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The Olympics


Dolfan in NYC

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1 hour ago, supremebve said:

I had a doctor's appointment this morning and Aly Raisman was on the Today Show talking about Simone Biles.  She mentioned the mental thing that Biles is going through and described it as being lost in the air, which sounds terrifying while doing some sort of crazy gymnastics.  You can't do gymnastics and not have full confidence about how and where you are going to land.  

 

Check out the replies here - it's a bunch of former gymnasts explaining what she has is "the twisties" and yea it sounds absolutely terrifying for that to happen in mid air.  

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5 minutes ago, CSC said:

Check out the replies here - it's a bunch of former gymnasts explaining what she has is "the twisties" and yea it sounds absolutely terrifying for that to happen in mid air.  

 

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Hope Simone Biles will recover. Happy she decided to do what's best for her. 

If you think that Toukon slap is a bad motivational tactic on Team Germanies behalf, apparently a coach today yelled at a cyclist to "Get the camel herder!" while said cyclist was in pursuit of various cyclists from Algeria and Eretria.

He apologized using the "I have a lot of acquaintances from Northern Africa." I fucking hate this country sometimes.

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The highlight today (yesterday?) to me was the bronze run of Russian (well, ROC) Judoka Madina Taimazova. She went 15 minutes in the round of 16 (where she got her right eye fucked up), close to 17 minutes in the semifinals (where in the end she got choked out cold) and still came back and hour and a half later and won her bronze medal match in something like 5.5 minutes.

Today's top pics: Capitol breach investigation and more | Archives |  madison.com

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18 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

3x3 basketball is my jam

Regarding 3x3 basketball, I somehow would have expected the US to sweep the floor with the rest of the competition, however, they did not even qualify. Any specific reason for that? I mean I have seen them play in the qualifying tournament and they did not get knocked out due to bad luck or whatever but because they were not good enough, but what is the reason for that? Are the "good" players not interested in these tournaments?

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US Women won the 3x3 gold, so we're good there.  But in the Men's, it's much like what's happening in the full court stuff.  We're not the only country with NBA caliber players anymore, and our players don't want to play team ball, because that's not how the NBA rolls.  

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2 hours ago, Robert s said:

Regarding 3x3 basketball, I somehow would have expected the US to sweep the floor with the rest of the competition, however, they did not even qualify. Any specific reason for that? I mean I have seen them play in the qualifying tournament and they did not get knocked out due to bad luck or whatever but because they were not good enough, but what is the reason for that? Are the "good" players not interested in these tournaments?

 

FIBA wanted to encourage other countries and figured the US dominating would kill interest in the sport, so they set up rules where in order to qualify the players had to have played in a certain amount of FIBA sanctioned 3x3 events. Not a lot of top American men players have, so they weren't able to field a super team.

Conversely, the women were because the WNBA pays shit, so a lot of their players also play in Europe (it's not uncommon for WNBA players to have to leave their teams for a few weeks because they have commitments elsewhere) or 3x3 events to supplement their income.

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Japan has 13 gold medals now. I believe the most they've ever won is 16 (at the '64 Olympics & '04 in Athens.)

Japan won the women's softball (yay!), but the ICC has decided to scrap softball again for 2024 (boo!) Yui Ohashi back up her 400 IM medal with the 200 IM title, which was impressive, and there were a couple of surprise judo gold medals as well. Japan also has a new gymnast hero, 19 year-old Daki Hashimoto, who has taken over the throne of "King" Koji Uchimura in the men's all round competition. 

And New Zealand got a gold medal in the rowing. Well done, Kerri Gowler and Grace Prendergast! I was hoping the All BlacksSevens team could win gold, but Fiji were too good for them in the final. Fiji are back-to-back gold medals in Olympic sevens.

So far, I've been enjoying the Olympics despite how low key it is. The equestrian events are right up the street from me, but you wouldn't notice except for police officers doing the rounds. The coronavirus numbers are soaring, which has everyone on edge a bit, but the sports side of things has been entertaining. 

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1) I love the ritual we have in America of every four years people wondering why we do not handball in our lives all of the time. It’s a sport made for us. It could be played in any gym class and also outdoors. I know we have basketball for that already but handball can also join our lives very easily. I can’t believe no one has tried to put on the European pro league on some channel. It is baffling to me that every four years we all collectively love handball and then there is never any momentum for it anywhere.
 

1B) I wonder what the hell handball would look like with a 2-point shot or an actual shot clock aside from the vague “passive play” rule. 
 

2) Rugby 7s is also great. I wish it was a bit longer but it is a blast. 
 

3) Water polo is the most physically grueling and brutal sport but man is it bad on TV. Anyone who plays water polo at a competitive level has some is a fucking maniac and someone I would not want to live near.

