• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

London 2012 Summer Olympics |OT2|

Status
Not open for further replies.
Guys you have to try to get tickets to any Olympic event if you still can!

Wimbledon was immense today. Had tickets to Centre Court, saw both the men's singles and watched Serena from Henman Hill. The crowd was buzzing, everyone was in good spirits and talking to everyone else. Loads of nationalities all having a laugh - great fun!

Also I was impressed by how many volunteers there were. Had to walk from the station to Wimbledon itself and every 20 metres there were a pair of volunteers pointing us in the right direction and geeing up the crowds. Absolutely brilliant.
 
On Olympics Tonight they did a Team GB comparison to where we were at the end of Day 7, Beijing we had 8 at this point, here we have 22. Of course Day 8 and 9 in Beijing we got a huge 17 medals over the two days, not sure how this weekend will compare but don't see us matching that!
 
Psychotext said:
I don't hate them... I pity them.

Also, football is the reason for a lot of it. Rugby for another fair chunk of it. The rest can be covered mostly by accents and that everyone in London is a tosser. :D
Click to expand...

Ha ok. It's just strange as an American I guess hearing about people from Liverpool/Manchester for example and they're so close! I guess the US is too spread out to understand. The football thing makes sense though.
 
LizardKing said:
Why do you brits hate each other so much? It's like every city hates everyone from another city. I don't understand?
Click to expand...
Just be thankful we're not unified because the last time that happened we conquered most of the world. In fact I think our dislike of each other is the result of trying to work out who is to blame for the end of that party.

Dynopia said:
On Olympics Tonight they did a Team GB comparison to where we were at the end of Day 7, Beijing we had 8 at this point, here we have 22. Of course Day 8 and 9 in Beijing we got a huge 17 medals over the two days, not sure how this weekend will compare but don't see us matching that!
Click to expand...
If it ended now (well... maybe after the cycling) I'd be happy with our results.
 
LizardKing said:
Ha ok. It's just strange as an American I guess hearing about people from Liverpool/Manchester for example and they're so close! I guess the US is too spread out to understand. The football thing makes sense though.
Click to expand...


Football , just imagine Manchester United and Manchester City fans , is like if you put and scorpion and an big spider in the same box.... well more or less ; )
 
Sealda said:
Just some arguments regarding Ye Shiwen.

  • She came from nowhere
Not true. She won silver in 2010 and gold in 2011.

  • That she is just 16 years old
Well, Ledecky, 16 year old USA crushed the opponents tonight in 800 m freestyle.
Meilutyte, 15 year old Lithuania won gold in 100 m breaststroke earlier this week.

  • That she crushed the record
She broke it with 1 second but world records have been crushed with way more than that before.

  • That she swam faster than Lochte the last 50 m with 23 hundreds of a second.
That is true but Lochte was way ahead of the world record for the first 350 m. of the race until the last 50 m. when Lactic acid took over and he started sinking, and his opponents catching up to him and him loosing out on the world record completely.

Ye on the other hand, just like in 2010 and 2011 balanced the lactic acid perfectly and could turn on the turbo in the last 50 m.

In the end, Lochte was 25 seconds ahead of Ye Shiwen. A completely normal difference between men and women race.
Click to expand...
You missed a point - that Ye improved on her time from 2 years ago by 5 seconds. Of course, Ledecky, who improved on her PB by 5 seconds in the span of a month, isn't being called out by a US swimming coach. Nope, Ledecky was fueled by apple pie and gold old fashioned American grit. And Ledecky didn't come out of nowhere. Why, she appeared for the first time at the US swimming trials WAY back in July 2012. That's just over a month ago; she's been at this for years.
vQHiU.jpg

All natural!
 
Dynopia said:
On Olympics Tonight they did a Team GB comparison to where we were at the end of Day 7, Beijing we had 8 at this point, here we have 22. Of course Day 8 and 9 in Beijing we got a huge 17 medals over the two days, not sure how this weekend will compare but don't see us matching that!
Click to expand...
I'm guessing it would have made a lot more sense to compare the events we've done with the events still to go... but that would have taken more effort. :)
 
I don't watch Track & Field either outside of the popular events like the 100m. I'm trying to watch more in these Games but it's slightly overwhelming for the uninitiated.
 
