f13.net

Opening ceremony in a couple hours.

Women's beach volley starts tomorrow.


That is all, really.

Or, maybe not.

Olympics lost its flavor after the USSR disbanded. Now it is just a bunch of running, swimming, and weird activities I've never participated in.

lol

(http://i.imgur.com/nFu5eKs.jpg)

Declare victory and leave.  Quite while you're ahead!

French gymnast who apparently has boneitis breaks his left leg in exactly the same way he broke his right leg just before the London olympics four years ago. Gets dropped as they're putting him in the ambulance. Vows he will return. 

There's video of the leg breaking. Trust me, you don't want to see it.

So apparently olympic BMX is now a thing. 

When is the women's beach volleyball? :awesome_for_real:  Only reason I'd watch the summer Olympics.

The fucking crash during the womens road race was terrifying. Absolutely not linking the twitter video of it.

I swore she was dead the way she flopped when she hit. Spinal fractures and a concussion but she was conscious and talking when they got her out.

Wear your helmet, blah blah.

I like watching people fall down and shit like that but not when they hurt themselves.  And I'm not watching the video of the gymnast breaking his leg, either.  Tim Krumrie breaking his leg in Super Bowl XXIII and having the replay shown over and over again turned me off that kind of stuff a long time ago. :ye_gods:

It wasn't  venue related was it?  

Saw reports earlier of a sailing/ rowing athlete who flipped when he hit a couch in the waterfront .

Grats on number 19, Phelps.

I'm sure all the other olympians appreciate your continued existence.

(he is not a man, he is a water kite)

The second he hit the water, I knew the other teams were fucked. He broke water at 25 meters. You're not gonna beat that.

Crazy that almost every swim race breaks a world record. Is this pool short?

And the Brazil v Sweden football match was  :oh_i_see: on so many bad calls/no-calls.

That crash was insane.  You could only see glimpses of it (no way am I watching a clip), but it looked like she had curb where her clavicle should have been.

The swimming thing and all the world records is something I've been scratching my head over as well.  I mean, they even banned the supersuits from a few years back that were giving a huge advantage and breaking all the records, and yet they still manage to improve world records all the time.  It's probably too easy to just blame it on drugs*, because there is no reason to believe these swimmers are on drugs at a higher rate than they would have been in the past.  The only explanation I can think of is that swimming, unlike various track & field types of events where time and distance records are measured, is not an intuitive human movement or a perfect science.  Hydrodynamics come into play, and the various styles have specific rules to ensure the movements are correct, but which also put artificial limitations on how efficient they can be.  They even limit the amount of underwater time.  Hell, even a person's body shape/size play a huge role.  So I guess the point is that we really haven't figured out people can swim within these limitations, unlike something out on the track where we must be getting pretty close to the limits. 

*And yeah, I just assume at this point the swimmers are doped.  The work these people go through is insane, a bit of a chemical edge probably does wonders.

My totally ignorant guess is it some kind of gel they are slathering their body with to reduce water drag. Does the same thing as the suit but is invisible to long range inspection.

It's drugs. Our swimmers put the East German swim team women of yore to shame. The fact we're even pretending that swimmers like Ledecky and the Hungarian girl are legit shattering WR by what? 2 seconds? A full body length? No, they are doped to the gills, but they are doing it in much less obvious ways.

It's not just swimming, it's everything now. Tennis, NFL, soccer, golf, etc. The science has completely out-paced the testing, and nobody is concerned about getting caught. At best, they MIGHT find masking agents. And that's a maybe. Most of the time, they don't have the tests to detect what's going on at all, any different from normal human body hormones.

When there's potentially millions of dollars at stake, can you blame them?  I'm not ashamed to admit that I would probably dope if it meant the difference of winning and making a shit tonne of money or losing and having to go pump gas or work in a call centre for minimum wage.  Even if I did get caught later on, I would have already made my money.  Do you think Alex Rodriguez sleeps any less soundly knowing he got caught?  I bet a mattress stuffed with $500 million is awful comfy.  I don't really blame the athletes, it's the sports organizations (IOC, NFL, MLB etc.) where the blame lies.  Juiced athletes make them rich.

