[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

15 hours ago, Spidey said:

Note to self. No tips from MD

Haha that is up there with my greatest predictions ever!

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

This men's 100m final seems as competitive as I can remember.

I think it'll be a Jamaica 1, 2 with Oblique Seville winning. He looked so calm in the semi-final.

[Britain's best sports person]

16 hours ago, Shadow said:

 

I suspect Calzaghe would get more recognition from being on Strictly than from his boxing career 

Whilst his career was incredible, it was marred a little by the fact he only fought the top Americans when they were clearly past their peaks. His best performance was probably the Jeff Lacy pummelling.

I'm a big Lennox fan, but am put off by his ambiguous nationality. When the idea is about the best sportsman we've produced, it doesn't feel right to include somebody who didn't box until they lived in Canada.

To give an opposite example with Mo Farah, he arrived here quite late but only got into running in British schools.

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

28 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

She was such a massive star at the time, blind eyes were almost certainly turned. Few, apart from her husband, whole-heartedly defend her these days.

But she was a technically superb runner, whatever else was going on.

Yeh it's not to take away from her being an incredible runner.

I'm pretty sure her actual best was 10.61 not wind-assisted.

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

Tonight is the women's 100m and a poignant time to mention the absurdity of the 10.49 Flo-Jo world record, and probably not for the reasons you might think.

Much is made of how she was likely doping, but it should have been discarded regardless of that. Basically, it was an incredibly windy day but the wind reading gave a reading of 0.0.

There have been many studies since effectively proving that it was wind-assisted but still it stands to this day. 

 

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

59 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Now the NRL's over for the day, I'm just catching up with the men's 100m qualification.

Jeremiah Azu's Olympic "journey" has lasted 0.073 seconds, as the Brit was disqualified for a false start.

When it first came out, I thought it was cruel but in general I think it's been a success.

You look at swimming and never see a false start, the days of many many false starts before a race are long gone.

I might be wrong but I think they used to give you 3 each!

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

13 hours ago, Copa said:

Now that the swimming is coming to an end Australia will fade away at the Olympics.

For those who have never lived in Australia, there’s almost a moral obligation to teach your children to swim. It’s considered critical to child safety.

It is a requirement in the National Curriculum here that children can swim by the end of KS2. They all go as part of their schooling at some point. My lads school goes every week for a good 6 months.

I like the swimming at the Olympics but this there are way too many events. At the last games, more than half of the USAs medals were in the pool. 

Plus we'd absolutely batter the Aussies on the medal table if it wasn't for blimming swimming.

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

10 minutes ago, nadera78 said:

I'm not claiming these boxers are trans, it's more likely that everyone has considered them to be female since birth.

I'll go back to the Semenya example - born with XY chromosomes, testes working well enough to father children with help from a Dr, testosterone levels normal for a biological male and a form of DSD that only occurs in males, however, no visible male genitalia and in a South African social setting has been considered female since birth. It was only later on that she discovered that she was biologically make, which makes the whole thing so incredibly sad for her (and also difficult for sports).

If it's true, as claimed, that this Algerian boxer failed a sex test then it's most likely that she is in the same boat as Semenya.

Yes this.

I'm firmly against transwomen in women's sports, and must admit my first reaction was that this was what we were seeing.

However, it seems to be more of a case of the Semenya issue, where they might have only found out when they were older that were not biologically female.

It's still a difficult issue though, as was Semenyas. It might seem cruel for them to be excluded in his way, but is it not fair for other female athletes to be at a disadvantage and lose their chance to compete or win at the highest level.

 

[Britain's best sports person]

1 hour ago, johnmatrix said:

Which sports do you consider as a very popular widespread sport? 

It's not a science, but I'd include sports like football, tennis, athletics etc.

In opposition to this, you have sports like cricket and rugby which large swathes of the world don't really play at all seriously.

