Official 2012 Olympic Thread - Page 6

I was never impressed with swimmers winning so many medals and generally being at the top of the medal rankings off all time.
I mean they probably have 20 opportunities to win a medal every 4 years, compare that to a decathlete or a boxer or a tennis player or pretty much any other sport. Theres 47 different types of swimming and 25 different distances and each distance has a relay and so on, it just doesnt seem fair to label a swimmer as the greatest olympian of all time.

what you said is not true at all, haivan.

only very few swimmers can win several medals in a single competition. You can count them in a single hand. Ofc it's unfair to those, like tennis players, who can only win 1 medal at a time. That being said, I think it's fair to consider Phelps as the GOAT, since he won several individual races two consecutive times and a couple of races three consecutive times.

^tennis players can win 3 medals though; singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Anyone have a link that gives the mens basketball tv schedule? I cant seem to find some of these games

london2012.com
sports -> basketball
schedule

Great Britain vs. South Korea live stream, currently 1-1.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/liveextra/...olympic-soccer-quarterfinal-3-1a-v-2b

Big night for GBR. Especially happy for Farah 10 000m mens gold.

On August 03 2012 19:34 Raidern wrote: That being said, I think it's fair to consider Phelps as the GOAT, since he won several individual races two consecutive times and a couple of races three consecutive times.

I don't think it's fair to consider Phelps a GOAT for winning those races
wearing a swimsuit that has since been banned.

It's only fair to compare their times to the times of other swimmers that were also wearing the suits.

On August 03 2012 19:34 Raidern wrote: what you said is not true at all, haivan. only very few swimmers can win several medals in a single competition. You can count them in a single hand. Ofc it's unfair to those, like tennis players, who can only win 1 medal at a time. That being said, I think it's fair to consider Phelps as the GOAT, since he won several individual races two consecutive times and a couple of races three consecutive times.

I was just browsing reddit when i stumbled upon this article that sums up my views on swimming dead on.

http://www.sbnation.com/london-olympics-2012/2012/8/3/3218807/michael-phelps-medal-count-undermined-by-swimming-medal-inflation

Phelps' Olympic accomplishments are fantastic, but his 21 medals in virtually any other sport would equate to less than a dozen. Follow @sbnation on Twitter, and Like SBNation.com on Facebook. Aug 3, 2012 - There's a lot of talk about Michael Phelps being the greatest Olympian of all time. His 21 Olympic medals are a record, and his compilation of them is an impressive feat. But the medal inflation in swimming devalues that medal count so much that there's no way to point to the sheer number and claim he's the greatest Olympian ever. It's long bothered me that swimming hands out so many medals. At the 200-meter distance, Phelps' specialty, they hand out five individual gold medals. In 2008, three of his medals came at this same distance, as he swam the 200-meter freestyle, the 200-meter butterfly and the 200-meter medley. For the same distance that Usain Bolt got one medal, Phelps got three. Consider a sport like basketball. These athletes have to play several games just to qualify for the playoffs. Then they have to win several more games to earn one single medal. By swimming's standards, there would be medals handed out for games won, free-throw percentage, most points, most assists, most rebounds and there would be a shuttle race at the end for kicks. Or how about tennis? These athletes have to win five matches to earn a medal. These matches are often grueling, going on for one to two hours in the hot sun. They spend their entire Olympic Games busting their ass for a shot at one gold medal.In Beijing, for less than an half-hour of swimming, Phelps got eight. Phelps has rarely been the fastest person in the pool at any distance. At only one distance in one Olympics was Phelps the fastest person. In 2008, he had the fastest 200m time of any swimmer at any stroke. Why? Because the freestyle is the fastest way to get from point A to point B. Every other Olympic games, he wasn't the fastest person at any distance. Do you think if Phelps was trying to evade a great white shark he'd break into the butterfly? Like Dressage in Equestrian, he mastered the form of an artistic swim stroke, and he's taken advantage of it. Swimmers will say I don't understand the sport, that I don't understand the nuances of each stroke and how difficult it is to master two of them. I understand it just fine. I realize there are different skills, different muscles, used for each event. I understand the butterfly is very different from the backstroke. But imagine if track and field took swimming's lead and created distinct ways to get to the finish line, confusing the measurement of simply being the fastest. We'd have the 100-meter "skip," where athletes have to skip down the track as fast as possible. The 400-meter "backwards run" would be a crowd favorite, as athletes put their quads - and spatial awareness - to the test, running backwards around the track. My personal choice would be the 200-meter "cartwheel," where athletes would have to do cartwheels all the way around until they crossed the finish line. If track and field went the direction of swimming, Carl Lewis would have 30 Olympic medals. I'm not sure why swimming stopped where it did. Just think of the fun possibilities. How about an underwater-only event, where athletes had to be submerged for 25 meters at a time? Or a corkscrew stroke where they had to spin in the water as they swam? And what on earth ever happened to the doggy-paddle? Let's just inflate the whole thing so there are so many strokes, nearly everybody gets a medal! I can do the doggy-paddle with the best of them! There's an easy way to fix all of this and keep the strokes: hold only one event at each distance, the medley. To compete, you have to master all of the strokes that swimmers hold so dear. With that, Phelps' Olympic medal total would stand around 10, which is right where he stands in Olympic stature ... somewhere in the vicinity of the great Carl Lewis. And that, as I said, is an incredible accomplishment. Greatest swimmer of all time? Probably. Greatest Olympian of all time? Not on your life. I'll take the incredible Italian fencer Valentina Vezzali over Phelps' accomplishments any day. She's won an individual fencing medal in five straight Olympics, including three straight golds. She's also led her team to three golds and a bronze (the team event wasn't included in 2004, or she would have had another gold). She's won more Olympic fencing medals than all but four countries! Just don't get me started on gymnastics ...