I'm just tired of the drug game. I don't really care about "integrity" of the game anymore in most sports, with the exception of baseball. You really really REALLY don't need drugs to be able to play in the majors of baseball, and those that do it wreck the achievements of a sport that's over a century old where the main thing that matters are the stats and records.

In other sports it's mostly about wins (some things like timed events are about records), and if everyone is doping the playing field is level.

Women's Rugby is now my 2nd favorite olympic sport.

Women's Rugby 7s was great. What a entertaining and, obviously, quick moving event. Brutal too.  Some of those hits coming out of the Kiwis and Aussies..

As for the rest? Eh, I don't think they're all doping or cheating. Athletes are stronger and faster. You see this in virtually every sport on the planet. Training regimes, facilities, and recovery processes are all better. Diets and supplements (grey area here) are much better. Technology surrounding everything is better. The Hungarian lady is a bit suspect.  She's physically massive and improved at an almost inhuman pace. Her husband/coach looking like a cross between Shia Lebouf and Tom Hardy doesn't help. And it's terrible that they let some of the Russians compete in cases where they had clear histories of doping.

Literally everything they do now is better and gets better all of the time, how would it not produce better athletes?  

We have computers and testing and all these fun ways of thinking about the human body now, but fundamentally very little has changed in training.

http://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/training-athletes-30-years-ago-has-anything-really-changed

There's some detail on the idea, but despite changing names of how these people exercise, very little is different. What IS different is the access to information on the internet and in immediate feedback devices that monitor body temp, heart rate, oxygen levels, etc.

Oh, and nutrition and drugs. Which when you get beyond the exercise routines and the "technology" which is really just more feedback, you come back to drugs. They are on drugs or "supplements" which is the entire issue. It's only grey because companies race to beat the regs, and then change formulas to beat them again.

I'm enjoying the background shots more than the athletics.

Watching LeClos warm up in front of Phelps was priceless.

I have no nice way of saying this so I'm just gonna

Men's synchronized diving is literally the gayest thing I've ever seen - and I'm watching the US fuck up their gymnastics floor routines right now.

WHY ARE THE NUMBERS ON THE TAGS IN COMIC SANS

fuck

Heh, Phelps went all Anakin in Revenge.

First thing is that they removed all world records as they banned the supersuits which means that the oldest world record is 8 years old, meaning a very short history. Second thing is that hydroponics in the pool has a lot to do with chances to break records. Third is like you say, the human body isn't made for swimming and the current video recording techniques help athletes more and more.

The problem with talking about doped swimmers being the main reason why we have so many world records is that with that line of thinking every old record was made by a doped swimmer. For all the talk about how good they are at avoiding doping tests you should remember that they will check the tests in 2020 and 2024 again.

I did not know that they had removed the records from the supersuit period, so that's something.

They were an amazing advantage. High school kids were hitting college level speeds which doesn't happen for men.

Strokes have a lot of leeway and as gimfain points out there's some very big advances being made there. When I swam the catch was a new thing and there were tools coming out to aid learning it properly. Then the big advance in breaststroke where the hips and body started a dolphin kick, along with an improved forward hand motion. Huge leaps in times there.

Then there's the things swimmers figure out that may or may not be removed from the rules. Backstroke was only restricted from long distances underwater in the last 4 games, because some clever fucker figured they could hold their breath long enough to make it to the end and not fight the pool waves. Dolphin kicking for 75 meters wasn't technically illegal so whatchagonnado.

Every year a little bit more efficient motion is found and speeds increase. Catch, pull, release, recover, dip are all bits of just the arm stoke. Then the kid, the position of the feet, the stiffness of the ankle, the duration of tie underwater.  Lots and lots of impact. Then the dynamics of the pool itself.

Not that there aren't probably dopers. There's just a lot of things that influence swimming that weren't really studied until the last 25+ years. Technology is letting them zero in on those even more than running, track and other sports where equipment is regulated and restricted.

Simone Biles is something else

Looking forward to Australia vs USA basketball, commencing shortly.

Well you certainly made us work for it, from what I read.

Yeah I was trying to get in first, before our shock win :) This Aussie team is our best ever. Good game.

Phelps gets to watch the race for silver and bronze.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cpn-LDJVIAAPBaG.jpg)

Going in to these Olympics, kept saying I really didn't care. Turns out I was wrong.

