Just saw this and it reminded how bad the Olympics suck.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?s ... &type=lgns

They should be cancelled. "Internation peace and harmony" my ass.

That article talks about some Swede who is pissed because he got hosed by judges in wrestling. I didn't bother to read how accurate his annoyance is. He threw a tantrum is all I know. Hell, there probably was cheating.

The Olympics are such a farce and a waste. It boggles the mind how many scandals and cheating and general "bad stuff" goes on around these utterly meaningless "games".

Just in recent memory:
The article I just posted
China performing institutionalized cheating to get 13 year olds gold medals
Russian / French whatever judges cheating on figure skating
Bribery and other trash happening to secure the site of the Olympics
China violating various human rights, lying about opening communication channels, and the entire world turns a blind eye

I guess we only do it once every 2 years because any more would cause people to realize the stupidity of it all.

fail

Nothing is worth doing unless done perfectly. Is that what I'm getting here?

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Knowledge without reason is useless.

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The main thing I am unhappy with is the crappy quality of the vids on the website.

Watching the most amazing swimmer the world has, and probably will ever know....amazing.

Nothing in that article speaks on how he got cheated. Just that he didn't like the bronze.

The original post should read something like-

Rant: Any sporting event that is scored based on judgment, interpretation, and qualitative perception (gymnastics, diving, boxing, etc) sucks for countless reasons.

Of course, any sporting event that is scored based on actual fact and the results are not "guessed" at but rather determined through time or quantitative methods (swimming, track, basketball, etc) does not suck for countless reasons.

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I watched the women's all-around last night. Even the commentators didn't like the judges scoring. Both the Chinese girls messed up numerous times but got nearly the same score/deduction as Nastia on balance beam. I think the second one even had a balance check just hopping onto the beam.

But in the end the Americans walked away with the gold and silver, soooo....hard to really call anyone out on cheaterings.



I don't get it. Someone's a sore loser and so the Olympics suck?

Hard if you're only thinking about the US. China got bronze, those scores potentially screwed other countries out of it.

The Chinese gymnast who won the bronze almost faceplanted twice, and stuck maybe one landing on the floor. She did a spin in the middle and it looked like she was drunk.

Sarissa Candyangel

Tiger Woods was overheard saying, "I wish I was Michael Phelps."

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

I think if you could peek inside Tiger's heart and Mike's heart, the only person wishing to be the other guy is the one in the speedo. What Phelps has done is impressive, but he's no Tiger Woods.

The fact that even super power governments conspire to cheat in the olympics is further proof of how important they are to the world. The good far outweighs the bad, and I have been thoroughly enjoying them this year.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

Michael Phelps is so ugly.

why is women's beach volleyball not on all the time? come on, olympics.

also i watched the men's team fencing final which was p. exciting even though the americans lost

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He looks a hell of a lot cuter than you do, especially with all that Mr. T gold hanging from his neck. I'm sure his entourage is of a much higher quality than your Rock Band's

How to fix the Olympics from a viewer standpoint. Any sport that already has championships not related to the Olympic cycle like road cycling, soccer or tennis shouldn't be in the Olympics. If they really want to play in the international market they should fuckin organize a further championship them selves. Hello, baseball and basketball this means you.

If your sport is basically soccer and basketball or swimming mixed you don't need to waste our time and/or money. Thhis means field hockey in all its forms, team handball, and water polo etc.

Swimming... Ok WTF. Why do we need to have competitions for all the non-fastest strokes. There isn't a running backwards competition. If you are going to reward people for slower strokes then add the dogpaddle also. Having a who could swim the furthest underwater on one breath competition would be better than the breaststroke.

Do sports like gymnastics really need team and individual competitions.

Tv coverage of non Americentric sports is terrible and the NBC website sucks ass, the end.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you sound like someone who has no clue about sports and/or competition. Non-fastest strokes? You can't be serious. You essentially want the Olympics to be the 100m dash in track and the 50 free in swimming. That sounds like an awesome 2 minute broadcast.

By the way, I know you are not a sports idiot, I am just saying that your outlook is similar to someone who knows nothing about sports/competition.

I would like to see running backward hurdles and blindfolded balance beam.

Oh, and can we get the hotdog eating competition too?

Can we add all the events from I Survived a Japanese Game Show as well?

I actually used be a lifeguard and did some distance swimming. Are you saying that there is some point to racing those strokes other than they are traditionally raced? Yeah, I know the pole vaulting arguement is coming. I'm just saying it should go the way of the tug-of-war which btw would be far cooler to watch. I like watching (parts of) distance races for track and swimming, somehow I don't think they are using the sideways shuffle or the breaststoke during their races. Isn't the point of a race to see who can go the fastest over x distance? I can see using different numbers of rowers in a boat, but for swim races it makes no sense to me.

