Til after? They've been dead for over a year. Add to that the "secret" of her mother's battle with cancer, the fact that her parents were clearly not sure they should even be saying anything, even now, and yet one more source describing the way these kids are selected and programmed . . . .
Hey nothing but utter respect for their results driven approach right?! Fuck that Olympic program. Makes the vitrol people had for the USSR teams back in the day look minimal.
So long as the medal glorifies her country then it's worth it. Personal tradegy and sacrifice are trivial when compared to her contribution to China's athletics program.
Holy Hannah! This almost got past me. I competed for many years. In fact riding and training was my living for over fifteen years and many more after as a pretty serious hobby. I say that, so I can say this SHOOTING. I will also add that my rowing friend and I bounce quarters off each others asses, whereas my fire-range bud and I play cribbage and drink beer. Please PM me on your reasoning why Equestrian sports are not really a "sport" in your mind as I don't want to wreck this delightful thread about the distasteful Chinese athletic program ... erm ... I mean the 2012 Olympics. edited to add: What do they feed these people?
I have to agree I guess? Not to bite too much off Carolla's rant the other day but skeet shooting seems like a sport that takes about zero physical skill. When you have a chubby* white chick or old dudes competing at Olympic levels it just isn't as physically taxing as the traditional sports. More power too them for training the time required but it is basically a competition to see who has better eye hand coordination. edit-Fuck this womens vollyball between US and China is close, damn I have to go to work. *and weight doesn't factor into your performance in the event ala weightlifting...
Those skeet targets are moving 60 mph and you have to hit two targets coming from opposite directions and they are launched with your gun sitting on your hip. You gotta be fast as hell to do that. And the other shooting events? If you don't think rifle shooting isn't physically demanding, you haven't tried prone shooting. Not comfortable at all laying there with a heavy rifle against your shoulder for over a half hour and a sling tight enough on your arm to make your hand fall asleep, and all the while you have to be in control of your breathing and pulse.
I don't really care much one way or the other in this one (I'm not that worried about there being "too many" events in the Olympics and some of the less athletically-inclined ones are cool as hell to watch), but the argument can be made that some sports require extremely high levels of a certain technical skill but have very low bars for requisite athleticism, whereas gymnastics or basketball require both a great deal of specific skill but also high levels of general athleticism. The ultimate example being darts, bowling, etc. This is why some of their champions look like Zach Galifianakis. Saying something isn't athletic isn't necessarily the same as saying it doesn't require skill. As for equestrian, the argument is probably that it is the only Olympic sport where (1) the person getting the medal isn't the primary one competing in the sport, (2) 50% of the entry isn't a human being, and (3) for dressage, the contest measures as much the horse's responsiveness to directions as anything inherently athletic.
Replace the rifle w/ a pillow and there you have my sleeping position. Not to take away from the skill this requires of course. I wouldn't debate that for a second.
Gold is a very soft metal, so back in the day people would bite a gold coin to ensure that it was real gold, and not something like painted iron. To do it at the Olympics seems odd though, it's basically just sending a message that you think the Olympic Committee would dick you over and not give you a real gold medal so you have to check. "Listen here you Limey bastards, this thing better be real gold, and not some Barclay's financial shenanigans. We know how you white devils do."
This is what I'm talking about. Spoiler Standing in 3 position shooting isn't relaxing either. Anyways, I rest my case.
Y'all see that a bunch of badminton teams were tossed out for trying to tank the seeding? How do you even prove that sort of thing?
It was pretty obvious. And I mean "pretty" as in horribly fucking obvious ... to the point of stupidity. I really don't know how they expected this to turn out any other way than it has.