RIO 16 - Best bits

[Which Tyler]

8 minutes ago, baxus said:

Sure, you have athletes competing in and/or winning medals in multiple events in swimming but what does that have to do with anything? You have the same in athletics, gymnastics and some other sports.

In theory, the number of swimming events an athlete can take part and win medals in is limited only by the number of events for athlete's gender. That is as unheard of as a swimmer winning a medal in 10 events. The most medals a swimmer won in Olympics is 8, with second being 7 medals decades before that. Sure, some athletes won 5 medals in Olympics and great job to them.

As I've said, repeatedly; it means that, in my opinion, there is too much overlap between the different disciplines; and there should be less.

 

You are entitled to disagree; but that really doesn't make my point hard to understand.

Equally, if running had events at 50m, 100m, 150m and 200m - that would be too many that are too similar.

This sort of thing DOES happen in sport; events ARE changed to reflect this. Gymnastics hasn't always been 4 pieces of apparatus for the women and 6 for the men; there used to be more, and people won more medals - they were considered to scew things, and the events were reduced.

[baxus]

6 minutes ago, lacuna said:

I just can't understand why fans of swimming don't feel like there's a bit of inflation going on, detracting from the absolutely huge achievement it should be to win one gold medal. When one man gets eight gold medals, is he the best at eight things, or is he the best at three things (freestyle, butterfly, medley).

Except there is no inflation. There are 32 events (counting both men's and women's events in the pool, not counting marathon swimming) in this year's Olympics, and it's been about the same for as long back as I can remember.

When one man wins 8 medals he is the best at eight things. It is as simple as that. Swimming 100m freestyle is much different from swimming 200m freestyle which is much different from swimming 400m freestyle. Just like running 100m is different from running 200m which is different from running 400m. That's why you don't have one guy running/swimming both 100m, 200m and 400m events.

[Which Tyler]

Out of interest - if you look at athletes who have won multiple medals at one games; in the last 40 years you have 7 gymnasts* and 7 swimmers* with 6 or more medals; and 1 of each with 8 medals in 1 olympics.

 

*as in, seven games where 1 athlete has done that; often times the same individual appears

[baxus]

8 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

This sort of thing DOES happen in sport; events ARE changed to reflect this. Gymnastics hasn't always been 4 pieces of apparatus for the women and 6 for the men; there used to be more, and people won more medals - they were considered to scew things, and the events were reduced.

I'm pretty sure gymnastics events weren't reduced because Olympic medals were too easy to win or because opportunity for more medals made gymnasts look superior to other athletes.

I just checked, men's and women's gymnastics have had the same events ever since Berlin Olympics in 1936 and Rome Olympics in 1960, respectively. 

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Kyoshi said:

I'm not at all suggesting that swimming should be modified simply to change the entertainment value. That would be ridiculous. My point is that given its sheer duration and therefore the time dedicated to it on most of the broadcasting channels, as is the case in my country, we don't get to see the other athletes unless they win a medal (in which case we get to see really brief highlights). Sometimes they don't show sports where South Africa doesn't have athletes, they automatically broadcast swimming, which is a default at this point. People don't have access to these other alternatives you mention so the remote control isn't of much help.

Anyone outside the UK who wants to watch ANY event live could do a lot worse than get a VPN and use the BBC iPlayer.

I use AirVPN. It's cheap, reliable, and super-easy to install. Pricing plans are really flexible. You can get a three-day subscription for just one Euro.

[Which Tyler]

Baxus:

Thank you - I was about to look that up myself.

 

And thinking further - it's more likely to allow a completely different event in under the same umbrella (like ditching Madison track cycling to allow BMX cycling in 4 years ago).

 

I still personally think that asking Phelps (or whoever) to swim 100m in 4 different ways, is like asking Bolt (or whoever) to run 100m in 4 different ways - running, sideways running, backwards running and paradiddle running - it seems silly to me; they'd all be different, and requiring different skills, but... still silly.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Ryan Lochte's blatantly made up story wins in a historic landslide for me. 

[baxus]

29 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

I still personally think that asking Phelps (or whoever) to swim 100m in 4 different ways, is like asking Bolt (or whoever) to run 100m in 4 different ways - running, sideways running, backwards running and paradiddle running - it seems silly to me; they'd all be different, and requiring different skills, but... still silly.

You are entitled to your opinion, of course. Just as there is no guarantee that your opinion is correct.

It's nowhere near the same and the you use that analogy just for reductio ad absurdum purposes and we both know it.

Try swimming 100m in all four styles and try running 100m in different ways you mentioned and everything should be made clear. If that doesn't do the trick, I'm certain any point I might make here would not make a difference.

[baxus]

58 minutes ago, Andriy Czarchenko said:

That´s because you´re mixing up medalist and winner. Phelps is 23 times gold medalist, he´s 13 time winner. It´s exactly the same as in team sports with relays, multiple medalists but the winner is the team.

So, we're going to quibble over semantics?

Phelps/Bolt were part of their respective relay teams that won those relay medals. By transient property, they won their respective medals. Call them winners, medalists, cardinal Richelieu for all I care, they did win those medals.

[Andriy Czarchenko]

1 minute ago, baxus said:

So, we're going to quibble over semantics?

Phelps/Bolt were part of their respective relay teams that won those relay medals. By transient property, they won their respective medals. Call them winners, medalists, cardinal Richelieu for all I care, they did win those medals.

Sure but on the same note they also utterly failed to make the finals. What a pair of failures? Oh wait no, the semantics actualy fucking matter. Relays are a team sport, treat em like that.

