Just saw the end of that rugby match. Wow, what an incredible ending. And our first ever medal in the event, apparently. What a way to go down in the history books. Makes me wanna watch more rugby now.

10 hours ago, Agent23 said:

The practice all over the place. 99% of video parts they film are out in random streets, and in lots of cases look to make a skate spot out of something that is not and should not be used for skateboarding. They'll also spend time at public and private skateparks as well, so its a mixture of both.

The comparison is that swimmers and sprinters are getting their bodies, joints, ligaments, etc. beat to hell over and over again both in their training leading up to their competitions, but over and over again in the warmups before their competitions and during their competitions. How many boxers/MMA do you see coming out to the ring in complete silence? If they didn't have a risk of an earbud getting punched into their ear canal I'm sure they would choose to listen to their own music as well!

Do they have coaches?  How do you hear anyone if you have earbuds in?  Do you need them in when you're competing on the world stage?

 

Do the BMX people wear earbuds when they compete in the Olympics?  Those are street courses too.

 

It still does not make sense to have earbuds on and your phone in your pocket during actual competition in the Olympics.

Why aren't there NBA players in the 3-on-3 competition?  Isn't there anyone better than Jimmer Fredette?

1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Just saw the end of that rugby match. Wow, what an incredible ending. And our first ever medal in the event, apparently. What a way to go down in the history books. Makes me wanna watch more rugby now.

Yeah, I feel like a female watching the NFL for the first time trying to figure out the rules. 

8 hours ago, xzmattzx said:

Do they have coaches?  How do you hear anyone if you have earbuds in?  Do you need them in when you're competing on the world stage?

 

Do the BMX people wear earbuds when they compete in the Olympics?  Those are street courses too.

 

It still does not make sense to have earbuds on and your phone in your pocket during actual competition in the Olympics.

Coaches aren’t giving them instructions while they’re mid-run/mid-trick. Half the time after they finished a run (good or bad) you’d see them go over to their "team” to discuss the state of things). Also, there are countless people in real life wearing earbuds having full on conversations with others. Is your stance also that people should not be allowed to wear earbuds or listen to music at their jobs because there’s no was Dolores can listen to Journey without messing up which envelopes have been opened and filed away and which ones haven’t? I don’t watch BMX but it would surprise me if nobody had earbuds in. 

7 hours ago, Diehardfan said:

Yeah, I feel like a female watching the NFL for the first time trying to figure out the rules. 

I met an English dude on a work trip to Germany years ago who explained them to me but I've forgotten some of them. The thing that stands out most is him telling me there's a position called a "hooker" and then me immediately giggling uncontrollably.

I watch a bit of rugby with my English friend. Definitely need to learn the basics to be able to really enjoy rugby. 

 

🤔 I find it inconceivable that we didn’t medal in shooting 

Italian woman got beat down by a man in the boxing ring and had to quit. Utter BS. It failed a gender test a year or so ago.

 

The other one who failed as well from Taiwan (left) totally looks female...if you ignore the Adam's apple. 

It's a disgrace 

F the IOC

So anyway, I just start blastin 

this guy took silver.  He gives 0 Fs

I guess thisll be an unpopular opinion. But I feel like I remember some US Womens gymnastics teams in years past being absolutely flawless. Simone Biles is known as the GOAT, and you rarely see her stick a landing. She has the scoring system hacked where she does such a high degree of difficulty, she doesnt need to chase perfection at all. She takes gigantic steps and still scores higher than anyone who can do things perfectly. She goes both feet out of bounds, far out of bounds, on floor exercise and it basically doesnt matter there either. I get that she goes higher and faster than anyone else, but in other sports thats not as impressive if its not controlled. Its like a big armed QB who cant throw accurately, or a big, fast LB who plays out of control and over runs plays. I wish she had better control. They reward her for going out and just going wild without a care for the technique. She is in a sport where the scoring system just seems to reward the best athlete rather than the best player. 

Am I the only idiot feeling this?

 

Of course I see Simone crush her floor routine after I posted the above.

Also, Suni Lee is so damn clutch. 

1 hour ago, HazletonEagle said:

I guess thisll be an unpopular opinion. But I feel like I remember some US Womens gymnastics teams in years past being absolutely flawless. Simone Biles is known as the GOAT, and you rarely see her stick a landing. She has the scoring system hacked where she does such a high degree of difficulty, she doesnt need to chase perfection at all. She takes gigantic steps and still scores higher than anyone who can do things perfectly. She goes both feet out of bounds, far out of bounds, on floor exercise and it basically doesnt matter there either. I get that she goes higher and faster than anyone else, but in other sports thats not as impressive if its not controlled. Its like a big armed QB who cant throw accurately, or a big, fast LB who plays out of control and over runs plays. I wish she had better control. They reward her for going out and just going wild without a care for the technique. She is in a sport where the scoring system just seems to reward the best athlete rather than the best player. 