And our Gold Medalist even managed to do it in a way that Americans will actually have to notice. (Tied an American for the Gold)

That makes Penny Oleksiak the most decorated single year Summer Olympian in Canadian history, and she's 16.

All time Olympic men's swimming gold medals by country:

1. U.S.A.
2. Australia
3. Michael Phelps
4. Germany

Also the first Olympian born in this century/millennium to win a gold medal.

Last night was pretty entertaining, with Simone and Aly just nailing their floor performances and Phelps phelping.

I do enjoy watching the bobbleheads have to scramble to report an event that doesn't follow their script, though. Like they kept showing the favored Aussie rather than the Canadian (?) who won. I forget because they basically said 'good for her' and went back to their script about the Aussie.

Watching dudes get knocked teh fuck down by the ball in indoor volleyball was fun for a few minutes, but the beach version is more enjoyable to watch, with actual volleying and stuff. The old lady insisted in watching badminton.

Simone Biles was just phenomenal to watch.

Also, while I'm disappointed that GB lost the 7s final, Fiji played their socks off and absolutely deserved to win the gold - the first ever Olympic medal for them as a country. I'm glad 7s is in the games, it's just a bloody fun sport to watch. Almost makes me wish they'd replace football with Olympic 5-a-side.

Not immediately Olympics related, but someone wrote about how Simone Biles can what she does, and talks about the physics.  It's damn interesting, IMO.

http://qz.com/754760/simone-biles-vs-a-robot-rio-2016/?utm_source=qzfbarchive

Very cool.

After hearing Hope Solo's comments after losing to Sweden in soccer, I'm so glad the US lost.  The US women's soccer team have had some proper bitches playing for them over the years (much like the US women's hockey team) and it's nice to see them eat a shit sandwich for once.  Suck it!  :yahoo:

And we are guaranteed to finish higher than them in Soccer now.  :grin:

My hatred of the US Women's Soccer team has nothing to do with the US of A - its directed specifically straight at that team.

Man, some good stuff going on.  Sucks being way out of time zone, and in a country that currently doesn't seem to want to cover the Olympics at all when I go into any bar (they are throwing a big hissy fit over here).  I know its easy to be cynical about the corruption, but the Olympics are genuinely fun to watch if you take the time.

In other news, a Cyclist rides up a near vertical wall to avoid a crash, and makes it.

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bc6a9f55bbc31e61106c399e21240c11b3a9e37a/0_0_2526_1656/master/2526.jpg?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=19dc37e81a695860c4bdaca1fb8eea70)

img width=800 is your friend  :oh_i_see:

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bc6a9f55bbc31e61106c399e21240c11b3a9e37a/0_0_2526_1656/master/2526.jpg?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=19dc37e81a695860c4bdaca1fb8eea70)

Ah, see I had originally changed it to that, but after posting, though it was too small.  So I edited it to bigger.   :awesome_for_real:

Everyone else at peak output. Bolt is posing for photos.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cp3YCxRW8AEyYTv.jpg)

You gotta wonder how fast that dude might really be able to run if only he had someone to actually push him.

His stride is longer than most of those other dudes are tall.

Eh, photographer just caught him half through a quick glance, he was pushing it.

Nah, I didn't mean that photo, just his career in general.  If he would have had a nemesis running consistently in the 9.7s, he probably would have had more times in the sub 9.7 range than he actually managed.  I mean, his world record is crazy, but half the races you see him run he is so comfortably ahead that you gotta wonder if he had a tiny bit more in him. 

I don't think we'll ever see one like him again in our lifetimes.

He also seems to be generally a decent dude and not a colossal dick like most of the other "world's fastest men".

I have no words:

(http://c3rhdgljlmrlyxroyw5kdgf4zxntywcuy29t.g00.deathandtaxesmag.com/g00/TU9SRVBIRVVTMiRodHRwOi8vc3RhdGljLmRlYXRoYW5kdGF4ZXNtYWcuY29tL3VwbG9hZHMvMjAxNi8wOC9TT25EdHNMLUltZ3VyLmdpZg%3D%3D/$/$/$/$)

That he fucked up a pole vault attempt badly?

