Olympics

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O Really
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Re: Olympics

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The Olympic Charter indicates that in order to be accepted, a sport must be widely practiced by men in at least 75 countries and on four continents and by women in no fewer than 40 countries and on three continents. The sport must also increase the ‘‘value and appeal’’ of the Olympic Games and retain and reflect its modern traditions. There are numerous other rules, including bans on purely ‘‘mind sports’’ and sports dependent on mechanical propulsion. These rules have kept chess, automobile racing, and other recognized sports out of the Olympic Games.
Seems "dependent on mechanical propulsion" would include shooting and archery, but maybe that's just me.
But looking at those rules, where is synchronized swimming a competitive sport outside of Olympics?
75 countries have curling teams? Really? Name them.

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Re: Olympics

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O Really wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 3:30 pm
Seems "dependent on mechanical propulsion" would include shooting and archery, but maybe that's just me.

What about ultra high tech sailboats and bicycles?

But looking at those rules, where is synchronized swimming a competitive sport outside of Olympics?

Bigger than I knew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_swimming
Go figure. I also saw this:
Injuries

In their 2012 book Concussions and Our Kids, Dr. Robert Cantu and Mark Hyman quoted Dr. Bill Moreau, the medical director for the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), as saying, "These women are superior athletes. They're in the pool eight hours a day. Literally, they're within inches of one another, sculling and paddling. As they go through their various routines, they're literally kicking each other in the head." Dr. Moreau said that during a two-week training session in Colorado Springs, the female athletes suffered a 50% concussion rate. As a result, the USOC began reassessing concussion awareness and prevention for all sports.

Others believe the incidence of concussions among synchronized swimmers is much higher, especially among the sport's elite athletes. "I would say 100 percent of my athletes will get a concussion at some point," said Myriam Glez, former chief executive of U.S.A. Synchro, the sport's national organizing body. "It might be minor, might be more serious, but at some point or another, they will get hit."
Wow. Maybe concussion prevalence should be another way to differentiate between sport and non-sport :o .

Why is there skateboarding and ice skating, but no roller skating?


75 countries have curling teams? Really? Name them.

Member Associations
The world governing body of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Sport of Curling


67, but maybe a few countries have teams but no associations yet. Guyana??? Not Jamaica, though. They must all be sprinting and bobsledding.
Last edited by Vrede too on Sun Aug 08, 2021 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Olympics

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O Really wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 3:30 pm

75 countries have curling teams? Really? Name them.
Don't mess with my Curling!

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Re: Olympics

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Somehow I find it comforting that none of us have any say over what constitutes an Olympic sport.

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Re: Olympics

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U.S. ratings for Tokyo Olympics plunge to half of 2012 Games

Ouch.
Olympic medals: An alternative table - with US 15th
The Olympics medals table was again dominated by the biggest countries like the US, which finished top. But how would the table look if population and wealth were taken into account?


When it comes to counting the medal spoils, there is a strong sense of deja vu. Every four years, the same few countries wrack up medal after medal - the US, China, Russia - and Tokyo 2020 was no different.

The US won 113 medals total, including 39 golds, the most of any country....

(3 useful Top 10 charts at the link)

Some countries over-perform, given their population size. The BBC came up with an alternative ranking, which looked at the number of medals won per million people. In this scenario, the tiny European nation of San Marino, with a population of just over 33,000, comes out on top, even though it earned only three medals. The US didn't even crack the top 20, coming in at 60th place....

When poorer countries do win, they tend to win at sports that are lower-cost, like wrestling, he says, while wealthy countries outperform in expensive sports like equestrian and sailing.

When taking into account the average national wealth per person, China and Russia (numbers two and three in total medals) actually did better than the US. Under these alternate rankings, China comes in first, and Russia second, with Kenya coming in third place.

The US, normally top dog, lagged behind at number 15....
Commie.
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Re: Olympics

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And they didn't mention the total numbers of athletes sent to the games, either, with US sending 600-something? It's hard to argue you can't buy Olympic medals.

I tried, but in the end I found I was among those contributing to the low ratings.

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Re: Olympics

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O Really wrote:
Tue Aug 10, 2021 11:04 am
And they didn't mention the total numbers of athletes sent to the games, either, with US sending 600-something? It's hard to argue you can't buy Olympic medals.

I tried, but in the end I found I was among those contributing to the low ratings.
The article does mention it, with the implication being that wealth and population = more athletes sent.
Take a country like Luxembourg, which has a population of 633,622. It sent 12 athletes to compete in seven sports, and won no medals. Meanwhile the US, which has the third-largest population in the world, sent 613 athletes to compete in 35 sports and took home more medals than any other country.
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Re: Olympics

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India has 1.2 billion people and sent 127 competitors. I would argue that wealth, and willingness to spend it on sports, is of greater importance than population. Buying medals.

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Re: Olympics

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O Really wrote:
Tue Aug 10, 2021 4:41 pm
India has 1.2 billion people and sent 127 competitors. I would argue that wealth, and willingness to spend it on sports, is of greater importance than population. Buying medals.
The article agrees with you, as do I:
... But population, by itself, is not enough to guarantee a country sweeps the podium.

"If a country is very poor, it won't have the resources to convert that potential into actual ability to compete on a world stage," says Mr Forrest.

"They've got to have the ability to participate in sport in the first place. For example, they might have a great natural ability in swimming that is waiting to be developed - but actually there won't be any swimming pools."

When poorer countries do win, they tend to win at sports that are lower-cost, like wrestling, he says, while wealthy countries outperform in expensive sports like equestrian and sailing.