Am I the only idiot feeling this?

 

I can understand that.  I would like to hear from a gymnastics expert on that.  I guess it's kind of like other arguments in other sports.  Was Barry Bonds the best home run hitter of our era?  Or did he "hack" things by just having more power (putting aside steroids) or better hand/eye coordination.  Would someone be more impressed if, say, Ozzie Smith hit 30 home runs rather than Bonds hitting 70 home runs?

11 minutes ago, xzmattzx said:

I can understand that.  I would like to hear from a gymnastics expert on that.  I guess it's kind of like other arguments in other sports.  Was Barry Bonds the best home run hitter of our era?  Or did he "hack" things by just having more power (putting aside steroids) or better hand/eye coordination.  Would someone be more impressed if, say, Ozzie Smith hit 30 home runs rather than Bonds hitting 70 home runs?

Biles hit some events today better than she did in the team event a few days ago. But she still had a horrible step back on the vault, a bad mistake on the bar, a wobble on the beam.... She had worse mistakes in team. She was consistently inconsistent in execution. 

My memory isnt this good, but I feel like girls like Shawn Johnson, and Nastia Liuken, and Gabby Douglas, McKayla Maroney, etc... I just dont remember them ever doing anything wrong.

I also look at Suni Lee this time around. She isnt nearly as fast as Biles so she doesnt get the momentum, and air time to pull such tricks. But man is she just so damn good. And her clutch gene is as elite as anyone in any sport. Biles backs out last Olympics. Lee goes and gets gold. Chiles falls on beam in the team all around. Lee follows her and hits everything perfectly to calm the whole team's nerves. Lee needs a certain score on the floor tonight to medal, and she nails it. The higher the stakes, the more steady she is. She has no room for error on her routines, and she is just nearly perfect almost all the time. 

Just feels like in a lot of sports Biles would be boom or bust. But in gymnastics, she just has the scoring system hacked. 

I certainly appreciate seeing her fly the way she does. But its slightly grating to me to her the way she is spoken about sometimes. I feel it takes away from the sport a bit, and the other athletes. 

Think about this- would big time gymnastics fans want the sport overrun with fast, high flying eratic routines if girls just want to try to be like Biles and she changes the game? Or would they like to preserve the beauty in perfection? 

Erin Gemmell, the girl I mentioned at the beginning, anchored that 800 Free Relay.  I remember lining her up at a mini meet when she was 8 years old, and talking to her dad, Bruce Gemmell, who was Ledecky's coach at the time, and a former co-worker.

Leon Marchand is the next Michael Phelps.  He should win his 4th individual gold tomorrow.  He does not have the depth in the relays to win 3 relay golds like Phelps did in 2008.  Marchand is a young 22, so the buildup to the 2028 Olympics for him will probably be like it was for the 2008 Olympics for Phelps.  Marchand could even swim in 2032 in Brisbane, when he would be 30 years old, like people like Phelps and Lochte did.

14 minutes ago, xzmattzx said:

Leon Marchand is the next Michael Phelps.  He should win his 4th individual gold tomorrow.  He does not have the depth in the relays to win 3 relay golds like Phelps did in 2008.  Marchand is a young 22, so the buildup to the 2028 Olympics for him will probably be like it was for the 2008 Olympics for Phelps.  Marchand could even swim in 2032 in Brisbane, when he would be 30 years old, like people like Phelps and Lochte did.

I miss the days of pool dominance with Phelps. China still has 2 more gold than us. 

7 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

I miss the days of pool dominance with Phelps. China still has 2 more gold than us. 

Swimming has decentralized again.  Australia is good again like they were in the 80s-2000s.  Great Britain has gotten a lot better.  France will continue to do better behind Marchand.  China has fallen off a little bit from the home games in 2008, but they're still there (and likely doping).  I expected Canada to be a little better, but they really only have one good swimmer right now.

 

Remember when Hungary used to kill everyone in the 200 Breast and then disappear in just about everything else?

Yes, the gymnasts are not as clean as they were in the past but the difficulty has gone up. The days of Nadia are history. 

Riner would have been a pretty good OT, damn. 

 

Poor Mike Tirico trying to interview those SNL goofballs. Couldnt they actually act serious and talk like adults for a minute? He had to rip up his questions. They ran out of time for the segment while those guys acted like idiots.