2020, uh, 21, uh, who knows Tokyo Olympics thread

Since USA men’s bball made the gold medal game, do some folks need to retract their criticisms of Popovich?

 

You kidding. Now is the perfect time to fire Popovich. I expect him to be gone right before game 6 … er gold medal game.

 

They really need to refrain from mentioning how dominant the US was in 1984, or best showing since 1984.
There were no Olympics in 1984. There was an exhibition of sports

 

They are also really bad about what place the finishers are -- like they just assume someone has the second-fastest time in a heat so they will be second. There were several races it was obvious -- not photo finishes -- with live shots at the line someone finished worse or better than they thought and they didn't see it or at least wait to call it.

 

Celsius works just as hard as Fahrenheit and deserves coverage too.

 

Race walking is bizarre

 

I was going to call the U.S. track team a disappointment, but it's beyond that at this point.

I don't want to say disaster, because they've earned some nice, shiny medals. But not one of them is gold. Not a single gold medal on the track. The only real chance they have left is the 4x400 -- they have three runners in the 5,000 final and one on the 1,500, but I wouldn't bet the ranch on any of them winning.

And if you want to extend to the field, The only American men's gold medal in track and field (or athletics, as they like to call it internationally) is Ryan Crouser's in the shot. The only men's jumper to medal at all was Chris Nilsen, who got silver in the pole vault.

At one point, there was talk of the U.S. fielding a kind of superteam for these Olympics: Christian Coleman, Noah Lyles, Michael Norman, Donovan Brazier, Matt Centrowitz, Grant Holloway, Rai Benjamin. Even after Coleman was suspended, Trayvon Bromell popped a 9.77 100, and Fred Kerley (who, by the way, has a couple of sub-44 400s on his resume) seemed to step up. Erriyon Knighton looked like a phenom ready to blossom.

Coleman and Brazier didn't even make it to Tokyo. Benjamin and Kerley ran to their potential and still got beat. Knighton was not quite ready for prime time (yet). Others couldn't summon their best performances.

Like I said, not really a disaster. But more than disappointing.

 

but look at how he's divided the country and hurt our standing in the world the french are going to try to beat us twice on the court of a country we bombed

 

Why are they discontinuing the 50K race walk?

 

Because it's bizarre?

 

Look, if we get rid of bizarre sports then why have the Olympics at all? Besides, most sports are bizarre. Basketball. Baseball. Triple jump. Team handball. Synchronized swimming.

 

The Google says it's because of gender equity. The 50K race walk has no female equivalent. I'm assuming it's because of women are too sensible to take up that bizarre sport.