The 2012 Olympics Thread

saip · Post by **saip** » 01 Aug 2012 23:03

Chinese could not have appealed as their players already said they did not try to win because 'why bother tiring ourselves when we are already qualified.'

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 01 Aug 2012 23:27

Saina wins game 1 21-14 against Yao Jie.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Aug 2012 23:35

paes and vardhan are 5-5 with tsonga and his partner.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 01 Aug 2012 23:43

Saina leading 14-11 in the 2nd set. By the way, I just realised, Yao-Jie is a Dutch citizen.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 01 Aug 2012 23:48

Paes/Vardhan Lose First Set.

Saina Wins and is thru to quarters

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Aug 2012 00:00

is paes/vardhan streaming anywhere ? it's not on youtube channel.

saip · Post by **saip** » 02 Aug 2012 00:12

Paes/Vardan lost the first set 7-6 and leading in Second 5-4 They are serving for the set

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Aug 2012 00:16

5-3 now.

Hariprasad · Post by **Hariprasad** » 02 Aug 2012 00:17

Paes/Vardan are giving a good show. Hope they win.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Aug 2012 00:23

5-4 now.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 02 Aug 2012 00:28

Leander/Vardhan win second set 6-4

Hariprasad · Post by **Hariprasad** » 02 Aug 2012 00:44

In women's badminton, we may end up with rank 1,2,3,4 in the semis with 1,2,3 being Chinese and 4th seeded Indian. It would be 1 vs 4 & 2 vs 3 seeds in the semis. Looks like a tall order.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 02 Aug 2012 00:47

Saina faces Tine Baun in the quarterfinal. It'll be a challenging match. Baun had it easy because her Japanese opponent retired hurt part of the way into the first game. Four years ago Saina lost in the quarters as a teenager. Now as an established player I hope Gopi fires her up to win.
Women's singles quarterfinal pairings

Hariprasad · Post by **Hariprasad** » 02 Aug 2012 00:51

Also here is the reason for Chinese rank 2 player for taking up badminton.

Reason for taking up this sport
She gets satisfaction from winning and promised her mother she would not give up the sport. (sports.sohu, 07 Jul 2010)

Club name
People's Liberation Army, China

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Aug 2012 00:52

2-3 to tsonga and co.

Hariprasad · Post by **Hariprasad** » 02 Aug 2012 00:54

3-3 now.

Hariprasad · Post by **Hariprasad** » 02 Aug 2012 01:00

Crap. The french lead 5-3. They put up a much better fight than B&B who lost to nobodies.

partha · Post by **partha** » 02 Aug 2012 01:00

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Aug 2012 01:01

Hariprasad wrote:Crap. The french lead 5-3. They put up a much better fight than B&B.

that too with no 'great partnership' between the two.

partha · Post by **partha** » 02 Aug 2012 01:02

Match point broken.

James B · Post by **James B** » 02 Aug 2012 01:09

Paes-Vardhan lose by 2-1

member_23367 · Post by **member_23367** » 02 Aug 2012 01:11

Marten wrote:Hats off to the "Man". Lee, you did us proud. Thank you.

+1 very well played match by Lee/Vardhan.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 02 Aug 2012 01:30

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... 544&type=1

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 02 Aug 2012 01:55

Tomorrow is a BIG day

Boxing Pre Quarters - Vijendar, Jai Bhagwan

Badminton Quarters - Saina, Kashyap

Tennis - Leander/Saina

Trap shooting - Ronjan Sodhi

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 02 Aug 2012 02:21

Saina and Kashyap are not playing tomorrow they are playing Women singles is Aug 6th and Mens singles is Aug 4th

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 02 Aug 2012 02:29

This games will be remembered for all the wrong reasons:
Cyclist killed by Olympics shuttle bus
Meanwhile the head of the organizing committee continues to sound more and more like Kalmadi:
LOCOG head Coe says Phelps isn't greatest Olympian

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 02 Aug 2012 02:32

SBajwa wrote:Saina and Kashyap are not playing tomorrow they are playing Women singles is Aug 6th and Mens singles is Aug 4th

Nope its Tomorrow. Here is the schedule

http://www.nbcolympics.com/badminton/re ... index.html

VenkataS · Post by **VenkataS** » 02 Aug 2012 02:57

Is nbcolympics the best place to watch the badminton (Saina and Kashyap's) matches online or is some other site recommended!
Is the match streamed live at NBC olympics.

Saina's match is at the following time Aug 2 6:32 pm IST, 6:02 am PST , 2:02 pm GMT
Kashyap's match is at the following time Aug 2 9:32 pm IST, 9:02 am PST, 5:02 pm GMT

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 02 Aug 2012 03:18

VenkataS wrote:Is nbcolympics the best place to watch the badminton (Saina and Kashyap's) matches online or is some other site recommended!
Is the match streamed live at NBC olympics.

Saina's match is at the following time Aug 2 6:32 pm IST, 6:02 am PST , 2:02 pm GMT
Kashyap's match is at the following time Aug 2 9:32 pm IST, 9:02 am PST, 5:02 pm GMT

If you live in US yes. There are several streams available. You need your login with your internet/cable service provider

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 02 Aug 2012 08:24

Family kept grandparents' deaths secret from Chinese diver until she won gold medal

In China, athletes are often taken away from their families at a young age and placed in specialist training schools where they practice for hours every day. Wu began training daily at a diving camp at the age of 6. By the time she was 16, she had left home to be installed in a government aquatic sports institute.