There has to be a weighting for how difficult that sport is to get to the top, which comes down to numbers of people that take it seriously.

I'm currently in Ireland and you could be the best GAA player of all time but the reality is you're playing a sport that only thousands have ever taken seriously. 

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

8 hours ago, gingerjon said:

It's a shame how obviously bent amateur boxing has become - and it was never pure - because in terms of pace and style, I tend to prefer it over professional boxing.

I always preferred the old points system. The modern version is so frustrating. In just 3 rounds, one badly called round is very hard to overcome.

[Britain's best sports person]

1 hour ago, MattSantos said:

With Murray losing and now retired, there's the odd mention of him being Britain's best ever sports man.

With 3 majors and 2 Olympics, i just can't have him in the conversation. Am i wrong?

Who is Britain's best sports person?

Whilst this doesn't seem that impressive when compared to the likes of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, for a Brit it is.

I suppose a good indicator is whether he'll be in the conversation in say 10 years time. I somehow doubt it.

Answering the question of who is is genuinely tricky. You have the problem of individual vs team sports, the worldwide nature of the sport, the level of competition etc.

The reality is that there aren't many who can be in the conversation. You think of the likes of Steve Redgrave but rowing is a very niche sport. 

Sadly, I can't think of any British person in a very popular widespread sport who has been dominant.

[Dream Job]

My undergraduate degree is in Ancient History and Archaeology, and it wasn't something I ever considered as a career. The idea of digging up amazing interesting things is sadly rarely the case. I enjoyed my couple of weeks actually doing some archaeology (I dug up an 800 year old goat skeleton), but I think it would get boring pretty quickly.

Likewise with history, I have friends who have gone further and in my experience you end up specialising in a niche area that nobody cares about. No lie, one of my tutors was an expert in loom stones.

The essential problem I've always had is that I didn't know what I wanted to do even as a dream job. I was a singer until about 20, but didn't even really want to be famous. I like the idea of something in music without the nerves/stress of performance.

Also sport. I'd love a job where I would be in shape just by doing the job. 

[Southport child dance class attacks.]

15 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Fake news is out of the gate and halfway down the street before real reporting gets going, because the latter has to find out what happened and the former had the story already written ages ago, save for the names and places.

I just can't believe that in this day and age, after everything that has happened over the years like this that these people didn't think yo maybe not believe the first rumour they saw on the Internet.

[Southport child dance class attacks.]

My best mate is from Southport and has a young girl. He's from that area and for a while I feared the worst. Luckily for him he's OK, but they were only a few streets away. These incidents are always tragic, but when it's in a place familiar to you it feels that much more sickening.

I was trying to find information on-line, and I was pleased to find out that people have matured and don't believe the first rumour that gets spread across the Internet.

Oh wait, that's not what happened at all .

[Did Olympian medal winners or notable inspiring Sports people visit your school?]

2 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

As a teacher, we've had a few visitors in schools I've been in, but none of which were what you'd call top level.

There was this one guy, Tom something or other who was an 800/1500m runner IIRC. He might have had a commonwealth medal. He spoke about what his life looks like, and how often he trains. I'll always remember he jumped up on the spot and felt like he was about my height.

Bit of a strange situation though, they were trying to get the kids to sponsor him or something. 

 

Just looked it up, Tom Lancashire.

[Did Olympian medal winners or notable inspiring Sports people visit your school?]

As a teacher, we've had a few visitors in schools I've been in, but none of which were what you'd call top level.

There was this one guy, Tom something or other who was an 800/1500m runner IIRC. He might have had a commonwealth medal. He spoke about what his life looks like, and how often he trains. I'll always remember he jumped up on the spot and felt like he was about my height.

Bit of a strange situation though, they were trying to get the kids to sponsor him or something. 

 

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

9 minutes ago, Sidi Fidi Gold said:

I was gonna post too but I held off in case of a DQ after that coming together.

Yeh I was a bit worried...

