tremendously talented, they usually stick to either major US sports, or sports that are very culturally relevant to their surrounding and environment. The point kinda gets some what fuzzy, but ultimately what he means is that it's INCREDIBLY hard for the US to just focus on particular sports; it doesn't work like that for us. We have no control over where our athletes should go, and the best just don't go into weightlifting. While that by itself is a problem, it has the unfortunate side effect of the sport not being able to gather resources for proper training facilities, competitive national competition, recognition, etc, in order for it to be culturally relevant, whether that be to the nation as a whole or a dedicated subset. And even THEN there's still the issue of perception. There's no shortage of strong men in the US who can push all kinds of weight and such. Weightlifting is not just about being strong. Technique and proper training is specific and incredibly important in order to perform well in Olympic weightlifting, and we seem to just not value that from a cultural point of view.

With those powers combined, I give you Why The US is ASS at Olympic Weightlifting. Summarized anyway.

At least I think it is. I'm 99% sure I missed or/and got something wrong.... Really, skim through it, it's a pretty good article.

Another thing that must be a huge factor is the presence of all our national leagues. Those leagues dictate the popularity of sports. Outside, there is a much more broad range of sports that we don't see here because those leagues don't exist. I don't know if he mentioned it in the articles but it makes sense especially considering the pressures of success in a career; the big sports here pay and ultimately that is an important goal. A more general point on why sports other than the top ones aren't heavily focused on here.

Absolutely disgraceful. Both countries got what they deserved.

Although I'm still confused as to the why.

They all wanted to lose so they could have easier match ups. It's a downright shameful and lousy thing to do though.
 
Absolutely disgraceful. Both countries got what they deserved.

Although I'm still confused as to the why.

Losing means they would have an easier time in the elimination games. They win they would have had a harder seed. Because of these dq's the 0-3 Canadian Team qualified and is one win away from getting a medal.
 
Although I'm still confused as to the why.

A loss doesn't stop you from eventually getting gold. If they lost then they would face weaker competition until deeper in the ladder. Basically top tier teams faced each other way too early, so it was better for them to lose than to exhaust energy trying to win now when its sorta meaningless.

Basically the format is messed up, if the losers are the ones getting eliminated immediately then this could have been avoided as both teams would have tried their hardest. 1 loss and your out.
 
Getting real tired of NBC playing up the Orozco sob story. It isn't sad, it's pathetic. The dude is just bad. You need the mental fortitude in addition to the physical skills to be a champ and this kid just cant hack it.
 
Another thing that must be a huge factor is the presence of all our national leagues. Those leagues dictate the popularity of sports. Outside, there is a much more broad range of sports that we don't see here because those leagues don't exist. I don't know if he mentioned it in the articles but it makes sense especially considering the pressures of success in a career; the big sports here pay and ultimately that is an important goal. A more general point on why sports other than the top ones aren't heavily focused on here.



They all wanted to lose so they could have easier match ups. It's a downright shameful and lousy thing to do though.

Yep, pretty much. He makes that point as well, but I figured it went into the cultural. I mean, football is our most popular sport by large, and yet has very little international presence, so we never have those athletes represent US in sports more widely recognized world wide.

for the overall world record, but not the record in the C&J

Yes, that's right. I remember that the Korean competitor earlier in the competition had that thing with his elbow happen when he was lifting...........
 
I just realized that the M Archery guy, Jake Kaminski, is from Buffalo NY. Word.



NBC has us by the balls; those are the events they chop up and only show the pertinent footage unless you catch it totally live. Seems like that is what most people want to watch, so that's why :/ It's bullshit, I agree.

At least you guys get to see a wider array of events.

Where i live (argentina) the covering couldn't be worse, even ESPN sucks. I got tired already of watching how we got 3rd place in rowing for the 25th time.

I haven't seen a single minute of fencing, shooting, archery, judo or weightlifting (events i was interested in) on tv.
 
So something good has come out of this.

Sounds good to me, too. And they weren't even trying to cover it up.

I didn't realize Clara Hughes finished 5th in the woman's time trial. Great heart from someone her age.

She was second early on, then dropped to fifth in the end. Watching her interview afterwards, you can tell she really has no regrets and was just happy to be there. And she has a fractured vertebrae going through all this.
 
A loss doesn't stop you from eventually getting gold. If they lost then they would face weaker competition until deeper in the ladder. Basically top tier teams faced each other way too early, so it was better for them to lose than to exhaust energy trying to win now when its sorta meaningless.

Basically the format is messed up, if the losers are the ones getting eliminated immediately then this could have been avoided as both teams would have tried their hardest. 1 loss and your out.

I dont think it was an energy thing. I read that a big part of it had to do with avoiding having the top two Chinese teams face each other in the following elimination match before the medal matches. Had one of the Chinese teams not been upset the day before, the Chinese officials who no doubt told them to fail these matches may not have needed to do so because they wouldn't have faced each other. Obviously, the Korean and indonesian team that tried to fail on purpose also wanted to avoid facing that Chinese team.
 
