2021 Olympics Thread

posted by gut

Yeah, I gotta weigh 300+ and bench over 700 to medal in shotput?  GFY

posted by Ironman92
Prolly not going to be 5’9 either

Gotta put the work in on the squats, too.

I almost think, for sheer power/explosion, those guys might be stronger than the weightlifters.

posted by gut

Yeah, I gotta weigh 300+ and bench over 700 to medal in shotput?  GFY

Like to see you tell them that to their face lol

posted by Ironman92

Like to see you tell them that to their face lol

Yeah, they might throw it far but don't seem all that accurate  :)

Might be just getting older and starting to feel my age at times, but I can't remember being so impressed from watching Olympics in many different events.

Watching the men on the parallel bars the other day, and they can all do such easy and perfect handstands - on the parallel bars.  We did the walk on your hands every day in wrestling for 4 years, and on my best day I might have gone 30 feet without falling.  And I had no hope of holding a handstand, much less with good form.  I was probably more athletic than 95% of the population, and in comparison to Olympians I'd be like Trump debating Einstein.

Back to that 95% number....That's still a few hundred thousand people my age who are better athletes.  Call it a 12-yr Olympic window, and that's about 3M people who are better athletes than me.  And only a few hundred of them go to the Olympics.  More or less all the athletic equivalent of Einstein. 

If Olympic athletes were 6-std deviations from the mean (i.e. six sigma), that would be 3-4 people per million, or about 1200 people in the US.  I think the Olympic team might be less than 1/4 of that.

posted by gut

Might be just getting older and starting to feel my age at times, but I can't remember being so impressed from watching Olympics in many different events.

Watching the men on the parallel bars the other day, and they can all do such easy and perfect handstands - on the parallel bars.  We did the walk on your hands every day in wrestling for 4 years, and on my best day I might have gone 30 feet without falling.  And I had no hope of holding a handstand, much less with good form.  I was probably more athletic than 95% of the population, and in comparison to Olympians I'd be like Trump debating Einstein.

Back to that 95% number....That's still a few hundred thousand people my age who are better athletes.  Call it a 12-yr Olympic window, and that's about 3M people who are better athletes than me.  And only a few hundred of them go to the Olympics.  More or less all the athletic equivalent of Einstein. 

If Olympic athletes were 6-std deviations from the mean (i.e. six sigma), that would be 3-4 people per million, or about 1200 people in the US.  I think the Olympic team might be less than 1/4 of that.

Yeah it’s the elitist of the elitist if the elite.

As I said earlier I had 2 gymnastic classes and we attempted every event and trained and practiced and we are just doing every skill under the bar and could do a simple flip on the vault. The strength of the gymnast teaching the class didn’t seem real. The dedication and discipline just really not fathomable.

These Olympian’s lives have been spent mostly in training.

Watching the triple jump….also had to have a track & field class and it’s was our basketball, baseball and soccer stars and we had an all-American soccer kid get to 38 feet….those guys are hitting 57. The vast majority of us were 29-34 feet. The javelin? I had a rocket arm compared to most others but getting that javelin to fly right….I could never quite get it. High jumping? Jumping your height is very impressive…those guys going 14-16 inches above theirs.

Easiest event to make it to Olympics? I guess maybe one with the smallest talent pool competing.

posted by gut

Might be just getting older and starting to feel my age at times, but I can't remember being so impressed from watching Olympics in many different events.

Watching the men on the parallel bars the other day, and they can all do such easy and perfect handstands - on the parallel bars.  We did the walk on your hands every day in wrestling for 4 years, and on my best day I might have gone 30 feet without falling.  And I had no hope of holding a handstand, much less with good form.  I was probably more athletic than 95% of the population, and in comparison to Olympians I'd be like Trump debating Einstein.

Back to that 95% number....That's still a few hundred thousand people my age who are better athletes.  Call it a 12-yr Olympic window, and that's about 3M people who are better athletes than me.  And only a few hundred of them go to the Olympics.  More or less all the athletic equivalent of Einstein. 

If Olympic athletes were 6-std deviations from the mean (i.e. six sigma), that would be 3-4 people per million, or about 1200 people in the US.  I think the Olympic team might be less than 1/4 of that.

Yeah it’s the elitist of the elitist of the elite.

As I said earlier I had 2 gymnastic classes and we attempted every event and trained and practiced and we are just doing every skill under the bar and could do a simple flip on the vault. The strength of the gymnast teaching the class didn’t seem real. The dedication and discipline just really not fathomable.

These Olympian’s lives have been spent mostly in training.

Watching the triple jump….also had to have a track & field class and it’s was our basketball, baseball and soccer stars and we had an all-American soccer kid get to 38 feet….those guys are hitting 57. The vast majority of us were 29-34 feet. The javelin? I had a rocket arm compared to most others but getting that javelin to fly right….I could never quite get it. High jumping? Jumping your height is very impressive…those guys going 14-16 inches above theirs.

Easiest event to make it to Olympics? I guess maybe one with the smallest talent pool competing.

posted by Ironman92

Easiest event to make it to Olympics? I guess maybe one with the smallest talent pool competing.

That's a hell of a question.  A sexagenarian won a medal in Equestrian.   Small talent pool, right?  I've ridden a horse, literally, a handful of times - I was scared to death on a slow gallop.

But, hey, shooting a bow & arrow is easy - except you need to be more steady than a brain surgeon.

And the deal with Simone Biles wasn't a choke, but more like an illness/injury where you lost sense of where you are in the air.  I can't even comprehend what that must be like.  In 7th grade I barely did a front handspring off the vault.

"The US women's [bball] team is the toughest team to make in the world"

Agree to disagree

Water Polo is impressive as hell. They are out there drowning each other and swimming forever.

Gable Steveson with one of the greatest wrestling rallies I have ever seen!

WHAT JUST HAPPENED! 🥇@GableSteveson grabs the GOLD as time expires. #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/yqMc3wbXsu

— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 6, 2021

posted by sportchampps

Water Polo is impressive as hell. They are out there drowning each other and swimming forever.

Friend from my dorm at Indiana played water polo. He was a fucking fish. We were at South Padre for spring break and he was just out treading water for about 2 hours past the drop-off/sand-bar and didn't drift more than 50 yards.

Molly Seidel bronze medal in the marathon! Watched the last 6 miles 👏👏👏

Felix bronze

Beautiful 👏👏👏

The men’s and women’s 4x1 races were fun. Italy rising up!

I still love Gabby. Hopefully she subs at my school this year….that would be cool.

Rhythmic Gymnasics……awful, terrible, wth

Is this Chris Webber commentating the gold medal game? He tries to provide so much analysis on a play that by the time he finishes two more things have already occurred. He rushes his speech to try to keep up.

I thought as much as France kept hanging around and cutting the lead again that the US would lose this.  But every time France got close US went on a run. 

Great effort by France, though.

Wasn’t easy but got it done

Fuck off Gobert. That’s for shutting down the NBA!

Basketball gold medalist Javale McGee