Beautiful gold, so-so silver and shameful bronze: The running Olympics thread

Re: Beautiful gold, so-so silver and shameful bronze: The running Olympics threa

Hurdles is a legit argument, but distances are not. And even then, not every distance has hurdles. EVERY swimming distance has about 2-4 ways you can medal.

He said there should be only one medal awarded "for 400 meters". He didn't say there should not be medals for other distances.

Phelps competed in FIVE medal events that consumed the same 200 meters --- two of them relays. Can a track athlete win five medals for five 200-meter events? Are there two track relay events over 200 meters?

Does anyone ever swim a breaststroke if they are not competing in a meet to win a medal?

 

Track has so many distances even within the 3 basic disciplines of sprints, medium and long distance, not inclding marathons. Also The long jump and high jump have significant components of sprints in them, add hurdles to the mix and if you have an athlete that seeks to do more than special ize in 1 or 2 events, it seems they can medal in a number of different event. I see no reason someonbe who runs the 100 can't be competitive in the 200.

There are many more opportunites to medal in swimming, but Phelps is truly are a rare athlete.
How many of his competitors in his different events overlap, so to speak?

BTW, breast stroke was taught and was tested when I received my lifeguard training. It's a different stroke because you never submerge your head in the water so you never lose sight of the subject. Also have to qualify in side stroke, while holding a drowning victim and obviously keeping their head above water.
Swimming does have a function aside from mere atheltics. You don't have life guards on a playground that have to run to save a child from the see-saw.

As far as BS events, race walking?

 

It's easy to say that if you didn't spend your whole life working to win one.

 

How do we know Hamm is Christian?

 

That's a fair point. It is easy from the outside to say he should have given it up. Still, though, if you had worked your whole life to win one, and then you find out you didn't actually win it, that an error had worked in your favor, wouldn't you look down the podium at the other guy who had worked his ass off all his life to win one and say to yourself, "I can't deny this man what is rightfully his after all we BOTH have been through?"

Again, that's easy for me to say, but I would just think that these athletes all have such a good understanding of what it takes and how hard it is to win gold that they wouldn't want to job someone else out of their shot at glory when they know they didn't do what was necessary to win it themselves.

 

Re: Beautiful gold, so-so silver and shameful bronze: The running Olympics threa

Say a call goes against a team in the Super Bowl and it was a blown call. For whatever reason the coach doesn't challenge the call. His team loses and that call ended up being the difference in the game. After the game, everyone sees the replay and talks about how the officials got it wrong. Is the winning team obligated to forfeit the game?
Bad calls are a part of sports. The Koreans had an opportunity during the competition to correct the mistake and they didn't take that opportunity. I know it doesn't seem right, but when it's over, it's over. Whoever has the highest score at the end of the competition wins.

 

It's in the bible. Jews and Muslims don't do ham

 

No, I hear what you're saying. I did forget about the Koreans having a chance to challenge the start value.

Now, admittedly, my memory is a bit fuzzy on how the error occurred (and I'm too lazy to look it up), but don't the judges award a start value based on what the gymnast tells them the routine is going to be? In other words, they know what the routine is before it is performed. So how does this happen? How do they get the only objective part of the judging incorrect?

I understand your analogy about the Super Bowl, but I don't think it really fits. A more apt analogy would be if one team scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point, but was awarded only six points instead of seven and later lost by a point. This wasn't really a blown call or some subjective interpretation. They flat-out got the scoring incorrect.

I can see both sides, but Hamm didn't deserve the medal. If I were him, I'm not sure I would have accepted it (again, easy to say from the position of someone who would crack his head if he tried one backflip, nevermind what those guys do).

 

Take a lifeguard class and tell me.

 

Remember what happened to Roy Jones Jr. in Seoul 1988? Think anyone thought of giving him the gold medal he rightfully won?

 

When is the men's 800 meters?

 

First heats are Wednesday, 'Gola!

If Symmonds makes it out of the semis, I'll be really surprised.