[Closed] The Olympics

How on earth was that irish boxer beaten on points

No one can watch that and think he lost

Is boxing really corrupt at the olympic level

You could argue that it inspires lots of young people to take up sport for fun and keep fit meaning you won't need that half a district hospital to treat them in in later life!

Well if it was going hand in hand with funding sporting facilities across the nation that would be fine, but in fact due to budget constraints local sporting facilities are closing at an alarming rate. So people may be getting inspired, then they find out they can't follow through because of a lack of facilities.

@seaso you have to be very careful with those IOC statements. They make average ticket prices low by having 100,000's of very cheap tickets for events like football.

Afternoon athletics including 200m semi finals and ladies discus final is deserted. 25% Now independent of ticket prices Rio is not somewhere I would go, there have been numerous robbery's of athletes and coaches already some at gun point. Not for me.

Agreed.

I love the 'Lympics, hope to have saved enough to go in 2024. Who are the potential host cities?

I think the next one in Tokyo would be a great one to go to.

I agree, but if I've saved enough cash to do the Olympics in 4 years time chances are i'll also have spent it again on Disney or something.

@theotherjonv - 2024 early early stage speculation but Paris is seen to be a favourite after missing out on 2012 when they where expected to win.

Back to the sport - judging in the boxing appears to have been shocking. It seems tossing a coin would have been fairer than actually bothering to fight!

MSP yes Tokyo will be amazing and I have half an eye on Rugby WC in 2019 but as a regular business traveller there it will be eye wateringly expensive as everything is so costly, hotels will be insane, food etc. London we got zero tickets despite making 2 applications for 18 events, in the end we got clearence tickets for swimming and last night of athletics but they where very expensive ones (eg athletics where £850 for 2 😯 ). Living locally meant I could see mens and ladies road race, mens TT free. I think in London for good athletics sessions 65% of tickets where press and athletic federations so only 35% for the public

[i]judging in the boxing appears to have been shocking[/i]

Always was in the amateurs - then they tried the scoring by punch, which was terrible, still prone to cheating and ruined amateur boxing as a spectacle, So they've gone back to pro-style judging and the cheating just started all over again. Love pro boxing, but can't watch the amateurs.

Anyway, up in the night and caught the women's volleyball - Brazil v China - amazing, catch the highlights if you can.. can't believe how tense i was 😆

Tokyo, everything is so costly, hotels will be insane, food etc.

Don't know where you've been doing but I travel a lot to Jan and lived there and that's just Not true at all, hotels (premier inn equivalents) around £30 a night and food is cheaper than here!

^^ interesting - happy to know how as I'm keen to go for RWC 2019

So the Irish fella that's been arrested for allegedly touting his tickets. Quite apart from how stupid it is to try and sell them off given the potential for getting caught (it's happened at previous games from memory) has he not noticed that all the stadia are empty and the organisers can't seem to give tickets away?

Men's Tri on now

mrhoppy its absolutely "standard practice" for officials to make coin on the side selling tickets they have been allocated (even free to them I think ?). Maybe he went over the top on scale but at most events its the easiest way to get finals tickets, especially prevelent in swimming and athletics IME. The 2012 last night athletic tickets I got through official resale where from an IOC member organisation who I bet failed to sell them on the balck market having never intended to use them (£850 a pair)

Note the organisers have already given the tickets away, the people they have given them too haven't turned up or more likley have failed to sell them on as they have wished. As I posted before I think 60% plus of 2012 althetics tickets are given away to press / ioc / coaches etc

that was good brownlees take gold and silver.

Awesome bruvs! 8)

Great triathlon race that, and the first event that I wanted to see and was on at a time I could watch.

ps I find it kind off annoying that the BBC don't have some commentary more than a min or 2 before and after the race, it is kind of weird that the commentary is cut so abruptly.