? what?
He wore suits when everyone else was wearing suits too. You don't seem to realize how hard it is to do what he's done. Last year Ryan Lochte won 4 individual races in the World Championships, and then people thought that he would basically be "the Phelps" of this years olympics. In the end, Lochte "only" won 1 individual race at the Games. What Phelps has done is probably impossible to repeat.

But if you think someone else was a more iconic Olympian than he was, I'm fine with it. It's a pain in the ass to compare people from different sports anyway. My point is, it's definitely fair to consider him the GOAT.

The fact that he has more opportunities for gold medals isnt exactly all positive. You realize the stress you r under when competing at this level, where 0.01s could cost u a medal, where your final reach could put u a place behind. And honestly fencing ? tell me how exhausting that is ....Obv our fellow bulgarian Yordan Yovchev has also made a sick accomplishment in gymnastics going in the finals at his 6th Olympics @ the age of 39, there are probably many more examples like him but still .... + Phelps smoke pot the past 4 years and is still N1 thats gotta count too :D

On August 04 2012 17:37 HaiVan wrote: Show nested quote + On August 03 2012 19:34 Raidern wrote: what you said is not true at all, haivan. only very few swimmers can win several medals in a single competition. You can count them in a single hand. Ofc it's unfair to those, like tennis players, who can only win 1 medal at a time. That being said, I think it's fair to consider Phelps as the GOAT, since he won several individual races two consecutive times and a couple of races three consecutive times. I was just browsing reddit when i stumbled upon this article that sums up my views on swimming dead on. http://www.sbnation.com/london-olympics-2012/2012/8/3/3218807/michael-phelps-medal-count-undermined-by-swimming-medal-inflation

I sincerely hope that's not your opinion on swimming because what the guy wrote is probably the biggest piece of trash I've ever seen written about any subject.
It's okay to not consider Phelps a GOAT because:
- swimming gives too many medals when compared to other sports
- you can win a medal at relay even if you don't swim at the final race
- other athletes dominated other sports longer than he did

But saying "his best distance was the 200m, so at that distance he won 3 medals while Michael Johnson only won 1" is hilarious. The fact the Phelps won three kinds of races at the same distance should be seen as something that contributes to his greatness, because each style is very different from one another, and require different preparation. He dominated people who dedicated and prepared themselves specifically for the 200m freestyle event. The author suggests that the 200m freestyle winner could basically swim the 200m butterfly and 200m medley if he wanted to, but that's not true at all.

What the guy say is: "I understand each style is different but it's ridiculous that these styles exist, there should only exist the fastest style". What Phelps did is similar to someone running and winning the 100m, 200m, 400m, long jump, 110m with hurdles, 4x100m, and 4x400m. There you have it, 6 events very different from one another.

The differences between winning the 100m butterfly and the 400m medley is as huge as winning the 100m and the long jump, or the 100m and the 400m.

Edit- I just checked Phelp's wikipedia and even if he only won 1 race per distance, he would still have 14 golds, which is more than anyone else.

Point is if you are a phenomenal swimmer you can win alot more medals than if you are a phenomenal athlete or a phenomenal wrestler, weightlifter, boxer, tennis player, or anything else besides a gymnast to some extent. Still there is a huge difference in the gymnastics disciplines compared to swimming. You cant compare doing the rings and floor excercises to lets say swim the butterfly and freestyle for example, in swimming you just swim as fast as you can in a straight line just using different strokes.