I don't think so.

Even in swimming alone you'd still have different distances, relays, and whatever else. And I fail to see why finding the slower strokes goofy has anything to do with "not knowing anything about sports and competition."

The idea is not exactly "who's fastest" but "who performs the best all around"

I think they should have "execution" scores for swimming, so their form can be judged in addition to their speed.

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Scoring in olympic events is ass, it adds a bunch of stupid drama. And yes I realize some sports can't be done without scoring, but that's why most people give more of a shit about running and swimming.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

For what it's worth, I think the Olympics are fine with the events they have. If the goal of the Olympics is to put competitors of various countries together to see who the best at a particular sport is, then the "sports" in question should not really matter. And keep in mind, sports that we find traditionally silly in the US are not so silly elsewhere (badminton, for instance).

Obviously, the true glaring problems of the Olympics are in events where you have judges making decisions on who they think was better. And no matter what, those types of events will always be controversial. How can a girl win a medal in the Women's Vault when she falls on her knees? Sure, she attempted the "harder" Vault, but she also fucked up. I'd prefer to see the girl who did the easier Vault, but did it error-free, win the medal.

The scoring in boxing is pretty ghetto as well. They score points based on punches, but it's not as simple as "if you hit the guy, you get a point." Further, the point totals are known by the boxers (if they aren't idiots like the kid from the US was - he thought he was ahead and ran around at the end, and it ended up costing him the match and a chance at a medal) so usually the fights end with the boxer who is ahead running around the ring while the boxer is behind tries to chase him down.

Aside from the events where human judging comes into play, the Olympic governing body has to do a better job of policing the Olympics. Chinese girls with their baby teeth and flat chests should not be able to pass for 16 year old girls just because their government says they are 16. Rules are rules. If they are in place, they should be followed. Sure, the 13 year old Chinese gymnasts are often better than the 16-20 year old American ones, but if the rule is there, they either need to abide by it or change that rule.

Also, the rules need to be the same across the board. If contestants can share a Silver medal in Track and Field (in the event of a tie), they should be able to share a medal in Gymnastics (as you'll see tonight, they don't share medals in the event of a tie). All of this seems like it should be common sense, but obviously it isn't. For me, though, the Olympics are still enjoyable to watch, in spite of the politics involved. You just have to know what you are getting into as you watch some of the sports. For every unjust bullshit call where someone gets screwed, there's always that moment that leaves you in awe and makes you appreciate what some athletes are capable of.

Usain Bolt's performance comes to mind...

The whole 8 gold medals thing makes me wonder if athletes in other sports even have a chance of competing for this? I mean, are there 8 different medal awarding events that a single runner could do? Seems silly to hold phelps on a pedestal above other Olympic athletes when most of them compete in sports that simply don't have 8 medal awarding events. I was still cheering for him, I just don't think its fair to the other athletes.

There's nothing stopping other athletes from being in multiple events. Usain Bolt is in the 100m and the 200m. He could be in the 400m and relay races as well. He could run the 100m and 400m hurdles. He could do the long jump. He could throw a Javelin. He doesn't. He runs two races (maybe more, I really don't know).

Diving has the synchronized diving, they have 2 (3?) different springboard dives. They have 2 different platform dives. Gymnastics has the team competition, the all-around, and the individual events.

There are other opportunities out there to win multiple medals.

Update: Lightning Bolt is also in the 4x100 relay, so he could (and probably will) win 3 Golds at this Olympics.

Because long jump and javelin are as similar to sprinting as butterfly is to freestyle...

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

That run was the moment of the Olympics for me. It is amazing to think that with the widespead competition and "modern" training that he could destroy the field like he did. He could have crushed the record instead of just beating it. If he had ran it out and really obliterated the record we might have seen a record like Beamons. Shame he didn't really, but cool also.

100m sprinters (men) might be the most arrogant and insufferable motherfuckers on the planet. All excitement from his win was robbed after watching his antics.

Perhaps you should look up a little event called the Decathlon.

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I will say one thing that sucks horrifically is the way NBC is delaying its broadcast to the West Coast.

EX 1- USA men's basketball plays Spain. Saturday morning 10:00 am EST. Which, for all practical purposes, *should* be 7:00 am PST. Nope! It comes on around 9:00 am PST... even though in the upper right hand corner of the screen it has the Olympic rings with the word LIVE right underneath it. Nope! You are just showing us what you showed the East Coast, only 2 hours later...