Nobody seemed that concerned, and to be fair to come back after a puncture like that he totally deserved it!

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

1 hour ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

A good, Max?

I've watched showjumping my whole life because my mother is a big fan of anything horse related because she was a horsey olympian in training when she was a teenager and won a couple of amateur competitions before giving it up.

Yes and another epic good in the mountain-biking!

[Boxing]

3 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

To be fair I thought Chisora gave a great account of himself without winning any points for style.

He dug deep to keep up his attack even when clearly heavily fatigued.

Joyce, the better technician on the other hand, looked again very cumbersome in defence even though he clearly had more power and a reach advantage, he just couldn’t keep Chisora off him and eventually conceded a crucial knockdown in the 9th.

Joyce needs to change up his attack. The whole blocking punches with his face isn't working. 

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

Finally a good for Team GB!

I'm a huge horsey jumping over fences fan.

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

Tom Daley and his partner got Olympic silver.

I enjoy watching the diving, but I always find anything with judges a bit frustrating (see boxing).

For instance, did anyone see the first medal we got in the diving? It was a bronze that we got after Australia bombed their last dive. However, if you looked at the scoring, one judge gave them an 8.0 for execution and another 4.0. How could there be such a wide variance? 

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

57 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

just do the track and field, gymnastics  and the swimming - sack the rest of the hobbies for the privileged- managed to get to 40 without knowing what a velodrome was - never seen one round here 

There's one in Manchester.

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

6 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Football has been in since 1896.

Oh yes, I'm aware of that, I think I was getting that rather than take away events that shouldn't be there (to which I think football is one) they seem to add more and more events.

I've always preferred sports where the Olympics is the pinnacle of that event. I'm not sure what Golf, Tennis, Football etc actually adds to it. For so many sports, the Olympic medal is what they've always dreamt of, for these sports it's like a nice little add on.

Similarly, modified versions of sports like Rugby 7s and 3x3 basketball don't seem quite right.

I don't lose any sleep over it, but the sheer amount of sports can make it hard to keep up at times.

[Olympic Games: Paris 2024]

3 hours ago, HawkMan said:

Never sure really why football is in the Olympics,  sportsmanship is never an important aspect of the game. Argentina v Morocco starts tournament off to a new low.

• Morocco beat Argentina 2-1 after dramatic men's football match which takes four hours to reach conclusion

• Fans appear to throw missiles at players after Argentina's leveller in 16th minute of injury time makes it 2-2

• Players then taken from field before equaliser ruled out by VAR almost two hours later as play resumes for final three minutes in empty stadium

I love the Olympics, but it seems to have gone down the route of the more sports the better. It seems to be an absolute behemoth now with the sheer number of sports included.

[Next England Football Manager?]

38 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said:

But you can't have it both ways. It's fine if you want to say that it's same old same old, but you can't then put Southgate on a pedestal and claim he is so much better than what we've had before. He's been in the job for eight years, and yet you're arguing (by agreeing with Gary Neville) that it's the same old England that we've seen since in every big England game since 1996. It shouldn't BE the same old England if Southgate is so damned good.

I don't see a contradiction here. I could be arguing that Southgate is the best manager of all time (I'm not) but that he could only get England so far. Pep Guardiola could manage Everton but they wouldn't win the PL without investment levels that they don't have.

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying here. I think Southgate only did a good job overall (moreso in 2021 and 22), but that his record is historically incredible for an England manager. A not insignificant part of that was luck. Take this tournament:

If Denmark nick a goal against Serbia, we get Germany in the 2nd round - likely exit

If Slovakia drag out injury time like Spain did we go home in disgrace

We only beat Switzerland on pens, and even if we were good still is still part lottery

If we don't get a terrible penalty against the Dutch who knows what happens

You'd be insane to claim that Southgate's England was in the final based purely on merit. But there you have it, he did and that's what other managers will be compared to.

They might not get the luck.