I agree that i am not aware to the fullest extent of how different and difficult the disciplines in swiming are, but i can also see that there have been multiple swimmers winning several different disciplines/distances, but i fail to see a single athlete that has won the 100m sprint and the 400m hurdles for example. Does that mean that swimmers are just generally the pinnacle of the sporting world or it simply means its much more doable to win different disciplines in swimming thus making the feats of swimmers less impressive, still awesome achievments just not the most incredible thing ever done in the sport world as some people try and make them seem.

Anyway thats just my uneducated opinion. I'll now stop spamming this thread

Bolt wins. Again. Nothing new here.

haha I love it though, the announcer says "He should NOT be able to run that fast!"

You say that as if he hadn't been struggling with form and admitted he isnt 100% fit. Gutted Gay didn't dip properly, guys the 2nd fastest of all time but doesnt have an olympic medal, hes had so much bad luck with injuries

Nah, I actually followed him and his team-mate for a little while. Bolt's been partying like a rock-star (who the fuck wouldn't... c'mon) while his buddy beat him at a few events.

As the race went down, I remember shouting to my bro "holy fuck, fuck, the american is ahead!!" only to see bolt shoot ahead like a cannon (once again).

I actually tried to bet a few people bolt's buddy would beat him. Really thought he would. Whatever. I just really appreciate this kinda stuff, I used to be a piece of shit sprinter (much better at hockey/bball heh).

But holy fuck did he ever speed up and rock it. Reminds me of Donovan Bailey's 9.84 record time. Horrible start, massive kick-assery ensued.

^^ - His top speed was clearly much faster then anyone else in that race. I wonder how long he can maintain it, curious to see how he will perform in the 200m

On August 04 2012 18:04 Raidern wrote: Show nested quote + On August 04 2012 17:37 HaiVan wrote:   On August 03 2012 19:34 Raidern wrote: what you said is not true at all, haivan. only very few swimmers can win several medals in a single competition. You can count them in a single hand. Ofc it's unfair to those, like tennis players, who can only win 1 medal at a time. That being said, I think it's fair to consider Phelps as the GOAT, since he won several individual races two consecutive times and a couple of races three consecutive times. I was just browsing reddit when i stumbled upon this article that sums up my views on swimming dead on. http://www.sbnation.com/london-olympics-2012/2012/8/3/3218807/michael-phelps-medal-count-undermined-by-swimming-medal-inflation I sincerely hope that's not your opinion on swimming because what the guy wrote is probably the biggest piece of trash I've ever seen written about any subject. It's okay to not consider Phelps a GOAT because: - swimming gives too many medals when compared to other sports - you can win a medal at relay even if you don't swim at the final race - other athletes dominated other sports longer than he did But saying "his best distance was the 200m, so at that distance he won 3 medals while Michael Johnson only won 1" is hilarious. The fact the Phelps won three kinds of races at the same distance should be seen as something that contributes to his greatness, because each style is very different from one another, and require different preparation. He dominated people who dedicated and prepared themselves specifically for the 200m freestyle event. The author suggests that the 200m freestyle winner could basically swim the 200m butterfly and 200m medley if he wanted to, but that's not true at all. What the guy say is: "I understand each style is different but it's ridiculous that these styles exist, there should only exist the fastest style". What Phelps did is similar to someone running and winning the 100m, 200m, 400m, long jump, 110m with hurdles, 4x100m, and 4x400m. There you have it, 6 events very different from one another. The differences between winning the 100m butterfly and the 400m medley is as huge as winning the 100m and the long jump, or the 100m and the 400m. Edit- I just checked Phelp's wikipedia and even if he only won 1 race per distance, he would still have 14 golds, which is more than anyone else.

What do you mean by 1 race per distance? He only swims 3 different distances so how could it be more than 9 golds over 3 olympics? Also you say repeating what Phelps did is probably impossible, but Spitz won 7 golds with 7 world records in 1972. That 1 last gold enters the realm of impossibility for Spitz? Lochte won 5 Golds in 2011. I think Phelps is the GOAT too but I also think the medal counts for swimming are somewhat inflated.

On August 05 2012 22:13 devon06atX wrote: Nah, I actually followed him and his team-mate for a little while. Bolt's been partying like a rock-star (who the fuck wouldn't... c'mon) while his buddy beat him at a few events. As the race went down, I remember shouting to my bro "holy fuck, fuck, the american is ahead!!" only to see bolt shoot ahead like a cannon (once again). I actually tried to bet a few people bolt's buddy would beat him. Really thought he would. Whatever. I just really appreciate this kinda stuff, I used to be a piece of shit sprinter (much better at hockey/bball heh). But holy fuck did he ever speed up and rock it. Reminds me of Donovan Bailey's 9.84 record time. Horrible start, massive kick-assery ensued.

I definately had my doubts too, how stupid I feel to have had them now! Bolts said he wants to 'do something special' in the 200m