What? no Olympics thread?

[Killer]

that's un-America



Kim Rhode Wins Olympic Skeet Shooting Gold Medal With Record Performance

LONDON — Step aside, Carl Lewis.

You, too, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Al Oerter.

Meet Kimberly Rhode, the first American with individual medals in five straight Olympics, after a golden, record-setting, nearly perfect performance.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1716022.html

[tony hipchest]

99 for a hunnerd.

sick.

[Killer]

I miss the olde days of the Soviet block vs. USA - chinese are kicking our ass everywhere

[ricardisimo]

Much needed thread. Thank you. Moving to the Sports Dimension.

[tony hipchest]

Originally Posted by Killer

I miss the olde days of the Soviet block vs. USA - chinese are kicking our ass everywhere

i know... i even watched ladies ping pong yesterday hoping for an upset win.

we still got basketball and track and field to catch up (maybe gymnastics). china usually has a good shot in diving.

[Killer]

Olympics outrage: Should Jordyn Wieber be in the all-around final?



Criticism mounts after favorite Jordyn Wieber failed to qualify for the all-around final at the Olympics despite a solid performance. Rules allow only two American gymnasts in the final.

How could Ms. Wieber, the 2011 all-around world champion – who even on an off day Sunday finished fourth in the qualification round – not make an Olympic all-around final of 24 girls? Put another way: Twenty-one girls who scored lower than her on Sunday – will be competing Thursday in the event that defines the careers of the world’s best gymnasts.

Wieber reached the top of her game when she was only 10. As an eighth grader in 2009, she won the all-around at the American Cup. Since then, Wieber has only ever lost twice in competition and only to Americans.

Wieber erupted into tears as soon as she caught sight of the scoreboard, covering her eyes in vain. To make matters worse, NBC later interviewed Raisman in front of Wieber as Wieber struggled to maintain her composure. Let’s just say that those awkward hugs the girls give each other after completing an event are going to get a tad more uncomfortable come Tuesday.

The spectacle prompted a discussion about the fairness of the Olympic rule that limits each country to two gymnasts in the all-around finals. (Wieber had the fourth-best individual all-around score, but she trailed fellow Americans, Raisman and Gabrielle Douglas).

Tricks to avoid getting Wieber'd

Even before 2004, when the per-team limit was three, the top countries performed their own special brand of gymnastics – with their lineups – to ensure their top girls didn't get Wieber'd

In 1992, one of the three all-around finalists for the Russian Unified team suffered an injury (gasp!), conveniently allowing their top gymnast, who fell on the beam and finished fourth on the team in the qualification round, to enter the all-around. She won gold, and it was later confirmed that the injury was a complete fabrication.

Four years later, when the same thing happened to the best Romanian gymnast, the coaches simply pulled one of their top three finishers, saying she "didn't work hard enough."

Surely, the US would never consider claiming that Ms. Douglas or Ms. Raisman had an "injury" to get Wieber into the final.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Olymp...final/(page)/2


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I watched the russian and romanian girls after our round - they were flopping all over the place on easier routines and still got higher scores than Jordyn Wieber - she was robbed.

[Atlanta Dan]

Originally Posted by Killer

I miss the olde days of the Soviet block vs. USA - chinese are kicking our ass everywhere

Indeed - 16 year old Le Shewin definitely kicked a**

Links to good articles on the competition so far here:

Poolside Podium: Doping Rumors, Broken Records, and the Lie Behind the 'Phelps Choked' Meme

It wasn't just that 16-year-old Ye, who was funneled into China's athletics system at age 7 when one of her teachers noted that she had unusually big hands and long legs, won the 400 IM, besting the United States's Elizabeth Beisel. It wasn't just that she set a new world record of 4:28.43 in the process, shattering Stephanie Rice's prior time by over a full second. (Rice, by the way, was the beneficiary of a surprise visit from Kobe Bryant late last week, who stopped by the Australian team's practice to ask her to sign a swim cap for his fangirl daughter. He gave her a pair of his shoes. This all happened.)

No, it was the way she finished the race that left everyone gaping. She went fast, and then she went faster, and then she somehow went even faster still. Here's how fast she was going: Her last lap, 50 meters of freestyle, was faster than Ryan Lochte's last lap in his gold-winning 400 IM, 28.93 to 29.10. (Her final 100 split of 58.68 was just three-hundredths of a second slower than what Lochte swam.)...


http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-tr...ps-choked-meme

and here:

In sports, there are exactly four times when an Overt Display of Righteous Fury (O-DORF) is appropriate...

Here's the main time it's not appropriate — when you've just won....

You've probably guessed that I'm thinking now of Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, who won the 400-meter freestyle gold, screamed in a way that felt really confrontational for a few seconds, and punched the water aggressively. It made me hate him. And, for the record, "'roid rage" is maybe not the best mode of celebration when you come from a country with a long history of institutional cheating.

(In case you couldn't tell, I'm not a big fan of Team China)

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-tr...st/_/id/33341/

The French swimmer who took down Lochte in the men's relay last night won again today. Perhaps cunning Team China is sharing some of its PEDs with the treacherous French?.

[MACH1]

[Lady Steel]

Originally Posted by Killer

I miss the olde days of the Soviet block vs. USA

I hate Commies, but those were good times. I remember the excitement of the 1980 Winter Games and the "Miracle on Ice."

Originally Posted by Killer

chinese are kicking our ass everywhere

Cheating bastards. I haven't forgotten they cheated in gymnastics at the 2008 Games. Just sayin'.

[rgj]

Was watching the NBC (the video was "live") last night on the men's gymnastics. Now I know absolutely nothing of the rules and regulations as to the scoring, but I got the general gist that if one falls off the horse, bars, steps out-of-bounds, etc, some points are taken away.

This is what I saw last night. The team from Great Britain appeared to win the Silver medal (when the final Japanese athlete kind of "slid" off the pommel horse, receiving a low score). This gave the Bronze to the Ukraine and knocked the Japanese out of the medal awards. Quick camera change to a Japanese coach filling out a form and WITH CASH IN HIS LEFT HAND, appealed the scoring to the judges.....the commentators noticed, and one commentator said, "What??" The others went along and said some drivel about it being part of the procedure....to make a long story short, the judges determined the Japanese athlete (in sliding off the horse for his dismount) "went through" the motions of the required "handstand" and revised his score upwards, which then changed Team Japan's score, giving Japan the Silver, the Brits the Bronze, and knocked the Ukraine team out of the medal awards.

I know the scoring for any event relying on "judges" has been suspect for years and the Japanese coaches "offering" cash along with their appeal smacks of something horribly wrong.

Did anyone else see that? Is THAT the way these events are judged??