Rio 2016 Olympics Megathread

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Not sure about unpopular, more the prohibitive cost of entry (bikes costing around £20,000) means your average Jamaican or Kenyan won't be competing. Also true for equestrianism, sailing, rowing, shooting, as well as the entire Paralympics and Winter Olympics.

The idea that there is a restrictive and selective cost of entry to sport is probably true for horse events. And sailing. Maybe skeet.

Definitely not true for rowing (clubs provide boats, oars etc).

A decent cyclist will probably be scouted early and will not ever have to pay for their top end gear. Certainly not full retail, and will likely get support from clubs etc.

Sean Kelly definitely had no silver spoon. Same for one of the greatest of all Graeme Obree.

As for para sport the same rules apply really.

Excelling at winter sports is more a question of where you grow up.

But none of that matters in the instance cited, as the Brits went up against the world, not just Africa and Jamaica.

PowerToWait wrote: »

The idea that there is a restrictive and selective cost of entry to sport is probably true for horse events. And sailing. Maybe skeet.

Definitely not true for rowing (clubs provide boats, oars etc).

A decent cyclist will probably be scouted early and will not ever have to pay for their top end gear. Certainly not full retail, and will likely get support from clubs etc.

Sean Kelly definitely had no silver spoon. Same for one of the greatest of all Graeme Obree.

As for para sport the same rules apply really.

Excelling at winter sports is more a question of where you grow up.

But none of that matters in the instance cited, as the Brits went up against the world, not just Africa and Jamaica.

There is more to it than just the cost to the individual athlete who may or may not have to shell out cash for equipment.

If the area that you grow up in does not have a velodrome then you are unlikely to become a good track cyclist. If there is no rowing club nearby then you are unlikely to become a rower. If there is no swimming pool then you are unlikely to become a swimmer... etc
These facilities only exist in the wealthier nations who can afford the infrastructure to pay for it all. Being able to buy your own bike/ horse/ boat is useful, but the community that you are living in also needs to be wealthy to support you making use of that kit.

One of our boxers failed a drug test apparently

Great start

robinph wrote: »

There is more to it than just the cost to the individual athlete who may or may not have to shell out cash for equipment.

If the area that you grow up in does not have a velodrome then you are unlikely to become a good track cyclist. If there is no rowing club nearby then you are unlikely to become a rower. If there is no swimming pool then you are unlikely to become a swimmer... etc
These facilities only exist in the wealthier nations who can afford the infrastructure to pay for it all. Being able to buy your own bike/ horse/ boat is useful, but the community that you are living in also needs to be wealthy to support you making use of that kit.

All true. But applicable to a huge range of sports, obviously your own sport of running is much more accessible than most others. Though the Kenyans and Ethiopians are perhaps fortunate with their altitude and culture?

My point is the Brits took on many other countries just as wealthy and possibly wealthier and succeeded. They also brought people over from other sports and basically made it happen.

A male boxer

Prior to leaving for Brazil? ??

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Had almost forgotten there was an olympics until we seen the olympic village looking like downtown Aleppo.

London was pretty good, but could not give a f*ck about it this time.
And the first week is always a killer.

Endless swimming and hyper-medal inflation.
F*ck Michael Phelps and his 16 gold medals for doing the one thing over & over again with minor technical differences.

Nobody talked about swimming as a sport with "medal inflation" until Phelps came along. Take away this swimmer and it's a complete non issue.

There is some merit to the inflation accusation in that swimming has more relay opportunities. It's more realistic for a swimmer to participate in three relays than for someone in Athletics to be in two. That's a big advantage. Something worth taking into account given that most athletes at the top of the all time medals table are boosted by team medals. However, even if you strip away relays and team medals in general (where athletes from deeper/larger/more powerful countries have an advantage) it doesn't diminish the accomplishments of Phelps relative to his peers inside and outside of his sport at all. If anything in many respects it only serves to reinforce his greatness. The part of your statement I take issue with the most is the "same thing over and over again with minor technical differences." I'll be honest that remark kind of pee'd me off when I first read it. But then I thought about it a bit more and I take more of a philosophical view. On some level I can see why the lay person watching at home on TV might believe that. And I remind myself that public perception matters. They're the audience, the viewers, and without them the Olympics don't exist.


But consider this: Phelps, to this point, has won 11 individual gold medals. No other man has won more than four individual golds (Mark Spitz) in swimming. The only swimmer in recent history that people ever compared to Phelps, at least early in Michael's career was Ian Thorpe. Thorpe is considered one of the all time best in swimming. He has 3 individual golds. The closest anyone of either gender has come to Phelps was a female. The great Hungarian Krisztina Egerszegi, many consider her to be the best female swimmer of all time. She won five individual gold medals over the course of three Olympics. In other words Michael Phelps has more than doubled the next best competitor in his sport in terms of individual golds. You take away Phelps and the individual gold medal tallies of swimmers are not overly impressive. So when you assert that there's "medal inflation" in swimming, beyond the context of relays, it's simply not supported by the evidence. And yet when you take away relays Phelps is still the most decorated Olympian in terms of individual golds (three more than any other athlete in any sport).

