Watching the Olympics

[Mike Oxlong]

Yelena broke her own world record last night by making 5.05 metres on her final vault.



Her victory flip showed off her gymnastic talent as well.

[kamome]

Yelena broke her own world record last night by making 5.05 metres on her final vault.



Her victory flip showed off her gymnastic talent as well.

Her facial expressions in the action shots aren't so flattering, but that 8-pack of hers is pretty insane.

[Charles]

Her facial expressions in the action shots aren't so flattering, but that 8-pack of hers is pretty insane.

That's something I observed when I used to do a lot of sports shooting, it's almost impossible to take a picture of a woman athlete with a pleasant facial expression while she's actively expending effort in a vigorous sport. Their faces are always contorted from the effort, far more than the men. It is a most unpleasant effect. I concluded that women generally have more expressive facial expressions than men and are unable to hold back their feelings when they're really working hard.
I learned more about this from my current GF who was a gymnast, she probably would have made the Olympic team if she hadn't been injured in a car crash. She said they were trained to smile and make pleasant facial expressions as it would get them better scores. This is particularly true of the more "aesthetic" events like the floor exercise or balance beam, rather than the more athletic events like the parallel bars. Then she showed me her "plastic smile" (which I noticed she still does a lot when she doesn't realize it, it's actually kinda scary). I noticed that in this Olympics, gymnasts like Shaun Johnson have that same plastic smile, but she drops it when really exerting herself.

Plastic Smile:



Scowl:

[Buraku]

interesting rivalry on the medals table here

chrysanthemum or kimichee ?
G S B TOTAL
nippon 8 10 6 24
kamkoku 8 6 8 22

I expect kimichee to pull ahead now that Taekwondo kicks off

[Greji]

interesting rivalry on the medals table here

chrysanthemum or kimichee ?
G S B TOTAL
nippon 8 10 6 24
kamkoku 8 6 8 22

I expect kimichee to pull ahead now that Taekwondo kicks off

Good Point Take. Did you also notice the other item that it is hard to hear about from the J-announcers on NHK: Gold Medals: flower boys and girls - 8; Phelps - 8

[Iraira]

[quote="Greji"]Gold Medals: flower boys and girls - 8]

Nothing like the Olympics to bring out the nationalism. Been listening to grand excuses at work since last week, "America, China, and Russia have so many more people than Japan, so it is no wonder that they win so many medals."
When I countered with, "Japan has about 2.6 times the population of Korea, but the medal totals are about even.", things turned to differential body size, as Americans are larger, so they have more calories available to excel at sports.
When these Olmpics are over, I'll make up a nice population size by medal won regression, but by then no one will care. Still, something to keep around and whip out when London Nationalism 2012 strikes.

[Buraku]

[Mulboyne]

Britain currently lies third in the medal table which is being greeted with amazement over here. There's always a rivalry with Australia but a lot of the success Britain has enjoyed is actually the result of employing Australian coaches and emulating their elite athlete programmes. It's an indication to me of how much difference money and good coaching makes because Britain only really started to invest significant sums after a miserable national showing in Atlanta. Just as China did some years ago, they identified sports where spending money was going to really count so suddenly Britons are celebrating winners in sports like cycling, yachting, rowing and canoeing where we've always had competitors but no organization. It raises the question whether Japan's relative lack of success (they are still eighth in the table which is is where Britain hoped to rank) is down to insufficient funding or weak coaching and I'm tempted to think it is probably a coaching issue.

[Charles]

Have the Aussie kangaroo shaggers finally been humbled by Britain?

Haven't they been humbling them continuously since 1788?

[Mulboyne]

Telegraph: Now Argentina's footballers photographed making 'slit-eyed' gesture

[Mulboyne]

I'm watching the women's 10km swimming and it features Natalie Du Toit who qualified for the event despite losing her left leg below the knee in 2001. That's some achievement.

[Mulboyne]

Sorry to post three times in a row but I've just noticed that there's a competitor in the men's BMX called Kamakazi (sic). He used to be known as Jamie Hildebrandt but changed his name by deed poll. I was wondering why he didn't spell it Kamikaze but I suppose it's either an old nickname which was always spelt that way or else he had an eye on how people would pronounce it.

EDIT: according to this report, "In an effort to avoid association with suicide bombers, he got creative with the spelling, though that doesn't tend to help at American airports."

[Mike Oxlong]

I think it's time to grant another YBF waiver...

From Paraguay, Ms. Leryn Franco!





Oh yeah, she does some event or other...

[American Oyaji]

WAIVER GRANTED!!

[Greji]

WAIVER GRANTED!!

I called nibs first AO and I'm closer to Beijing for waiver issues....