EX 2- I am at a bar with friends on Saturday night. Phelps is supposed to swim for his 8th medal around 10:00 pm EST or so. Which means that the West Coast can see it (LIVE) at 7:00 pm PST. Nope! We get to see it at (you guessed it) 10:00 pm PST!! Woo. My sister texted me around 7:30 my time with a message similar to "Did you just see Phelps win number 8?!?!?" and I could not say that I did at that time.

The West Coast has zero clue what time programming will be on. It might be an hour delay from East Coast, 2 hours, 3..... or maybe on schedule! Zero consistency, no rhyme or reason, it is crap.

And yes, I know I can just DVR the whole thing and fast forward till I get to the event. I should not have to do that, however. And what NBC is failing to get is that in this age of internet and phone media, the world knows the score nearly immediately. You don't have to delay it, because I already know what happened. Sure, I don't know *how* it happened... but most of the time you don't care. You want to be in the moment, you want to see it live for yourself... and if you miss, then you check your phone or internet 5 minutes later to get the results.

NBC fails on the West Coast.

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Yah, I was commenting the other night that they should consider percentage of gold medals or something. Because, sure, Phelps "beat" Spitz's record in terms of medals, but Spitz also only swam in 7 events. It's not like they both swam in the same number of events and Phelps came out ahead.

Besides, if you watch some of Spitz's swimming, he was freaking nuts in some of his events. It's hard to really compare the two and claim Phelps eclipsed Spitz or something.

How can you not compare the two? Geeks are amazing with their [lack of] logic when it comes to sports.

Wow, and you commented on other people's lack of logic.

Are cycling and swimming similar events because they're both included in the triathlon? Do many decathletes compete in the separate shot put event? The reality is that you'd be hard pressed to find two separate (individual) events as similar to one another as butterfly and freestyle.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Phelps could swim in a lot more events if the events were more spread out, but they're not. All the swimming is crammed into what, a week? He's gotta swim qualifiers for every event and then the medal round, at minimum he made 16 swims, I think the actual number was 17, could have been a semi final in 1 event or something.

Same goes for everything else, if the games weren't all crammed into a couple weeks everyone could participate in more events.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

The only reason I brought it up is because that record passed from one swimmer to another. I know that Phelps swam 17 times with 8 being medal events and 9 being preliminary type events. So he basically competed 17 times. To use an example from another event that has been highly covered with air time women's beach volley. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh have to play 8 (I think) games with 3-5 sets each that can last much much longer. A single set lasts much longer then any individual swim and they are doing 24-40 sets. They are putting in much more time competing for the possibility of a single medal (Well one medal each).

Guys I think despite all the discussion the most important underlying fact in this thread is that Michael Phelps looks like a god damn mongoloid. He may be a millionaire and have a bunch of gold medals, but he's one ugly fuck.

I'm so jealous that I'm not an Olympic athlete.

You just wanted an excuse to post a picture of his penis.

Thats not a pretty picture

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look at that dong

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Looks like he has it tucked up, you know...for aerodynamics.

The beach volleyball is best of 3, first 2 are to 21 and the 3rd goes to 15 if it lasts that long(pretty sure that's how it works anyway).

The longest of the swimming events is 1500m(I believe, too lazy to look and verify) and it takes around 13-14 minutes. I don't think anyone will argue about most of them not taking that long, but it's a race, the only *long* races in the Olympics are the marathons and they take 2 hours - 2 1/2 hours.

In any event you can find most of the competition setups and rules on the beijing olympic site, I'm just too tired to care at the moment.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

Did I say "You cannot compare the two?"

No. Fail.

You're dum.

Jocks are amazing with their [lack of] reading comprehension when it comes to posts.

If you'd ever seen Neesha IRL I assure you that you'd quickly come to realize he is nowhere near being a jock.

I'm sure it was no more valid than his assertion, but it was more done for the comic effect.

It depends on how you are defining JOCK.

ZING!

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/taekwondo/news?slug=ap-tae-taekwondo-dispute&prov=ap&type=lgns

More wonderful "spirit of competition" at the games.
Guy loses in Taekwondo and gives the judge a round-house to the face!

Wee...

I wish it was Chuck Norris.

Ow.

Guy's being banned for life, along with his coach, from the Olympics and all World TaeKwonDo Federation events. And his name's being struck from the book of competitors for the Beijing Olympics.

Good.

TaeKwonDo doesn't need assholes like this dirtying up its reputation. Mebbe he can go hang with Seagal.

Another reason why the Olympics suck.

I can't believe people cheer for Phelps.

hilarious.. i love it

What a fucking cocksucking piece of shit. What a douchebag. Great sportsmanship? Lol. Faggot.