It's one thing to say hey you can't compare across different sports because they don't provide the same opportunities to medal... because there is certainly validity to that reasoning. However, when you see what Phelps has done relative to his peers in his own sport (he completely obliterates his nearest historical rivals) then it just serves to underscore the point that his sporting greatness is not simply derived from the good fortune of being a swimmer. On the top 20 table of all time gold medal winners there are six gymnasts, four swimmers, three from athletics, and three from cross country skiing. So even if we accept the inherent advantage that relays provide in swimming the athletes in these sports have managed to hold their own. Take away the relays and team medals in sport and there are only two swimmers in the top 20 of all time individual gold medal winners (Phelps at #1 and Egerszegi at #14). Compare that with eight gymnasts, four speed skaters, and three from Athletics. This shows that in terms of medal opportunities, sans the relays, swimming does not offer a clear advantage in terms of medal inflation. So viewing the different swimming disciplines as doing the same thing "over and over again with minor technical differences" remark doesn't really hold. If it did we should expect a much larger share of the gold medal largesse to be spread among swimmers. Without Phelps at the helm we would only have one swimmer at #14 on the all time individual Gold table tally and the sport of swimming would actually look rather poor in this regard.

On a more personal level, as someone that swims and has followed swimming for a long time I bristled at that remark. My background does reveal that I have a bias. But hopefully also that I have knowledge of the sport. None of the four stroke differences are remotely the same thing. They each utilise different sets of muscle groups and are significantly different in terms of bio mechanical locomotion. I could risk boring you with the technical details about why but this is already going to be a long post (but I can if you want). But I will say that many of the best ever swimmers have tried and put immense time and effort into mastering other disciplines beyond their pet event and failed miserably. Most swimmers are still specialists. There are a few multi event swimmers that might medal in different disciplines. But are unlikely to win gold outside their best discipline. Only two other guys have won golds in both butterfly and freestyle (Spitz and the albatross Michael Gross...two of the all time greats). It's rare. Phelps has won individual golds in both the 100 butterfly and the 400IM. That's a highly unprecedented accomplishment and he did it in the same Olympiad (twice!). You could scarcely come up with a more unlikely double. These events are so disparate.

Really, if you're not keen on Swimming you should be thanking Phelps. If it weren't for him there would quite likely be more events in swimming. In many ways he's been both a blessing and a curse for the sport. At the world championships for swimming there are 50m events for breast/back/fly as well as the 1500 free for women/800 free for men. These races are not on the Olympic programme. Prior to Beijing FINA has begun the initial process for the IOC to include these events in the Olympic swimming programme. They had received positive indications from the IOC that approval was likely. But after Phelps's Beijing haul criticisms started to be leveled at swimming (really for the first time) and FINA ultimately was forced to shelve the proposals by 2011. Phelps changed the conversation. But this had much more to do with one athlete's dominance than questions about the breadth of the sport itself. You will find few criticisms or qualms with the number of swimming events in global media covering Olympiads prior to Phelps in Beijing, despite the progamme being the same for decades (aside from the addition of the women's 4x200 in 1996). Ultimately though I think there are many viewers and fans that can see past the medals table, the medal hauls, and view things in the wider context. There is more to an athlete's greatness or the Olympics than medal accumulation. I enjoy some of the team sports like handball and indoor volleyball. For these athletes career medal hauls aren't really a big part of the discussion but it doesn't and shouldn't diminish their own achievements.

271 Russians have been cleared to compete in Rio.

Finding it hard to get excited about this Olympics but when the track and field begins Ill likely tune in for the main events. Im also looking forward to the track cycling pursuit, it should be a shootout between UK and Australia who beat Wiggins & Co earlier this year.

The whole drugs thing though is just making a mockery at this stage, you really dont know what to think anymore. It takes the gloss off a true competition among athletes when there is this cloud of suspicion hanging over the very integrity of the Games and whether or not what we are watching is actually *real* or not.

The IOC are just as corrupt as FIFA too and allowing Russia enter 250 odd athletes just a few days after their report on state sponsored doping programs going all the way up to the Kremlin leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Now the Irish boxer caught doping too, eejit if he did it.

Anyone know what politics has been going on behind closed doors with the horsey set this year? Yer man Bertram Allen is ranked 4th in the world but the Showjumping blazers shafted him and sent some other guy who is ranked 250th in the world, you really couldnt make it up. Allen is 4th in the world so youd kind of think he had a fair tilt at a medal yet instead the blazers ignore the world rankings and decide to send an ass instead.

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Not sure about unpopular, more the prohibitive cost of entry (bikes costing around £20,000) means your average Jamaican or Kenyan won't be competing. Also true for equestrianism, sailing, rowing, shooting, as well as the entire Paralympics and Winter Olympics.

No, they will just continue taking shed loads of drugs and winning the sprint events.

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Even golfers who are going, treating the event with the seriousness it deserves :

http://m.independent.ie/sport/rio-2016-olympics/matt-kuchars-confusion-makes-a-mockery-of-golfs-presence-at-the-olympics-34938116.html

Is that right that although it is being run as an individual one off event format, with multiple people from each nation potentially taking part, but if one of your fellow country members wins then you can't get 2nd or 3rd?!?!?!?!?

Golf really shouldn't be there, but that is just plain daft to have an individual event that kicks you out of the ranking if someone from your team that isn't part of a team wins.

Or has that articles been badly written about a badly thought out event being in the Olympics?