How many stroke/distance (x2 genders) swimming combinations can there be?

a ton?

Breast/butterfly/backstroke has 100/200
Medley has 200/400
Freestyle has 50 100 200 400 800 or 1500
Then there is like 3 different relay
Plus open water (10km or something like that)
 
NBC's gymnastics coverage is annoying. Sometimes they show the scores, sometimes they don't.
 
I knew before that the Chinese took the Olympics seriously but this is a whole other level...

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympi...m-chinese-diver-until-she-won-gold-medal.html

I tried searching for the article in both threads since it seemed a bit old but I couldn't find it, apologies if it has already been posted. But with that said, holy shit. They couldn't even tell their daughter about her grandparents being dead for over a year because it might harm her chances at a gold medal. Also the part about the Chinese government only sending messages of congratulations to the gold medal winners and not the silver or bronze winners is just a rude and unprofessional move to those people that worked their asses off for their country and earned them a medal, only to get ignored. With that being said, the worst part was easily the loss of family aspect of it. The quotes from the girls' father are devastating to read, no one should have to lose touch with their daughter like that, he seems really sad.
 
What was the official rule that they broke though? I thought it happened all the time in badminton.

Spitting in the face of the spirit of the Olympics?

Throwing matches for easier seeding is ridiculous and they should be ashamed especially on the world stage like that.
 
Spitting in the face of the spirit of the Olympics?

Throwing matches for easier seeding is ridiculous and they should be ashamed especially on the world stage like that.

It's not like it's uncommon in other sports. You'll see professional teams throwing games late in the season in order to get a higher draft pick or to get an easier team in the first round of the playoffs. The reality is that if you make a sport exploitable then people will exploit it.
 
What was the official rule that they broke though? I thought it happened all the time in badminton.
Unsportsmanlike. Goes against the spirit of the games / competition etc. They were repeatedly warned so they had a chance to change, but nope. There was a minor debate a couple pages back about it being strategy and such, but the Olympics will have none of that shit here. It dishonors the sport
 
I knew before that the Chinese took the Olympics seriously but this is a whole other level...

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympi...m-chinese-diver-until-she-won-gold-medal.html

I tried searching for the article in both threads since it seemed a bit old but I couldn't find it, apologies if it has already been posted. But with that said, holy shit. They couldn't even tell their daughter about her grandparents being dead for over a year because it might harm her chances at a gold medal. Also the part about the Chinese government only sending messages of congratulations to the gold medal winners and not the silver or bronze winners is just a rude and unprofessional move to those people that worked their asses off for their country and earned them a medal, only to get ignored. With that being said, the worst part was easily the loss of family aspect of it. The quotes from the girl's father are devastating to read, no one should have to lose touch with their daughter like that, he seems really sad.

That's how their system works: throw in thousands of children at a young age, give them years of training with the hope to grind out a gold medalist. Many of those athlete comes from rural area, yet you won't really find any sporting facility there. China doesn't really care about sport, they care about winning.
 
NBC's gymnastics coverage is annoying. Sometimes they show the scores, sometimes they don't.

I hate how they skip around like they're doing with the women's beach volleyball. It'd be different if it was live but it's not so it shouldn't go first set, random stuff about medals GB won, third set. They can order the footage anyway they want.
 
I knew before that the Chinese took the Olympics seriously but this is a whole other level...

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympi...m-chinese-diver-until-she-won-gold-medal.html
Also the part about the Chinese government only sending messages of congratulations to the gold medal winners and not the silver or bronze winners is just a rude and unprofessional move to those people that worked their asses off for their country and earned them a medal, only to get ignored.
The messages of congratulation thing he is referring to are from the Chinese media, most of which is state-owned. I don't know which exact media outlet he's referring to or exactly which messages of congratulation he's referring to, whether they get their own news articles?
 
Ok hopefully someone can help me figure this out, so Mexicos soccer team made it to the quarter finals, how many do they need to win to make it to a least for a chance to a bronze? I think it's two but I'm not sure how the brackets work. Anyone know?
 
It's not like it's uncommon in other sports. You'll see professional teams throwing games late in the season in order to get a higher draft pick or to get an easier team in the first round of the playoffs. The reality is that if you make a sport exploitable then people will exploit it.
In the Olympics?

It's not even the sport's fault, it's the format of the tournament, which is 99% chance that they'll change it for next time. They were banned because it goes against the spirit of the Olympics, it's not much more complicated than that.
 
I hate how they skip around like they're doing with the women's beach volleyball. It'd be different if it was live but it's not so it shouldn't go first set, random stuff about medals GB won, third set. They can order the footage anyway they want.
yeah that was bullshit. I was all ready to watch the second set and they skip it.
 
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