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Olympics 2016


alison

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Funny, isn't it, how it's perfectly okay for the men to play beach volleyball in baggy vest T-shirts and even baggier shorts, yet the women are still required to play in skimpy bikinis with a specified (distinctly small) maximum side-seam size for the bottoms (unless, of course, their religion precludes this) :(.

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Well, congrats to Jason Kenny (and also to Laura Trott) on the 6th gold medal of his career, but I don't see why it was necessary to displace the 10 O'Clock News by what has turned out to be an hour and a quarter as it happens, when everything else has just been shoved onto BBC2 for the duration.

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BTW, UK readers: we may be complaining about the BBC chopping and changing like mad, but make the most of it: I gather that as of 2020 the main coverage is going to transfer to Eurosport, and the BBC will only get very reduced coverage.  So much for sport's "Crown Jewels" remaining on free-to-air TV :(

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I must say, though, last night's men's pole vault final was absolutely marvellous - and I loved the bar-height camera they had which really showed their technique vaulting over the bar so beautifully.

 

Unfortunately, the crowd's disgusting behaviour at the medal ceremony just now to my mind has tarnished the whole thing: what is the point of booing the runner-up when he's given his medal, especially when your guy beat him fair and square anyway?  Do they do that at football matches too?

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For some reason I've got into the cycling this year but have had to look up what the various events mean!

Yesterday trying to understand what on earth was going on in the "Omnium" was very vexing but glad Cavendish got his medal

 

Today I had to look up what the "kieren" was

 

But that final race was nail biting ( my thoughts were the motor bike thingy didn't go off fast enough because as he leaves they all start sprinting so naturally will be suddenly moving faster ...hence all the confusion of whether they got ahead of him or not)

 

Brilliant win in the end for GB so worth the wait!

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds the cycling races deeply mysterious, albeit exciting!

 

Totally agree, Alison, and they were booing him as he took his last jump too - OK, their man was in the lead and they didn't want him to be overtaken, but that's disgraceful behaviour by any standards.

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Funny, isn't it, how it's perfectly okay for the men to play beach volleyball in baggy vest T-shirts and even baggier shorts, yet the women are still required to play in skimpy bikinis with a specified (distinctly small) maximum side-seam size for the bottoms (unless, of course, their religion precludes this) :(.

And female runners are wearing outfits that are increasingly coming to resemble bikinis while the men still wear singlets and shorts.

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Funny, isn't it, how it's perfectly okay for the men to play beach volleyball in baggy vest T-shirts and even baggier shorts, yet the women are still required to play in skimpy bikinis with a specified (distinctly small) maximum side-seam size for the bottoms (unless, of course, their religion precludes this) :(.

 

This is wrong.  Ladies have the choice of wearing shorts or a one-piece.  Every player that I have heard interviewed on the subject has said they prefer the bikini style option as it's the best for playing in terms of freedom of movement, leaves fewer places for sand to get caught and (in Brazil) is usually appropriate for the temperature.

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I didn't realise that: that surely must indeed have limited him. And how do you get wrongly given 4 faults? Either you knock a pole down, or you don't - oder ...?

  

Quite astonishing, really, isn't it?  Congratulations to all of them.  Do I take it that's all the gymnastics over now?  What happened to Claudia Fragapane?

It must have looked to the judges as if Nick Skelton's horse had had a foot in the water, as there was a miniscule splash. Hence the 4 faults. On the replay, all he'd done was kicked up some sand which had splashed into the water.

 

The Artistic Gymnastics is finished now, yes. Just the Rhythmic Gymnastics to come. Claudia Fragapane didn't score highly enough in floor qualifying so was not eligible for the individual floor final. IIRC her routine was fine but she briefly stepped outside the boundary. :(

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BTW, UK readers: we may be complaining about the BBC chopping and changing like mad, but make the most of it: I gather that as of 2020 the main coverage is going to transfer to Eurosport, and the BBC will only get very reduced coverage. So much for sport's "Crown Jewels" remaining on free-to-air TV :(

I hope this isn't true. :( Mind you, the BBC forfeited their rights to broadcast Formula 1 by ending the contract a couple of years early, if I recall. Then they didn't bid for the Paralympics, leaving Channel 4 to broadcast both.

 

Yet they can find the money to remake "Are you being served".

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Do you think this might be because they think their outfit is the most aerodynamic design?

No idea, but if that was the case and it was a way of enhancing performance, I assume the men would also be wearing midriff-baring spandex, and they aren't.

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No idea, but if that was the case and it was a way of enhancing performance, I assume the men would also be wearing midriff-baring spandex, and they aren't.

Probably because it would look really odd, as if they were wearing bra tops. :D

 

I am assuming that the female athletes don't have a problem with their chosen outfits, so why should we? There are one or two Beach Volleyball competitors that have been wearing skin-covering uniforms and over here it's only certain newspapers making an issue of it.

 

And it hasn't always been the case that female runners have worn skimpier outfits than their male counterparts - remember Cathy Freeman's green aerodynamic "onesie" at Sydney? And the era in the pool where both men and women wore long swimsuits? At the time it was thought that they were more aerodynamic but ideas change. Just look at Formula 1 cars.