If Nicola Adams wins gold, her coach had better hope she hasn't seen this 😯

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/36690936

Just read shocking news about the dreadful state of finances for the Paralympics. They will go ahead but with significantly reduced budgets for venues, transport etc. Travel assistance payments are only just being released and some 10 countries are at risk of being unable to attend. Ticket sales have been dire, just 12% The Brazilians have got some extra mkney together after a change in the law allowing state aid but its a terrible state of affairs

[url= http://www.bbc.com/sport/disability-sport/37135083 ]BBC[/url]

I think it was amazing the way the British public supported the paralympics, unfortunately I think that well could be the outlier, I don't see many if any other countries doing the same, including the US and rest of Europe.

It should perhaps be that the IOC/host country have to underwrite the event in future, and that sponsors of the Olympics include the paralympics as part of the package.

I don't see that happening though and just think that future paralympics games will be seriously scaled back from the offset, London will have been the peak.

Some of these Women hockey players are exceedingly fit....might actually watch some of it! 🙂

Man Utd 1-0 Soton. 😈

I never realised how pleasant hockey could be to watch 🙂

Aside from being exceedingly easy on the eye I didn't realise how bloody entertaining hockey was.

Its like football, but without all the prancing and faking injuries. Just proper injuries.

Arse.

Is there always so much dribbling. It's like a team of Raheem Sterlings, all running into the massed defensive ranks.

There hasn't been so much in the last couple of matches I've watched, these two are much more closely matched.

Credit where credit is due - Nick Skelton does it again

Second gold medal at 58 years old, having come back from a broken neck and replacement hip

1-1. Dutch are very very good. If we can weather this there is a chance they'll blow themselves out he says optimistically

2-1 Arse
2-2 yay!

This is like the basket ball 😆

2 observations from today, tae kwoon do is a terrible sport, and why don't the bmxers just grow up a use proper bikes?

[img] [/img]

😆

What a performance, under the kosh and finish 3-3

Penalty shoot out 😐

Teppee and wigwam at the moment

Yes

blinkin heck 😀

Wow!

I did think we had to be favourites as soon as it went to penalties, but decided posting that thought might be a jinx

Those shoot outs are tough

GET IN 😀 😀 😀

brilliant

much more interesting than football penalty shootouts

2 unexpected golds today and 2 more in unexpected gold medal matches. If only GB was better a swimming and we'd be too

Good job we have a great goalie. That was exciting!!

The Dutch played like the harlem globe trotters. They was robbed.

Awesome

We can win at penalties after all!?!

Wonder if they practice them???? Wendy take note.

That keeper, Hinch, what a player! I played in goal for a few seasons, and watching her was like a bloody masterclass in keeping. Just brilliant.

It's all about getting the ball in the back of the net. I think most of us will agree that the Dutch looked the better team for most of that - most of the team that is, but they still had to get past our goalie, something they only managed 3 times.

[quote=teamhurtmore ]Wonder if they practice them????

I'm assuming you had the same commentary as me - the goalie with her book. I suspect she practices quite a bit.

They do (German footballers do), they win. Our footballers don't (it's just down to bottle) and they lose.

It was a rhetorical question Aracer 😉

we have a great Britain football team that is poor at penalties?
When did this happen?

i think you have made the english error of conflating Great Britain and england.

[quote=Junkyard ]we have a great Britain football team that is poor at penalties?
When did this happen?

4 years ago.

How great was that? Really buzzing now,

It's a shame they don't do MVP, Hinch all the way. The Dutch were surely the better team and I'm gutted for them, but that was a hell of a game.

4 years ago.

What happened to the German lady on crutches?

Hurt her leg.

For chrissakes hurry up now. I feel compelled to watch them get medals, but the paralympics start in 17 days, and they'll need the pitch.

Dutch where fabulous, as they generally are. It's a massive sport in Holland, great for a Uni tour for certain 🙂 Old cliche of not enough goals given the possession, certainly they will rue all the missed penalty corners. A missed (saved, poorly taken) penalty and 4 blanks in the shoot out.

Bloody hell, tense game which the Dutch will be gutted to have lost. Great keeping by the GB Keeper.

Not watched much hockey before. God those ladies must be fit. Ok it's only 60 minutes but the ball is in play the vast majority of that time and there was very little time wasting and no play acting like the effing footballers.

