2024 Paris Paralympics

[The Buscher]

With the win, the US ties China at 40 golds.  Could’ve had sole possession if Shelby McEwen and Hamish Kerr had decided to share gold instead of going to the jump-off yesterday, but I respect them wanting to settle it.

[gunnar hendershow]

25 minutes ago, gunnar hendershow said:

Williams had that miracle tying shot at the buzzer but foot on the danged line. France were great.

Watching this again, she shouldn't beat herself up at all. The pass led her there, and without having an extra second there was no way she could step back.

7 minutes ago, The Buscher said:

With the win, the US ties China at 40 golds.  Could’ve had sole possession if Shelby McEwen and Hamish Kerr had decided to share gold instead of going to the jump-off yesterday, but I respect them wanting to settle it.

I hate people criticizing that decision. End of the day there's always a part that will eat at you, but athletes are athletes and the thrill of competition is everything to them.

[The Buscher]

Exactly.  I had no problem with the dudes sharing it last time, they were gassed and figured they both deserved gold.  The guys yesterday had more in the tank.  Can imagine how ridiculous the adrenaline rush would’ve felt that the entire stadium is there clapping along watching you jump.  I’d have stayed all night.

[Colly]

The other thing is that as much as you are representing your nation, Olympic competitions are largely individual (and team for team event) achievements. It's not like a football game where a striker might happily not score but win the league, if I'm given the choice of winning a gold medal or no medal and GB finish top of the table I'm picking the medal. 

[lanky316]

I'm not saying I've watched far too much random shit during this Olympics... but the number of "oh yeah that's the fencing team, oooh she got bronze in the 48kg hopscotch" and other random faces recognised is quite high in the shots of the various medallists. Shame LA will be on at shit times so I won't be seeing so much in four years time!

[Colly]

They're handing the flame to Snoop at the end right? If not I'm giving up on this, took far too long to get weird.

[Bobfoc]

Breakdancing won't be a 2028 event, so the competitors this time round can live long in infamy. New sports will include squash and flag football (a bit like touch/tag rugby for American football), with the show jumping round of the modern pentathlon being replaced by an obstacle run. Baseball is also coming back.

Provisionally, boxing isn't set to be included because of a dispute between the governing bodies. The final decision will be made next year.

[Lineker]

This closing ceremony is proper shit, like.

[Bobfoc]

They don't even have the excuse of bad weather and not being in a stadium.

[lanky316]

Rayguns legacy is complete! To be honest I wonder if it would have gone down better as a test in LA, but overall it felt off, and I can't really explain why, whether it was the awful MCs, the "battle" format or what but it didn't seem to "fit" as it stood. I did give it a fair shot and while I prefer the "point A to point B fastest wins gold" type things with a clear winner I don't mind the more artistic things but the whole event fell a bit flat. A bit of tweaking and maybe some other time for it?

The other tweaks are understandable, flag football while being obviously US centric seems to be growing elsewhere quite well (bizarrely, Cambridgeshire seems to be a bit of a hotbed here at least) so while it might seem odd, I get it. Squash and baseball have a reasonable international level so can understand them being in too. I do think they'll cave and boxing will be in, it's one of the more typically Olympic things and a huge launchpad in careers, sooner or later something with the governing body will be sorted out... Although with the farce around this years events, maybe not.

 

-----

Hats off to the highlights reel here, while I loved seeing more of those amazing moments, I'm glad they found time for "the faceplanters" in various events.

[gunnar hendershow]

7 minutes ago, Bobfoc said:

Breakdancing won't be a 2028 event, so the competitors this time round can live long in infamy. New sports will include squash and flag football (a bit like touch/tag rugby for American football), with the show jumping round of the modern pentathlon being replaced by an obstacle run. Baseball is also coming back.

Provisionally, boxing isn't set to be included because of a dispute between the governing bodies. The final decision will be made next year.

Baseball and softball will also be events. And while not "new" for the first time in a century both lacrosse and cricket are going to be Olympic events. They haven't announced the format for cricket but I'll personally be shocked if it isn't T20.

Boxing will be one to watch. I'm starting to think it won't get solved given the types of ego and history involved in the governance of boxing.

[Colly]

11 minutes ago, Bobfoc said:

Breakdancing won't be a 2028 event, so the competitors this time round can live long in infamy. New sports will include squash and flag football (a bit like touch/tag rugby for American football), with the show jumping round of the modern pentathlon being replaced by an obstacle run. Baseball is also coming back.

 

On 07/08/2024 at 21:47, Colly said:

Steeplechase is fundamentally fucking weird.

They should replace it with the Eliminator from Gladiators.

Yay, Phoenix!

[gunnar hendershow]

I was wondering if Phoenix or their music would ever show up during the entire Olympics. Glad that has occurred.

Ooohhh Kavinsky too. 20 year old me is thriving rn.

[Bobfoc]

Baseball has been a strange one recently. It was a mainstay between 1996 and 2008, dropped for 2012 and 2016, brought back in 2020, dropped again in 2024 and brought back again in 2028.

[gunnar hendershow]

3 minutes ago, Bobfoc said:

Baseball has been a strange one recently. It was a mainstay between 1996 and 2008, dropped for 2012 and 2016, brought back in 2020, dropped again in 2024 and brought back again in 2028.

It's really tough to include for me because you'll never get the best players in the tournament since MLB will never release players to go to the Olympics for 3 weeks in the middle of the season.

[Colly]

We want Daft Punk. Clap clap clap-clap clap.

[The Buscher]

10 minutes ago, gunnar hendershow said:

It's really tough to include for me because you'll never get the best players in the tournament since MLB will never release players to go to the Olympics for 3 weeks in the middle of the season.

Jeff Passan’s started lobbying hard for MLB to allow the players to go but I’m struggling to see how it would work.

There’s no way they could extend the season by 3 weeks.  Even if it was starting a week and a half earlier and ending a week and a half later, too many cold weather cities and the playoff format would send the season into mid-November.

The “easy” solution would be to reduce the season that year and skip the All Star Game.  But then you have the matter of owners arguing they should only be paying for like 140 games with no gates and players wanting the full 162 prorated.  That on its own would be a stalemate.

There would likely need to be some financial incentive for all parties beyond just a gold medal because the second a star gets hurt, owners will scream bloody murder.  And no fan of a team would trade a gold medal for their player’s health, let’s be real.

The “good” thing is the next CBA will be up by then so they could possibly work out a plan especially if enough players really are adamant about going.  But I’d be surprised.

[gunnar hendershow]

The Olympic organizers thought it was a coup getting Tom Cruise to agree to this but little did they know he'll do insane stunts for free.

[Colly]

I can never unsee this.

 

 

[GhostMachine]

There may be more switching of that bronze medal in women's gymastics that first went to a Romanian, went to an American after an appeal, then back to the Romanian after they said the appeal was 4 seconds too late. Because there's now supposedly video proof that the American's coach did in fact appeal around 47 seconds, well before the 1 minute time limit was up.

Its dumb as hell that you have until the next athlete performs to appeal, but you only have 1 minute if you're the last to perform. And Romania's obection/appeal occured days after the event. So if they do not review this video evidence and just let the Romanian keep the medal, then bullshit.

Shady as fuck, because they're not saying how Romania knew the American appeal took too long, or if there's actually any evidence from Romania or its just a case of them just whining. 

They keep the medal, I hope they meet karma in 2028.