[lacuna]

39 minutes ago, baxus said:

Except there is no inflation. There are 32 events (counting both men's and women's events in the pool, not counting marathon swimming) in this year's Olympics, and it's been about the same for as long back as I can remember.

When one man wins 8 medals he is the best at eight things. It is as simple as that. Swimming 100m freestyle is much different from swimming 200m freestyle which is much different from swimming 400m freestyle. Just like running 100m is different from running 200m which is different from running 400m. That's why you don't have one guy running/swimming both 100m, 200m and 400m events.

I didn't mean inflation as in an increase in events, but in the sense that there are so many events that a medal in one of them doesn't hold the value an Olympic medal should have.

And I don't think I agree that there is sufficient difference between the 100 m and 200 m in breast/back/butterfly. Certainly not between 50-100-200-400-1500 m free. It's too easy for one athlete to be competitive in a range of these distances. If they changed it to one proper sprint and one proper long-distance in each discipline, say 100 m and 1000 m, fine.

I'm not saying swimming is unique in having too many events, cross country skiing in the Winter Olympics is also starting to suffer from bloat. All of a sudden you're nothing special until you've won five golds or more on the trot. Both could benefit from having some fat trimmed off the Olympic program, IMHO.

[Which Tyler]

17 minutes ago, baxus said:

You are entitled to your opinion, of course. Just as there is no guarantee that your opinion is correct.

It's nowhere near the same and the you use that analogy just for reductio ad absurdum purposes and we both know it.

Try swimming 100m in all four styles and try running 100m in different ways you mentioned and everything should be made clear. If that doesn't do the trick, I'm certain any point I might make here would not make a difference.

I've never claimed that my opinion is anything but my opinion, or that it is categorically correct.

 

Actually, no, that's my opinion. You have swimming fast, swimming fast with an arbitrary restrictions, swimming fast with a different arbitrary restriction and swimming backwards. I see no difference between that and running fast, versus running fast backwards, and running fast with different arbitrary restrictions. Just because the swimming ones happen whilst the running ones don't, doesn't makes them any less arbitrary or any less restrictive. IMO.

 

Are you suggesting that running 100m backwards, sideways or paradiddle is impossible? Or less possible (with training) to be genuinely competitive? You may think its absurd, I think having 4 different swimming styles is absurd.

[HexMachina]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

No-one's suggesting reducing swimming to one event only - that is a straw-man.

 

IMO there is too much overlap between thee different swimming events, and I'd like to see a reduction. 1 swimmer can compete, and earn medals in 10 events in one games, the closest that any other sport comes is probably gymnastics, where there's a potential for 6 (women's, and happens) or 8 ( men's, and unheard of).

i can name 3 swimmers off the top of my head who have earned more than 6 medals at one meethave a look at the lists of multiple-medals-in-one-games, guess which sport dominates?

 

You like swimming, and the overlap, and that's fine, others don't, that's fine too. Anyome here's opinion on this is as relevant to Tue powers that be, as our opinions on whether tennis or golf should be in the Olympics.

 

Out of interest, I'd have no problem with reducing men's gymnastics to 4 apparatus, I'd personally favour removing the 50m and 200m events from swimming, but its an entirely personal opinion.

Out of curiosity, what would you have removed from Men's gymnastics, and why?

[Which Tyler]

Vault and high bar - I just find them the least interesting personally; if I were to actually do so, it'd probably be vault and one of parallel bars or pommel horse, as those two are the most similar to each other.

[HexMachina]

8 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Vault and high bar - I just find them the least interesting personally; if I were to actually do so, it'd probably be vault and one of parallel bars or pommel horse, as those two are the most similar to each other.

Interesting. Personally I wouldn't want to ditch any of the apparatus, but if I was it would have been one of either P-bars or Rings. The others are all too different from each other to really justify cutting them, IMO. Vault is more interesting to perform than to watch though, I'll give you that. Probably because it's over so quickly.

[dbunting]

2 hours ago, lacuna said:

Phelps competed in eight different events in the 2008 Olympics, and took gold in all. In what other sport does one athlete get eight bites at the apple? Yes, Phelps is clearly a demigod and we should worship him, but is there nothing (apart from common sense) to stop one swimmer from competing in 17 different events?

 

This is where your argument falls flat in my mind. Nothing is stopping Bolt or anyone else from trying to run longer races, he chooses not to or simply can't. Ledecki won short swims and longs swims this year, which no one had done before. Why doesn't Bolt try?

[Guess who's back]

4 minutes ago, dbunting said:

This is where your argument falls flat in my mind. Nothing is stopping Bolt or anyone else from trying to run longer races, he chooses not to or simply can't. Ledecki won short swims and longs swims this year, which no one had done before. Why doesn't Bolt try?

Go ahead and look at pictures in google from 100m sprinters and 1500m runners. Now you know. He physically cant compete in long distances.

[dbunting]

3 minutes ago, Guess who's back said:

Go ahead and look at pictures in google from 100m sprinters and 1500m runners. Now you know. He physically cant compete in long distances.

Look at him compared to the current sprinters, he looks like he is 3-4 inches taller than all of them.

[Guess who's back]

Just now, dbunting said:

Garbage excuse. Look at him compared to the current sprinters, he looks like he is 3-4 inches taller than all of them.

lol, what are you talking about. Muscle/weight difference doesn't allow sprinters to even be close to medals in long distances. 

[dbunting]

As to swimming the different strokes. Anyone who has ever tried to swim them all would know they are nothing alike. I am a pretty good swimmer and I can't do the butterfly, just too awkward for me and requires more muscle use than most humans can muster. The back stroke is entirely different, you are on your back the entire time and nearly drowning. The breast stroke requires a kick motion that you only do while breast stroking. Then you have the free style, which is the most common.