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Olympic fight sports


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Posting first to shill a bit as a mate of mine wrote a comprehensive preview of boxing at the games.




But also to point out that we have the interesting situation of Karate being included at these games for the first, but possibly only, time, as it's been approved initially only for 2020. Curious to see how that plays out. 

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As expected, Aron Szilagyi advances to the final of the men's indivudal sabre. Surprising that Oh Sanguk got knocked out in the quarter finals though, he was a favourite to win. Szilagyi should beat Samele, but Samele has already come back from being heavily behind against Kim, so who knows?

Some controversy around the second-to-last point in the semi-final of Bazadze v Szilagyi. The ref called it as attack-no from Bazadze, which put him behind and effectively handed Szilagyi the match. Lots of angry post-match arguing. I can see where both are coming from, and initially called it for Bazadze myself, so I can see why he would think it was his attack. Sucks to lose due to one close call.

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And Szilagyi takes gold handily. Despite Samele managing to claw back some points after being way behind in the early match, Szilagyi was never in any trouble. Some amazing counter-attacks from him there, he's incredibly dangerous on the retreat.

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The women's gold medal taekwondo match has me scratching my head. This was the discipline I practiced for years as a kid, reaching brown belt with two black stripes because I was too young to be eligible for a blackbelt, and I have no idea what I'm watching. Why are they only kicking each other? 

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The women's gold medal taekwondo match has me scratching my head. This was the discipline I practiced for years as a kid, reaching brown belt with two black stripes because I was too young to be eligible for a blackbelt, and I have no idea what I'm watching. Why are they only kicking each other? 

There are two governing bodies of taekwondo, the International Taekwondo Federation (the original) and World Taekwondo (formed by South Korea after the ITF founder had a disagreement with the government and moved himself and the ITF to Canada). The Olympics is run under World Taekwondo rules, which aren't the same as ITF rules.

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If I understand it correctly, which I might not coz I think the version of Taekwondo they do at the Olympics is a stupid sport and don't pay attention, it's basically because the most you can ever score for a punch is one point, and only if it's a straight to the body. You can throw other shots to the body but they won't score, and no headshots.

Meanwhile a kick nets you anything from two to five points and can be thrown to both body and head so punches are seen as low-reward.

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Bizarre. We were trained to catch opponent's kicks and punch them in the chest or face. It was an easy way to score points. Also, just high side kicking like what they were doing was a good way to get either of your legs broken. What I saw was unrecognizable. 

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Some really nice dynamic fencing in the women's foil. Incredibly impressive performance from Kiefer, especially in the semi. Rare to see a fencer who can fight equally well at all distances, on the attack and the retreat. She's phenomenal at controlling the distance.

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On 7/25/2021 at 2:48 PM, polishgenius said:

If I understand it correctly, which I might not coz I think the version of Taekwondo they do at the Olympics is a stupid sport and don't pay attention, it's basically because the most you can ever score for a punch is one point, and only if it's a straight to the body. You can throw other shots to the body but they won't score, and no headshots.

Meanwhile a kick nets you anything from two to five points and can be thrown to both body and head so punches are seen as low-reward.

 

On 7/25/2021 at 4:44 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Bizarre. We were trained to catch opponent's kicks and punch them in the chest or face. It was an easy way to score points. Also, just high side kicking like what they were doing was a good way to get either of your legs broken. What I saw was unrecognizable. 

When my son competes in TaeKwonDo tournaments (American TaeKwonDo Association), the scoring is almost like fencing: there is a single point awarded for the first scoring contact of any kind, which immediately pauses and re-sets the bout.  First to three points wins.  It produces a ridiculous and pointless fighting style where you hover out of range and attempt to land any scoring touch, even if it would result in a devastating counter-strike in real life.  So the net effect is two combatants hopping around each other for several minutes with a side kick chambered, making minor feints and quickly flicking kicks.  This holds for adults too, all the way up to the world championships.

It made tournaments pointless for my son.  He much prefers the sparring at belt tests, where you have an uninterrupted free form sparring bout with 2-3 minute rounds (depending on belt).

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Some more controversy has emerged from the men's sabre. Oh Sanguk was ranked world number 1 going into the Olympics, but was knocked out in the quarter finals by Bazadze. However, apparently during their match, Bazadze was accidentally awarded two points during an early action. The ref called the action for Bazadze and a point was added to his score. Oh asked for a video replay, and after the ref reaffirmed his decision another point was added to Bazadze's score.

Since Oh was only one point down going into the final action, this absolutely could have altered the course of the match. If Oh won and then faced Szilagyi in the semi instead of Bazadze, would Szilagyi have gone on to the gold?

It might be only one point, but it has some potentially major downstream effects. I'm amazed nobody caught it while the match was in progress.

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  • 2 weeks later...
40 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

It is essentially a sparring 'competition' and a point fight rather than a real martial arts contest. 

When I was training our sparring sessions looked way more competitive stylistically, and that kick would have had everyone celebrating the person who delivered it. 

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

When I was training our sparring sessions looked way more competitive stylistically, and that kick would have had everyone celebrating the person who delivered it. 


Aye, and as far as I know there are plenty of versions of point Karate that allow full contact if it does happen. 

It's so weird that this is the one they went with for the games. 

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5 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Since Fencing also ended up in this thread. I kinda wish Japan had proposed Kendo instead of Karate.

In a lot of ways I think Kendo would make more sense. Karate is much more widely practiced, but also more fragmented, with no globally unified ruleset or system of competitions. I know very little about Kendo, but it looks super fun.

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