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I'm absolutely delighted at all the Team GB successes, and I do love watching them, but I've been getting increasingly dismayed by the focus of the coverage on GB performances/sportspeople. We seem to see very few events if there is no GB person/team involved and/or with a chance of winning. (Presumably that isn't happening with the athletics, but unfortunately that's all on too late to watch anyway. :( ) I realise that the BBC is having to play a very complicated game in deciding what to cover (on the main TV channels) since there's so much going on in such a short space of time. But I grew up watching all sorts of brilliant sportspeople of many different nationalities at the Olympics - that's how I learnt what other countries' national anthems sounded like! (And that's when there were only 2 BBC channels.) I've only heard about 2 or 3 other anthems this time, and those only because there's a Briton elsewhere on the podium. I do want to see great performances by whoever produces them, not just when members of Team GB are involved, and the occasional interview with non-British sportspeople. I know there's more coverage available online; but I think the main channels should be a bit more balanced in their coverage. (And I don't like watching TV on my laptop, for various reasons too tedious to go into here.)

 

And (whilst I'm getting things off my chest!), I'm finding the tone of the coverage very mixed: some really well informed commentary, but some very banal and really quite childish.

 

BUT, I do LOVE the Olympics!! And I'm sorry there have been various Rio-related problems, but as a spectator I'm finding it a very beautiful and exciting venue.

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Here's  a nice story - runners from different countries helping each other finish after a fall:

 

http://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-rio-2016-runners-abbey-d-agostino-nikki-hamblin-1471369602-htmlstory.html

Whilst there has been some lovely stories such as this one, I am disappointed at the poor sportsmanship of the Australian & Canadian cyclists who are commenting that team GB must be cheating in some way because they are winning.  It kind of makes sense that after 2012 GB poured lots more funding into Olympic sports and therefore have had better training and equipment than before, which aids winning.  It's bad though that competitors cannot support each other as the ladies in the story above did.

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I agree re some of the Commentary. I was watching the Synchro Swimming qualifying and I've never heard such incessant and inane chat. I actually wanted to turn the sound down but I'd have missed the music. How many times did we need to hear "lovely work", "amazing", and "they're so in synch"? The two women literally wouldn't shut up.

 

As a contrast, I love Sir Chris Hoy and Clare Balding's presentation from the Velodrome. Gently humorous but so knowledgeable.

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Probably because it would look really odd, as if they were wearing bra tops. :D

 

I am assuming that the female athletes don't have a problem with their chosen outfits, so why should we? There are one or two Beach Volleyball competitors that have been wearing skin-covering uniforms and over here it's only certain newspapers making an issue of it.

 

And it hasn't always been the case that female runners have worn skimpier outfits than their male counterparts - remember Cathy Freeman's green aerodynamic "onesie" at Sydney? And the era in the pool where both men and women wore long swimsuits? At the time it was thought that they were more aerodynamic but ideas change. Just look at Formula 1 cars.

 

It's not all one-way - the men's diving suits are surely the skimpiest of all ;-)

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Back to cycling, I found most of the events very mysterious last time, but I though the commentry and shorts, and particularly Chris Hoy's insights to be extremely helpful, especially in the sprint. I'd never really understood how cyclists could come from behind and overtake the leading cyclist, but his explanation of how they use the slipstream to accelerate and slingshot around the front cyclist was perfect!

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Ah yes, that made sense to me as a Formula 1 fan; even without DRS (and in pre-DRS days), the cars use the slipstream of the car in front to overtake.

 

The 160 lap race in the omnium was bonkers though; I've never seen anything like that in other sports. Dawdle round and then randomly sprint like mad!

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Not only those countries, Melody: Australia too, I think, and a couple of others which don't occur to me at the moment.  Several have underperformed, in my opinion.  And GB shouldn't get too cocky: on the radio this afternoon, someone quoted some stats which indicate that countries usually do well at the first "away" Games after a home games, so we should expect a slump in 2020.

 

As for the - for want of a better word - jingoism in coverage, I'm afraid that has been there for a long time.  Just like when Wimbledon started focusing on Tim Henman, and now on Andy Murray, as soon as Brits start doing well the focus shifts from a broader view to narrowing in on British success.  I don't so much mind that, but sometimes the coverage goes beyond what I'd regard as fair - and there are indeed performances by non-Brits which get overlooked.  I guess the coverage is a victim of GB's success: while there are Brits still in contention, they attract the attention.

 

Incidentally, I looked up the rules for Beach Volleyball earlier on, following my previous posting: as far as I can see, the uniform rules appear to have been relaxed, and there no longer appears to be a "minimum side-seam" rule for the bikini bottoms, something which I'm far happier about. 

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And congratulations to the ladies' GB hockey team on reaching the gold medal match.  After whoever it was - Kate Richardson? - who played with a broken jaw or something in 2012, it was shocking to see more injuries this time around.  You need to be really tough to be a hockey player, obviously. 

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Is it just me or is anyone else becoming a little irritated with Claire Balding's throwaway comments and talking over the athlete she is interviewing. 

 

I think maybe she's been asked to do to much and so is in constant overdrive in order to do it all. She speaks much too quickly most of the time, and for me by spreading herself too thin she's lost a lot of the air of authority she used to have. Which is a great pity. (Some of the presentation brings back memories of the awful Wimbledon highlights programme from last year.) But I also think she's doing her best to hold an enormous operation together, which can't be easy.

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But both Gaby Logan and Hazel Irvine are also hosting long segments of the coverage.

 

For me, the problem arises when Clare Balding seems to be speed reading from an autocue and kind of 'jazzing it up'. She did the same during the Wimbledon nightly highlights programmes this year and last. However, I think that things are getting better as her own knowledge increases and she is less reliant on prompts.

 

Do you know - amazing this - that the BBC actually stayed on the same channel for the whole of the Triathlon coverage today and I managed to record it all. Well done Brownlees. Great achievement.

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