Would be interested to see who covers the most miles per hour vs rugby or football.

@bruk rolling substitutes on off on off etc They actually cut the matches from 70 to 60 mins too with a break after each 15

Edit: but yes very fit

Heads up.....women's pole vault at 00:30. 🙂 😯

I feel compelled to repeat the line from the commentary when we last won Gold at Hockey

"Where where the Germans ? Frankly who cares ?"

Field hockey - ca 5 miles (defenders run less)

Football - ca 7 miles (Midfielders run around 8.5, attacking full backs also, GK and centre halves substantially less). Referees run further than players. But game is 90 mins vs 60 in hockey, so similar intensity, just for longer.

Rugby - front rowers ca 2.5 miles, scrum half around 4.5 miles (most of which while also attempting to ref the game). Lots of ball not in play time in rugby, so a lot is done at full speed and a lot at no speed.

In the semi-final, they were 9mins into the first quarter, bathed in sweat and they kept up the same tempo for another 51mins!!

Found this from Runners world which suggests average 5.6 miles a game vs 7.5 in football

[url= http://www.runnersworld.com/general-interest/the-distance-run-per-game-in-various-sports/slide/3 ]linky[/url]

Pretty comparable esp if you include the rolling susbtitutions.

Pretty bloody fit I reckon.

5.6miles was based on the old 70 min / 2 halves game, hence my estimate in a 60 min game of about 5.

Yes, looks like it was based on 70 minutes rather than the 60 they now play. Still loved the way the ball was back in play so quickly and so little time wasted, cf with rugby and football.

Professional footballers are fitter as they are professionals, its fheir full time job for which they are handsomely rewarded amd with phenominal facilites and medical/physio support

I am over the moon for Nick Skelton.
7th olympics. All the injuries that ninfan mentioned above.
Hip replacement and 58 years of age, after retirement too, he came back with little practise, knowing that Bigstar could get the gold.

Amazing.

Great to hear that Manchester will host the olympian's parade in october. More chance for people to get to.

+1 great partnership and wonderful to see the emotion in the slightly wobbly lower lip. Brilliant achievement from Nick. You are only as old as you feel...

Looking forward to the modern pentathlon especially after finding out that they don't ride their own horses, theycget alocated on and then have 20 minutes to make friends with it.

Especially as from the BBC footage, seems that in the pool of horses they include a few psycho ones and a few with no prior experience of show jumping, or possibly even having been ridden before 😯

Has anybody yet worked out why the 4x400 relay boys were DQed? None of the experts seem to be able to explain it, and I've watched lots of footage and can't either. Have we basically been cheated?

From the bit I saw, it's to do with the position Rooney was in when the baton was handed over: At the 200m mark, the officials put the next leg runners in the lane corresponding to their teams position at that time and they must stay there, regardless of whether the positions change over the final 200m. The suggestion is that Rooney changed position after he was told where to be by the official. No one can find any evidence of this, though.

Surely, if Rooney changed position, then someone else must have had to change as well: However, I joined the discussion part way through so may have missed something.

So can the Beeb use their imagination and choose a new sport to back with decent coverage. Lots of examples, time for some management and vision from Auntie.

Quite a junky for the extended coverage team

And I don't know how Lutalo Muhammad managed to lose the taekwondo final.  The match resumed with 1 second to go and he was leading 6-4, he was absolutely gutted.

Looking at the BBC schedules I can't see any coverage of today's womenns XC race. Why not?

teamhurtmore - Member
So can the Beeb use their imagination and choose a new sport to back with decent coverage.

cheese@4p - Member
Looking at the BBC schedules I can't see any coverage of today's womenns XC race. Why not?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/olympics/36738554

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/olympics/36738554
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Yep - That link suggests that if you click on it after 16:00 it'll be showing coverage

First medal for Hungaria!!!

XC is on channel 477 on Sky @ 16.25 (which means it'll also be on red button/internet)

Shame the ladies xc clashes with the triathlon this afternoon.

Beyond the main track events, that have been on at the wrong time of day to watch, the xc and triathlon is all I have any interest in this Olympics.