So Kenyan runner and former Olympic champion, Ezekiel Kemboi (the guy that hung at the back of the pack for most of 3000m steeplechase then raced to the front and a second place finish) faces assault charges (he's accused of stabbing a woman, he claims he was defending himself from a robbery) back in Kenya, but had his court procedures delayed so he could compete in London.
what a strange and almost comical story.
 
Koodo said:
I don't watch Track & Field either outside of the popular events like the 100m. I'm trying to watch more in these Games but it's slightly overwhelming for the uninitiated.
Click to expand...

Men´s football are now in their best stages , try watching tomorrow Mexico Vs Senegal, Brasil vs Honduras also a interesting match.
 
Psychotext said:
Nothing says grown in a vat quite like throbbing blue forehead veins.
Click to expand...
Oh wow. I didn't even notice that. I think her receding hairline (or is it more of a weirdly shaped head) is more alarming.

I don't trust most athletes anymore after being informed you can flush a lot of "that doping stuff" out of your system before you get tested, or even... wait a second... I have no idea what I'm talking about. It wouldn't surprise me if kids are being doped up (the world over) from a young age to develop them into super athletes and then let loose onto the world stage.
 
Napoleonthechimp said:
Oh wow. I didn't even notice that. I think her receding hairline is more alarming.

I don't trust most athletes anymore after being informed you can flush a lot of "that doping stuff" out of your system before you get tested, or even... wait a second... I have no idea what I'm talking about. It wouldn't surprise me if kids are being doped up (the world over) from a young age to develop them into super athletes and then let loose onto the world stage.
Click to expand...
Seriously?
 
Can the swimming enthusiasts clear something up for me? What is it about swimming, particularly on the women's side, that you have these 15 and 16 year olds winning so dominantly? I just finished watching the replay of the 800m women's freestyle and I would think for a long distance event like that, you'd need a few more years of training to be competitive. I mean, I come from a track and cross country background so anybody in their teens winning a long distance race at the olympics would be unbelievable.
 
Napoleonthechimp said:
Oh wow. I didn't even notice that.

I don't trust most athletes anymore after being informed you can flush a lot of "that doping stuff" out of your system before you get tested, or even... wait a second... I have no idea what I'm talking about. It wouldn't surprise me if kids are being doped up (the world over) from a young age to develop them into super athletes and then let loose onto the world stage.
Click to expand...

The very fact that people in international competition are caught doping to this day tells me it has to be fairly common, and that there has to be a way to mostly avoid getting caught. Everyone is tested, multiple times. And if you couldn't avoid getting caught people just wouldn't do it, yet here we are, people are caught to this day.

Also that cream went undetected for 50 years, until finally someone squealed.

(and I'm not saying anything about this particular swimmer)
 
ezrarh said:
Can the swimming enthusiasts clear something up for me? What is it about swimming, particularly on the women's side, that you have these 15 and 16 year olds winning so dominantly? I just finished watching the replay of the 800m women's freestyle and I would think for a long distance event like that, you'd need a few more years of training to be competitive. I mean, I come from a track and cross country background so anybody in their teens winning a long distance race at the olympics would be unbelievable.
Click to expand...
Genetic enhancement, doping, growing them up in vats of radioactive acid, etc.
 
Great story on Phelps and Le Clos.

oly_a_phelps1x_600.jpg


LONDON -- Chad le Clos had waited for this moment nearly all his life. As a 12-year-old boy in South Africa, he had watched the 2004 Athens Olympics on television, saw an American man named Michael Phelps win six gold medals and decided right then and there he would dedicate his life to becoming the greatest swimmer his body would allow.

In the years that followed, he worshiped the American swimmer. He read every article he could get his hands on. He cut out pictures of Phelps. He recorded and watched all of his idol's races, and then he'd watch them again.

So you can imagine the emotion Friday night -- le Clos walked onto the pool deck for the final swim of his 2012 Olympics and the man walking in front of him was none other than Phelps, who was about to swim the last individual event of his career.

Two nights earlier, le Clos had shockingly out-touched Phelps to beat him in the 200 butterfly, a race he hadn't lost at a major international meet since le Clos was 8 years old. After the race, he mentioned how excited he was to beat his idol. The next morning, when Phelps relayed the story to coach Bob Bowman, the two of them got emotional.

