Oh man, that was high drama in the clean and jerk. The Colombian nearly bombs out before pulling an Olympic record out of his ass, and China doesn't even medal.
Om Yun Chol didn't jerk that weight. Kim Jong Il deadlifted it from heaven. <a class="postlink" href="http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/north-korea-om-yun-chol-lifts-three-times-163842485--oly.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics- ... --oly.html</a>
Did anyone else see women's waterpolo? Holy crap. One of those chicks in particular is large and in charge. Plus perhaps needs some exfoliating advice for her bikini region as well. The underwater shots with the plethora of wedgies were awesome too... yeesh. My bits hurt just looking at the TV.
You do understand that almost all athletes that compete at that level are either doping or using performance enhancers, right? The Chinese just probably got a hold of a particularly effective one. And before you yell 'but wait, they test, don't they?' Yes they do, however, they can't test for unknown compounds. So the science behind it is tough to find until someone finds the exact compound (or tests for component parts if they are known).
Nick Thoman!!!! Woooooo!!!!! I was rooting for him as we met him several years ago and he said that he just missed out on 2nd at the last trials by .02. It pretty much messed with his head because he said when you work for 4 years and miss out because of what basically amounts to a snap of the fingers was tough. So he walked away and basically parked it on his dad's couch for a bit until his dad knocked some sense into him. He said he is one of the shorter guys on the tour at 6'1" and has to really have an efficient swim to be successful. I just read an article where they said that they keep the blood samples for 8 years, so if something is not detectable now, it might be at a later time.
I honestly fell asleep watching the first quarter of that game. That was a hell of a play, but jesus fuck women's basketball is boring. Seriously kids - my coworkers have been bitching about the cheating Chinese all day. I just want to shake them - at this level, the vast and overwhelming majority of athletes are either actively doping, or were juicing to get the gains that put them in the competition. The Chinese are at absolute worst, slightly more blatant about it. If more than one in 20 athletes at these games got there without juicing - I'd be fucking astonished. Part of the financial cost of training for the Olympics is the cost of a juicing regime that won't be detected - it's just an unavoidable fact, and athletes would be a lot healthier if we admitted that we can't stop it, and let them do it above board with medical supervision.
That would be alot hotter if it wasn't so fucking creepy. Oh I'm not head in the sand, Olympics are pure and any doping is extraneous and shockingly illegal, its just that when its that blatant, its like come on IOC, stop being corrupt as shit and do your job for once. A 16 year old female swimmer that nobody has heard of bursts on the scene and swims faster than the top male, GTFO. Even the Tour De France laughs at that blatantness. Speaking of the Chinese, my roommate and I were joking about how boring a human interest story about any Chinese athlete would be. Tom Daley's dad passed away. Missy Franklin seems to be a normal kid who is just a swimming freak (she would be one tht would surprise me if she's juicing). Any number of gymnastic stories. And then for every Chinese athlete, they grew up in a gym with their particular sport 12 hours a day for the last decade. Rinse repeat.
The worst part about the Chinese winning all these gold medals is that they look like they're doing it with their eyes closed
Husband and I have a drunken Olympic swim question: why the different outfits? Sometimes little tighties, sometimes bike short looking things, sometimes the Farmer John suits...it seems to be event dependent, but why how and when?
There are a lot of reasons the Chinese are the best. About 10-15 years ago, their communist leadership set a goal; win more gold medals and total medal than anyone else at the Olympics. For one, that means amazing state support that does everything in its power for its athletes to succeed. That includes not just ignoring various doping methods (as opposed to the US), but even help in synthesizing and administering them. It also means things like falsifying age records for their female gymnasts in 2008, then telling the IOC to fuck off when they ask to investigate. Basically, the Chinese Olympic Committee has their athletes' back in a way that no other country does. But it's more than that. China, in order to win more gold medals, focuses on sports with lots of events. That means weightlifting, swimming, etc. Incredibly, with no history of successful athletes in those endeavors, they have built up dominant programs in no time at all. Their training system is absolutely perfect. From the earliest age, they recognize thousands of the most talented athletes in a given sport and then make them train at it for hours upon hours of a day. And, for any number of reasons ranging from economic to cultural, the young kids put in that incredible hard work. After 10-15 years of such intense training, a dozen are Olympic caliber athletes. Honestly, I have nothing but the highest respect for how intelligent, efficient, and flawless the training of Chinese Olympic athletes is. Back in the early to mid 90s, the best table tennis players in the world were all European, despite how popular the game was in China. What did China do? Did it just accept that it was no longer as dominant a force in the sport? No. Instead, they traveled to Europe to learn and perfect the techniques of the world's top players, and then incorporate them into their own styles and coaching. In 10 years, they were more dominant than ever.
I only really caught the last quarter, but at least it's not as mind numbing as dressage. The Italians also have a big mama on their water polo team. I watched about 20 minutes of the water polo and then the handball and can't think of a demoralizing position in an olympic sport than goalie in either. Especially for handball. Maybe it was the particular games, but they got relentlessly smashed with essentially no impressive saves from either side.
Well I think it's safe to say that both of our countries are engaged in an epic medals battle at the moment.
Dude, I know it's you and stuff, but really? The COC farms children the way greyhound racers farm dogs. I really won't be surprised when it comes out that they've been putting retired male athletes into milking machines and forcibly inseminating retired female athletes to breed the next generation of champions. The results might be impressive - but the ethics of their program are pretty fucking questionable. For all that I think everyone is a drug cheat, at least in most places, you have to want to be an Olympian enough to juice, and you can probably look forward to some kind of career after you win your medal.
This. I do agree that the Chinese have done very well at creating dominant Olympic programs, but by doing so they have defeated the entire point of the Olympics. I know that it's changed into something completely different from what it was originally envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin, but I think there's still a fair amount of that amateur celebration today. The guys who throw the hammer will never get rich or get product endorsements. Neither will the guys who do judo, or water polo, or trap shooting, or archery. The ones who win spectacularly get brief mentions on NBC, and that's it. And yet they still play, for the love of the sport and the recognition of their peers and the people who happen to be into it. That's special to me, and that spirit is what makes the Olympics great. China and other authoritarian countries making test-tube athletes is completely contrary to that spirit. And I know that while America does the exact same thing in some sports, (Gymnast parents, I'm talking to YOU) there's still some of it there. China's approach is from the complete opposite direction.
I completely agree with all of this. But that illustrates the difference between your way of thinking and theirs. You're worried about the "ethics". The Chinese government is only interested in one thing; the results.
Dude, again, I do realise who I'm talking to, but you are aware you're speaking admiringly about people who you agree are farming children using practices that are distasteful when farming dogs. If we're talking about the differences between cultural groups...