[Mulboyne]

[YT]TFjHNiizdlo[/YT]
"I'm not Michael Phelps"

Steve Parry won a swimming bronze medal for Britain and is currently on the commentary team for the BBC.

[Adhesive]

[yt]TFjHNiizdlo[/yt]
"I'm not Michael Phelps"

Steve Parry won a swimming bronze medal for Britain and is currently on the commentary team for the BBC.

I had a good chuckle.

[GuyJean]

"I'm not Michael Phelps"..

That's pretty good, but what did he expect while holding a large cardboard cut-out of the actual Phelps?

Watching a decent game of softball; AUS x JPN.. Tied at two, bottom of the 9th. US x JPN baseball game just started..

GJ

[Mulboyne]

[quote="GuyJean"]...Watching a decent game of softball]
The BBC briefly turned into a Japanese TV station and cut their online broadcast after the end of the regular innings. It's back up again.

[GuyJean]

The BBC briefly turned into a Japanese TV station and cut their online broadcast after the end of the regular innings. It's back up again.

My favorite Ozzy player, Sheila Titcum, is up..

Op, bounced out on a slow dribbler..

GJ

[Mulboyne]

My favorite Ozzy player, Sheila Titcum, is up..

I thought the tie-break rules in baseball and softball were supposed to bring the games to a swift conclusion. Haven't they been playing extra innings for well over an hour now?

[Jack]

Nothing like the Olympics to bring out the nationalism. Been listening to grand excuses at work since last week, "America, China, and Russia have so many more people than Japan, so it is no wonder that they win so many medals."
When I countered with, "Japan has about 2.6 times the population of Korea, but the medal totals are about even.", things turned to differential body size, as Americans are larger, so they have more calories available to excel at sports.
When these Olmpics are over, I'll make up a nice population size by medal won regression, but by then no one will care. Still, something to keep around and whip out when London Nationalism 2012 strikes.

India and China and pretty close population-wise but China had some 1,090 athletes at the games while India barely had 50. I am not sure if India has ever won any Olympic medals either.

[Gilligan]

[quote="GuyJean"]Watching a decent game of softball]

That was a great game, but you've got to wonder what the Japanese team is going to do for a pitcher in the gold medal game tomorrow against the US. Ueno, who is clearly their ace (and perhaps the only pitcher they trust to pitch in a big game), threw a total of 21 innings and over 310 pitches in their 2 games today. I know that throwing underhand isn't supposed to be as bad for your arm as throwing overhand, but still.

[Iraira]

India and China and pretty close population-wise but China had some 1,090 athletes at the games while India barely had 50. I am not sure if India has ever won any Olympic medals either.

India won a gold in Shooting - Men's 10m Air Rifle and bronze a in Wrestling - Men's Freestyle 66kg. I believe that these were India's first medals, or at least the first gold. So much for the population theory. Maybe medals won needs to be scaled with GDP or 4-year change in economic growth. Dunno.

[Mulboyne]

Hockey is widely played in India and they've picked up several Olympic golds in that event. However, there's been a corruption scandal with their hockey association which led to them being suspended by the Indian Olympic Committee. Both teams had failed to qualify for Beijing which is probably why the scandal broke.

The NYT has an interactive medal map here.

[Caustic Saint]

DAMN!

Bolt had to work for this one. No time to showboat during the run. He barely had time to grin at the end.

.02 is enough, though.

[Gilligan]

DAMN!

Bolt had to work for this one. No time to showboat during the run. He barely had time to grin at the end.

.02 is enough, though.

I don't know about that, he beat the silver medalist by over 0.50 seconds. I think that in this race, as opposed to the 100 meters, his goal was not simply to win, but to break the world record.

As far as I can tell, no one's held both the 100 meter and 200 meter world records at the same time in over 50 years, at least. No doubt about it now, he is the world's fastest man.

[Mulboyne]

The BBC commentator was so caught up with Bolt's performance that it took him several minutes to talk about anyone else. "And in silver and bronze positions were...were...well, no seems to have been watching so we'll have to wait for the official results to show". Bolt beat his 200m rivals by over half a second while Larisa Ilchenko barely managed a one second margin over second place in her 10km swim which is just insane.

[Charles]

India won a gold in Shooting - Men's 10m Air Rifle...

[SIZE="4"]Air Rifle?!?!? Ten Meters?[/SIZE]

When I was a kid, I was a crack marksman and I always wanted to compete on the Olympic Rifle Team. I even made the local qualifiers, though it would have taken years to get to the nationals.

But I would have never even considered it, if I had known the competition included a bunch of pussies with BB guns. And 10 Meters? You could shoot spitwads accurately at that distance.

[Mulboyne]

Weightlifting gold medalist Matthias Steiner. His story here.