When taking into account the average national wealth per person, China and Russia (numbers two and three in total medals) actually did better than the US. Under these alternative rankings, China comes in first, and Russia second, with Kenya coming in third place.

The US, normally top dog, lagged behind at number 15....
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Re: Olympics

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Re: Olympics Synchronized Swimming

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Ulysses wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:44 am
O Really wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 10:53 am
Ulysses wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 3:51 am
Or, now, "Artistic Swimming"...

Maybe one could argue over whether it's Olympic-level sport, but if you like the Rockettes or remember the "June Taylor Dancers" or even like the mermaids at Weeki Wachee, you've got to enjoy the show.
Well, apparently it's been an Olympic event since about 1984, when its main opponent, Avery Brundage, passed. He was against including it in the official games. The name change came, AFAIK, around 2017.

I found the best part of clips I shared here to be Leslie Jones' enthusiastic narration. The swimming was awesome too.

Brundage notwithstanding.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2021/08/watch- ... d-behavior
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Re: Olympics Synchronized Swimming

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billy.pilgrim wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:26 pm
Ulysses wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:44 am
O Really wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 10:53 am
Ulysses wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 3:51 am
Or, now, "Artistic Swimming"...

Maybe one could argue over whether it's Olympic-level sport, but if you like the Rockettes or remember the "June Taylor Dancers" or even like the mermaids at Weeki Wachee, you've got to enjoy the show.
Well, apparently it's been an Olympic event since about 1984, when its main opponent, Avery Brundage, passed. He was against including it in the official games. The name change came, AFAIK, around 2017.

I found the best part of clips I shared here to be Leslie Jones' enthusiastic narration. The swimming was awesome too.

Brundage notwithstanding.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2021/08/watch- ... d-behavior
Cool.

But where's the rest of their routine?

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Re: Olympics

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billy.pilgrim wrote:
Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:50 am
billy.pilgrim wrote:
Mon Jun 28, 2021 8:57 am
Auburn is in

A tad better than "in".

Way to go Suni - see you in Auburn , I hope.

https://youtu.be/f08Doq8ob-w
Suni Lee says she was pepper sprayed in racist attack: 'I was so mad, but there was nothing I could do'

Gymnast and Olympic gold medalist Suni Lee has revealed in an interview that she and several friends were recently the target of an anti-Asian attack.

In an interview with PopSugar published on Wednesday, the 18-year-old Lee described what happened to her and her friends (who are all women of Asian descent) just a week before the interview took place. While they were waiting for an Uber during a night out, a car pulled up to them and started yelling Asian slurs out the window. Lee said she got pepper sprayed on the arm as the car sped away....
:( Neither this article nor the source article makes the locale clear, but I'm pretty sure that it happened in LA rather than Auburn.
... Lee, who has taken a temporary detour from her freshman studies at Auburn to compete on "Dancing with the Stars," ...
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Re: Olympics

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Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Re: Olympics

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Yeah, I don't get all these racist assaults.

I would estimate about 1/3 of the block I live on is Asian.

Another 1/3 is Hispanic.

The rest are white/black.

It's very nice.

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Re: Olympics

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Ulysses wrote:
Fri Nov 12, 2021 9:11 pm
Yeah, I don't get all these racist assaults.

I would estimate about 1/3 of the block I live on is Asian.

Another 1/3 is Hispanic.

The rest are white/black.

It's very nice.
Hard to imagine winning a gold medal at the Olympics and coming home to assholes screaming racist insults.
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Re: Olympics

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billy.pilgrim wrote:
Sat Nov 13, 2021 11:47 am
Hard to imagine winning a gold medal at the Olympics and coming home to assholes screaming racist insults.
:( I watched this a couple of days ago:
Hidden Heroes: The Nisei Soldiers of WWII

The unsung story of America’s Nisei warriors of WWII, the sons of Japanese immigrants who volunteered by the thousands after Pearl Harbor and served in a segregated regiment to fight in some of the bloodiest battles of WWII. Featuring sit-down interviews, archival imagery, illustration, and narration, the documentary will center around the Nisei soldiers of the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of the US military, and the Military Intelligence Service, a group of Nisei linguists and translators who are credited with shortening the war and saving millions of lives.
Hard to imagine winning a war in Europe and coming home to assholes screaming racist insults.
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O Really
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Re: Olympics

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Hard to imagine how anybody could blame the "Asians" for covid and then believe the US government is trying to kill them with a vaccine. In the words of an old curmudgeon I used to know, those people should just "eat shit and die."

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Re: Olympics

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O Really wrote:
Sat Nov 13, 2021 12:47 pm
Hard to imagine how anybody could blame the "Asians" for covid and then believe the US government is trying to kill them with a vaccine. In the words of an old curmudgeon I used to know, those people should just "eat shit and die."
Plus, Lee is of Laotian Hmong descent, not Chinese. It'd be different if folks are prejudiced against Minnesotans or Auburn students. ;)
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Re: Olympics

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O Really wrote:
Sat Nov 13, 2021 12:47 pm
Hard to imagine how anybody could blame the "Asians" for covid and then believe the US government is trying to kill them with a vaccine. In the words of an old curmudgeon I used to know, those people should just "eat shit and die."
I've probably mentioned it here before, but I grew up (from 11 on) in San Francisco. I'd say at least 1/3 of my friends were Asian, and I quickly lost any idea they might be foreign or dangerous or anything like that. In fact one of my sisters married an Asian-American guy. In general I found them easier to get along with than some "white" people.

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