Did you not see what hit the bar first? :awesome_for_real:

Outside of fucking the pole, the actual competition is riveting. The young Brazilian just cleared 6.03...god I love the Olympics. Making me care about silly sports once every 4 years.

That Brazil-France V-ball game was nutso.

Sanne Wevers, sooo hot.

USA snagging two more event golds there, glad the girls all snagged a couple medals...except this chick who needs to learn some sportsmanship (and only got a team gold early on):

(http://larrybrownsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/gabby-douglas.jpg)

Her mother is going nuts at the criticism, but we saw this shot live, among many others. Supportive team and this bitch giving a couple golf claps and never standing to cheer at all. Mom blames racism. Classy, wonder where the kid learned it.

I'm sure it's fun bein a black kid at the Olympics in the current US political atmosphere.

People have been taking shots at Gabby since before she got to Rio. I'd be lukewarm on the whole thing too at this point.

Simone Biles seems to be enjoying herself.

But she's the current golden girl and everyone is fawning over here.  Not that she doesn't deserve the adoration, she's fantastic, but I can see TheWalrus' point, too.

I've watched Gabby for a few of her events. I don't really care about the racial makeup of the team, but I do notice that she seemed very taciturn and disinterested throughout the entire thing. Just looks like she's not enjoying herself at all, or the team. No idea why, but I've been on many team sports in my life, and if your ass is on the bench when somebody on your team does something well, you're getting absolutely reamed by your coaches. That goes for baseball, soccer, basketball, football, etc.

And at no point in any of those team sports did you have people tweeting about how your hair should look or how you're not patriotic enough becuase your hand wasn't over your heart during the national anthem.

But please continue talking about what a bad sport she is.

... his knees.  :geezer:

Actually his shins.

Okay if you insist. It's a bad look when you don't support your team. I don't care about her hair or her anthem or any of that stupid stuff, nor do I give a shit what color anybody is on that team. I do care about how teammates carry themselves in any team sport. If you look disinterested, with a shitty look on your face, guess what? Fans are going to ream you about it. And coaches should ream you about it. It's not that hard to be involved especially in a sport that's entirely based on your poise. Everybody who's played on a team knows this already. It's not brand new.

Or do we suddenly forget guys like Jay Cutler, whitest of the white boys and look at the endless crap he gets simply from his facial expressions on the sidelines alone? Or how people can't stand Papelbon because of his giant douche factor with his teammates? Or AJ Pierzynski, or any other legion of players that look like they want to punch a puppy rather than talk to anybody.

Jay Cutler? Papelbon?  AJ Pierzynski? Really?

You're comparing 30+-year-old millionaires to a 20-year-old girl who's best options after this year are either being, "That black girl who won some gold medals back in the day and got cyber-bullied" or replacing Nastia Liukin on NBC's shitty gymnastics coverage.

Ok then.

And I'm assuming you've played some team sports in your life, and you know exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to teammates acting like disinterested or entitled or sulky jackasses. And you probably know how much you want to knock the block off those guys when it happens.

For the sake of the argument, let's just say it's all unwarranted, and she's the victim of largescale cyber bullying. I've always and will repeatedly said there's absolutely ZERO reason for athletes at any level to be on social media, or to look at what fans are saying. ZERO. If you're using it for branding, let the branding people handle it. If you can't let them handle it, there's ZERO reason to read the comments. Otherwise, it's only going to get you in trouble when you let trolls wreck your life, or you post a pic of you with a bong. Smarter athletes will realize this and ignore it.

Maybe she can go live in the third world shitholes many athletes come from without her gold medals if she has it so rough #firstworldbullshit I could go into how she shouldn't even have been on the team after her performance in the team quals, but I'm sure it has nothing to do with her consistent underperformance, her failure to deliver on her 'storyline' (while watching Aly do so) and her general unlikeability and lack of class. It's that goddamned twitter, like her mom said.

Anyway. Some of the IBA judges got bounced, shocking to anyone who watched boxing. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/sports/olympics/boxing-referees-and-judges-removed-after-a-review.html?_r=0

We caught the earlier Rus v Kaz match (the olympics are one of the few times the fiancee will watch boxing with me) and even she thought the Kaz fighter won. I told her he absolutely did, maybe a split decision, but he was clearly the better fighter and appeared to score more points.