4) Team Archery was a lot of fun to watch. Badminton is also awesome. I also got a big kick out out the kayak/canoeing events.

5) My wife and I are oddly obsessed with synchronized diving. What a weird weird weird sport. It is just incomprehensible. But I have so many questions. How does one find a partner for this? Or what if one of the divers is better than the other? Does he/she have to dumb it down so they can be in better synchronization? Can you steal someone’s partner?

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Realizing that I know little about the handball rules, I would think in order to create a 2 point shot you would either have to increase the size of the net or decrease the number of people on the court(?) .  A shot clock would work but it needs to something realistic 45 seconds.  The biggest problem with trying to gentrify for lack of a better term handball is that once people realize how rough it is they will change it and add more ticky tack fouls.   Right now it looks like early 80's NBA with the rough play and we can't have that in our major market sports

 

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Needs to be rougher than it is to catch on. Full contact curling for example would be huge, allowing you to lob the rocks at each other and such.

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15 hours ago, Greggulator said:

1) I love the ritual we have in America of every four years people wondering why we do not handball in our lives all of the time. It’s a sport made for us. It could be played in any gym class and also outdoors. I know we have basketball for that already but handball can also join our lives very easily. I can’t believe no one has tried to put on the European pro league on some channel. It is baffling to me that every four years we all collectively love handball and then there is never any momentum for it anywhere.

A big problem handball has vs some other team sports like football, is, that "casual" play (with kids running around unorganized) usually is not much fun. Back in school, we played it from time to time and when I was in a class that had a couple of people who also played in a handball club, it was pretty fun, when it was just a bunch of clueless kids running around, it was definitely not. Volleyball also falls into that category. On the other side, I also remember field hockey being pretty easy to have a nice game with. Basketball fell somewhere in between.

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2 hours ago, Robert s said:

A big problem handball has vs some other team sports like football, is, that "casual" play (with kids running around unorganized) usually is not much fun. Back in school, we played it from time to time and when I was in a class that had a couple of people who also played in a handball club, it was pretty fun, when it was just a bunch of clueless kids running around, it was definitely not. Volleyball also falls into that category. On the other side, I also remember field hockey being pretty easy to have a nice game with. Basketball fell somewhere in between.

This is kind of why we don't have a men's 3x3 team.  I know a few people who played basketball in college.  None of them were Division 1, but they all were good enough to play after high school.  The one thing they all have in common is they don't just pop up at a park to play basketball.  They basically go to some gym where they reserve a stretch of time and go play 5x5 with other guys who played at a higher level.  Playing with random dudes at the park just plain isn't fun to someone who can play basketball at a post-high school level.  If you know anyone who played any college ball, ask them who the best player they've ever played with, you'll get a surprising answer.  I know my brother in law played a game with Lamar Odom in like 1998, and swears that he's the most talented basketball player who has ever lived.  He doesn't think he's the best ever, just has the most tools in the toolbox.  I remember him saying that there is nothing happening on a basketball court that he's not great at.  My coworker swears Keith Bogans is the best player he's ever seen.  He basically thinks that if Keith Bogans has all the skills, he's just not the kind of overwhelming athlete you have to be to excel in the NBA.  Both my brother in law and my coworker are much more likely to play basketball with an NBA player than a bunch of random dudes at the park.  So, if you are the type of basketball player good enough to make an Olympic team, you probably aren't playing 3x3, because they are playing high level 5x5 basketball games with other guys who were good enough to play in college.  

I would also like to cosign you volleyball point.  Me and some friends signed up for a volleyball league and none of us had played outside of PE and we were all over 30.  You might think you'd be decent at volleyball, but trust me you aren't.  Unless you've been practicing how to be explosive in every direction including up...you aren't going to be very good.

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Britain's Bethany Shriever won gold in the women's BMX racing final, moments after team-mate Kye Whyte claimed the nation's first Olympic medal in the event with silver in the men's.

Shriever, 22, was lifted into the air by Whyte as the pair celebrated their historic achievements in Tokyo.

After needing crowdfunding to be able to go to Japan, Shriever held off two-time champion Mariana Pajon to win.

Bethany Shriever needing crowdfunding and going on to win the Gold medal, amazing!

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Yesterday he was spouting off on how "pressure is a privilege"... 

And today, no Golden Slam for Novak Djokovic.  Nick Zverev beats him in the semis 1-6, 6-3, 6-1.

GaseousAdvancedAustraliankestrel-size_re

 

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3 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Yesterday he was spouting off on how "pressure is a privilege"... 

And today, no Golden Slam for Novak Djokovic.  Nick Zverev beats him in the semis 1-6, 6-3, 6-1.

GaseousAdvancedAustraliankestrel-size_re

 

I didn't know either. Happy days! No Golden Slam for you, Novak!

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