Tokyo Olympics - The Actual Sport

[anton pulisov]

Australian climate and geology certainly helps for swimming. Warm weather and solid ground. To build a 50 m pool, you just have dig a hole in the ground, plaster it, and toss in some water and chlorine, and hook it up to a filtering system. No need for heating the water (huge expense), no need for expensive enclosed building with heating (maybe a tarp, to keep out the sun), and no need for fancy foundations to stop the pool sinking into the bog.

I've just looked at Swimmer's Guide, and counted at least 25 50 m pools for Sydney alone, and then gave up.

There are two 50 m pools in all of Ireland.

[anton pulisov]

lucky bastards

[Ray de Galles]

I've swum in the last one of those a few times, it's an absolutely bloody lovely spot.

[Sam]

They all look lovely, those.

I really miss swimming. Used to absolutely love it.

[caja-dglh]

Though it does seem that they have granted French boxer Aliev a hearing

I would imagine some drug companies helped make sure that happened as they didn't want him being associated with a headache.

[Hot Pepsi]

HP, you also know someone who hadn't played on any high school team who rowed for the other school in Cambridge.

It probably still happens at MIT, but is increasingly rare at higher ranked programmes. More than two-thirds of the freshman team I was on in 1976 had never rowed before, and some of them went on to row at Henley and win national championships. When my nephew and niece rowed for Columbia in the last decade, every member of the team had been recruited, and a significant number had junior national team experience in the US or elsewhere. The sport at that level is unrecogniseable from the one I competed in,

Oh, I thought you’d played baseball a bit in school.

[ursus arctos]

Babe Ruth, not high school

[ursus arctos]

The German men's middle distance track uniform looks to feature a codpiece

[Uncle Ethan]

Not sure about the pool costings being low - $10m has been allocated just for the preliminary planning for a new pool near us. You certainly wouldn't get away with it not being heated if you want it used all year round.

In terms of swimming, about 80% of kids can swim 50 metres by the time they leave school. Not sure what the figure is in the UK but I'd guess it is less. Lifesaving institutes around Australia are lobbying to make water safety lessons mandatory, so it is part of the culture and lifestyle for many. Obviously being a rich country helps as most people can afford the facilities or get to the beach.

The cultural significance of sport is perhaps a crucial factor. People like Ian Thorpe are absolute icons here. I'd agree too that climate is more than helpful. Every open space is full of kids doing one sport or another. The two huge ovals up our way are packed five nights a week with Aussie rules, football, cricket or little athletics. A cycle track is on the way and there is already a skate park.

Last time I was back in the village I come from one sports field had been built on and the other looked basically unused. There used to be three adult football teams, a thriving junior football club and a cricket team in the village. One adult football team was left.

From 1972 onwards (first Olympics I really remember watching) a gold medal for Great Britain was as rare as hen's teeth - Mary Peters, horsey types, Daley Thompson, Ovett/Coe were all memorable for the rarity. Brendan Fraser or David Emery losing heroically was otherwise as good as it got. This changed in the run up to London of course and maybe the investment made then is tapering off.

If Australia didn't divert so many of its best athletes into AFL or league (increasingly true of women too nowadays) then its achievements might well be even greater.

[Hot Pepsi]

There’s nothing wrong with a country diverting athletes to non-Olympic sports if those sports are more popular in a particular country.

The Olympics doesn’t really deserve it’s holier-than-thou status and all this national pride shit isn’t especially healthy, really.

[ursus arctos]

I wouldn't be surprised if fewer than a third of US adults have ever been able to swim 50 metres.

We had a 25 metre swimming test at uni (purportedly because the Titanic victim whose family paid for the library drowned that far from a lifeboat) and that inconvenienced a not insignificant proportion of a very unrepresentative sample of 20 year olds.

[ursus arctos]

Continuing my sartorial observations, the template singlets that Nike have given to many of the African countries are quite disappointing

[ursus arctos]

Bednarek just ran 20.01 while jogging the last 25 metres

[Uncle Ethan]

There’s nothing wrong with a country diverting athletes to non-Olympic sports if those sports are more popular in a particular country.

The Olympics doesn’t really deserve it’s holier-than-thou status and all this national pride shit isn’t especially healthy, really.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with it.

[Ray de Galles]

Continuing my sartorial observations, the template singlets that Nike have given to many of the African countries are quite disappointing

The USA's Athletics kits are nondescript too, they just don't look...American enough.

Canada suffer from the same problem.

[caja-dglh]

The USA's Athletics kits are nondescript too, they just don't look...American enough.

Very little white is the problem I reckon.

[Ray de Galles]

I must have missed the king of Swaziland rebranding the country Eswatini and am slightly bemused by wiki explaining that he "intended to prevent confusion with the similarly named Switzerland".

[ursus arctos]

The Olympic code guy was equally inattentive, as they are still SWZ on the scoreboard

The two US long jumpers in the final have completely different kits

[Hot Pepsi]

I didn't say there was anything wrong with it.

Oh, sorry. I misread “achievements might be greater” as a judgement on the relative importance of the Olympics.

[Ray de Galles]

The two US long jumpers in the final have completely different kits

Yes, looking at a few images the contrast between the thin red & blue stripes seems different across the range of kits.

The same template seems to work better for Germany, much less bland.

Poor Adam Gemili, the guy's bad luck with injuries is appalling.

[ursus arctos]

3 cm among the medals in the Women's Long Jump

[caja-dglh]

3 cm among the medals in the Women's Long Jump

Or nothing between first and second as NBC insists on feet and inches

[Ray de Galles]

Warholm! Holy fuck!

[caja-dglh]

That 400m hurdles was straight up crazy

[Ray de Galles]

That was a race for the fucking ages, absolutely stunning.