The Irish Boxing fans are up in Arms about their boxer "losing" to a guy who literally had to bow out of the competition as he was too badly hurt during the fight for doctors to let him continue in the competition.

Yes. I've been a team player. I was a competitive swimmer and volleyball player in high school and college. Had a guy actively throw a meet because his brother swam for our main rival team. That was a damn sight more than a teammate showing what others have deemed lukewarm support for team. I didn't fuck his shit up the way I wanted to when I was young, stupid and impulsive and I won't advocate the same for someone that falls far short of that.

As for your response Sky, third world shithole athletes? Like all the athletes that dropped out of competition rather than compete against Israelis? Or the ones that refused to shake hands? Fuck that noise. Most of them are too busy enjoying their time in the limelight and not dealing with the social media bullshit because they come from countries that actually appreciate their accomplishments and aren't a bunch of fucking bored trolls with nothing better to do with their lives than hassle someone from the anonymity of the internet.

Could she have handled herself better? Of course she could have, but the amount of shit she's getting for simply being who she is is ridiculous.

So, like, do you actually feel as angry and impassioned about this as its coming across on the internet? You usually seem like a pretty level person, but if you care this much about this story just  take a step back for a second. Jesus.

Expecting the same response from a 20 year old kid as that of a grown man who gets paid millions for performing, and has been doing it for much longer, is a bit much, I agree.  If her coaches and teammates are OK with her, then why can't everyone else?

He's still bitter about people trolling No Man's Sky? :awesome_for_real:

I just learned that Ryan Lochte is 32.  I thought he was a decade younger.

No, he just acts it.

She's a kid who went from top dog to 3rd place on the team, give her a break.  Also, neither of the two American medalists in Shot put his hand on heart during the anthem and I bet you won't hear a single peep about it. Wonder why.

The same reason some people use Obama's middle name when referencing him.

Probably because nobody was seriously paying attention to Shot. In primetime we get blasted with day after day of 90% swimming, women's gymnastics, and track. I've seen almost nothing of the other events unless you want to cruise to the crap channels or you're watching all 5 hours in a row of the primetime broadcast.

You know how these thngs go, just like the Lochte thing. If it's a random shotput guy that lies to the police and says he was assaulted but actually wasn't it's nowhere near the same story as one of the big-time American swimmers getting involved in it.

This.

At some point y'all need to take a look at yourselves and really wonder, is your criticism of some 20yo girl really worth it?

God what a cunt he is.

In other news the Paralympics are going to have to be scaled back due to budget shortfalls. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/disability-sport/37135083) Part of this is due to the fact that only 12% of the tickets have been sold, which is a real shame. The events are also suffering from the wider financial malaise affecting Brazil right now. This is a real step back from London, where the 2012 Paralympics were the first to sell out all tickets. As it stands some teams may not be able to send full teams or even any team at all since they rely on travel grants from the IPC. Some have gone out, but three weeks late

Scaling back probably saved some lives. I wish I was joking.

The handoff to Tokyo went epic.

http://youtu.be/OkXqVf5jcYY

That video is not working for me, so here's the most important bit (via Twitter): Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as Mario.

https://twitter.com/lmfaofa/status/767529677955018753

That was better than my video.

Do Paralympic tickets usually sell? Can't really believe people are normally packing stadiums to see that...

London sold out I think, or near enough to.

No idea about the Para, but my sister volunteers at the special olympics and she says they are well attended.

The Paralympics is very popular here in Australia and definitely some other countries. There's an appreciation of the guts and determination. The Sydney version was well attended in 2000.

I seem to remember they were well attended in Vancouver in 2010.

They are actually a pretty big deal. They did well in SLC and the Paralympic Flag is right next to the Olympic flag in the display here.

Of course you can't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/sports/russia-paralympic-games-ban.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

In non-doping news, I've got a huge fake crush on Fu Yuanhui, the Chinese backstroker that took a bronze in the 50 and didn't realize it until she got out of the pool and went for an interview.

In a world of cool and (mostly) composed athletes, she's just this huge, adorable dork.

https://youtu.be/Jn0nPGfH1HI

She's precious.

I bet she has a great credit score.