"It means Michael has done what he wanted to do, affect the sport of swimming," a watery-eyed Bowman said. "When he described that to me, he got choked up about it. So did I."

When he was just 15, Phelps stated his goals to agent Peter Carlisle. They had nothing to do with gold medals, world records or becoming the greatest swimmer ever. Instead, Phelps said he wanted to change the sport of swimming; he wanted to motivate, inspire and push people to chase their dreams.

The blonde-haired, 20-year-old le Clos was the result of that goal. On Friday night, as he walked onto the pool deck with his idol for the last time, le Clos couldn't stop thinking about his place in this special moment.

"I just kept thinking I wanted to be up there on that podium," he said. "I wanted to be in that race with him. I wanted to give him a run for his money. I wanted to make him proud."
Click to expand...

The rest: http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/...st-one-example-michael-phelps-impact-swimming
 
ezrarh said:
Can the swimming enthusiasts clear something up for me? What is it about swimming, particularly on the women's side, that you have these 15 and 16 year olds winning so dominantly? I just finished watching the replay of the 800m women's freestyle and I would think for a long distance event like that, you'd need a few more years of training to be competitive. I mean, I come from a track and cross country background so anybody in their teens winning a long distance race at the olympics would be unbelievable.
Click to expand...

Not the perfect answer, but the BBC has an article on this here.
 
Napoleonthechimp said:
Uh... okay...
Click to expand...

In context: They mentioned it in terms of 'relaxing for the rest of the year or so before deciding whether to push for Rio or call it a day', but it came up in an interview with Gabby Logan, who did it herself a few years back. I bet Gabby's trying to coax her into it off-air :-)
 
RibbedHero said:
Not the perfect answer, but the BBC has an article on this here.
Click to expand...

Thanks. That explains how they can drop their times so quickly but is vague on why teens can excel much more than adults. I would think a person in their early 20s can still train like a beast (look at Phelps) so it's weird that you see all these girls dominating. And no, I'm not suggesting they're doping or being grown out of vats.
 
When you think about it. The clear was created by a B-class chemist (Probably very competent, but still...the type of chemist guys, that hangs out trying to sell protein shakes at weightlifter expos).

This guy to the left came up with The Clear, some next gen sci-fi shit (thats how it was described in media, and quite fitting when compared to steroids).

0.jpg


Now, he did it with basically no financial backing. Although he later, managed to sell it to Balco which by the way was run by they quite eccentric Victor Conte, who easily spoke of all athletes afterwards. basically, revealing, he was the opposite of the Skunkworks employees.

gallery-1.jpg

Now, the athletes who used it, was even written down in normal notebooks inside their office. Extremely, how to say it: amateurish.


Now imagine what a team of top class scientists, subsidised with at-least 100 million USD.

Marion Jones etc. fell because, BALCO acted like complete amateurs. They even threw boxes saying EPO in their public trash...even screwing up their taxes...etc. which made the Feds sniff them up...


BALCO scandal, could very easily been avoided...by not writing out names, throwing trash full of doping products etc.

The only reason they even were able to understand THG was by actually receiving a sample of it!

If BALCO was a Cessna, i am sure there are a few A380s and B2s flying around in the sports world, with huge financial backing and professional system for avoiding leaks.
 
cjelly said:
The Olympic Park is bloody huge. Standing at the Stadium, the Velodrome is miles away. It's a shame that so much of it is only temporary. The Olympic Stadium looks kinda cheap. Not very spectacular.
Click to expand...

From inside it was incredible. Looking forward to going back there next Saturday.
 
really need to find a way to get into the olympic park next week. i've been to wimbeldon and the archery at lords to see olympic events so far which has been incredible already, but i feel like i haven't properly experienced the games here without going to the main hub.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Winter Olympics 2026 [OT] - Milano Cortina
5 6 7 8 9
406
3K
Shifty1897 replied
From the LA Olympics in 2028, only biological females eligible for female events
2
71
162
jason10mm replied
Olympics 2024: Summer Games in Paris Official Thread
19 20 21 22 23
1K
61K
12Goblins replied
Summer '25 anime discussion
Social  2
97
4K
Durien replied
It's the 1st day of Summer!
2
68
2K
12Goblins replied
Top Bottom