She has become one of her sport's all-time greats, but her father says the success has come at a high price to her personal life.

"We accepted a long time ago that she doesn't belong entirely to us," Wu Yuming told the Shanghai Morning Post. "I don't even dare to think about things like enjoying family happiness."

It is the Kota system folks of JEE.

To win in these events you need coaching and constant practice to get the perfection levels needed. Thankfully athletes are not required to invent new things in life, so it is par for the course. So how come, we test taking perfectionists cannot get to the same level ? Where is the drive and desire to succeed at this level, however hair brained the path may look to those outside. There is no other way to get there.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 02 Aug 2012 08:25

A similar incident to Sumit Sangwan in Judo where the referees were blatantly wrong in their judgement. Inspite of the Japanese being the obvious winner, The judges awarded it to the Korean. However the head judge interfered and reversed the decision

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Aug 2012 08:28

the aus men swimmers have managed only 2 silvers so far....well behind the american men who they like to think of as peer competitors.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Aug 2012 08:30

athletics should also be starting from today....many blue riband events

sugriva · Post by **sugriva** » 02 Aug 2012 09:26

Japanese companies are big time sponsors of the Olympics. It is not enough to train and coach well. The environment too needs to be "managed". Money talks and if Indian companies become sponsors then the organizers will not treat Indian athletes as shabbily as they are treated at international events. Mary Kom can't get access to her coach and our appeals in badminton and boxing get overturned. This is not the first time in this olympics that Japan has got a decision reversed in its favour.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Aug 2012 09:44

true. and the US wields a big stick by virtue of nike and TV coverage deals.
japan has asics , mizuno, pearl izumi
germany has adidas and reebok(owned by adidas now)
pretty much every OG athlete uses gear from one of the above. and pretty much every top OG star has some sponsorship with one of these.

sugriva · Post by **sugriva** » 02 Aug 2012 09:51

One sport that I'd want India to take up is fencing. It doesn't appear to be very competitive, with perhaps a few international events a year. We also have the build, stamina and agility for this sport. I'd say fitness levels of badminton are required here. There are quite a few golds going abegging in this field which the Europeons take home. I'm sure the referees are not full time into fencing, it being a not very competitive sport and if they can be made part of project "Pax Indica", perhaps with employment in Indian owned firms in Europe, then they could be made to see reason and provide fair judgements.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 02 Aug 2012 10:31

If India could focus on 3-4 sport with unusually high medal prospects, we could be winning medals by dozens. If instead of training 18 Hockey players, SAI trained 18 players for sculls and rowing events, imagine the medal windfall in few years just like we are seeing at least one medal prospect in each weight category of Boxing.
Same goes for swimming and Gymnastics.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 02 Aug 2012 11:00

Disqualified top Chinese badminton player quits sport

Disgraced Chinese Yu Yang has decided to quit badminton while national officials have told their Olympic team leaders and disgraced players to make a public apology for throwing matches at the London Games.

Yu was among eight women's doubles players expelled from the Games on Wednesday. The others were team mate Wang Xiaoli, South Korean pairs Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, and Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, plus Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari of Indonesia. "This is my last competition. Goodbye Badminton World Federation (BWF), goodbye my beloved badminton," Yu wrote on her Tencent microblog. "We ... only chose to use the rules to abandon the match.

"This was only so as to be able to compete better in the second round of the knockout (stage). This is the first time the Olympics has changed the (event's format). Don't they understand the harm this has caused the athletes?

"You have heartlessly shattered our dreams," said Yu. "It's that simple, not complicated at all. But this is unforgiveable."

Good riddance to her. As if it never struck her how damning she and her compatriot looked while playing.

chilarai · Post by **chilarai** » 02 Aug 2012 11:14

Hockey and other team events are inefficient . 11 people play and at most they win one medal . one swimmer/gymnast can win multiple medals on the other hands.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 02 Aug 2012 11:26

We already have multiple sports where we are at a standard far higher than we were 10 years ago:
* archery
* boxing
* rowing
* shooting
* wrestling

All of these are sports where we have AG, OG or WC level performances. But the problem is this - we can actually mount a strong challenge in a sport only upto CWG level with a degree of certainity. To some extent we can also do so at AG level. But our present training methods do not carry us further than that, except for odd flashes in the pan. It doesn't matter who's in charge (GoI, military or a private initiative) but our training approach needs to get a lot more brutal, so that athletes are stressed to a level beyond OG standard in practice (as Singha said), and therefore find themselves confident when actually competing in the OG.

I would not blame our archers or rowers much here. They're performing to the level of ability their training has enabled them to achieve. What needs to change is the system . A decade ago, we didn't even have a system capable of producting more than 4-5 golds at CWG level, and that too due to isolate individual brilliance. Now we can reliably aim for 25-35 golds at a CWG, and for at least 10 at AG level. If we want to take it further, the training systems need to get up to speed with what the competition does. That's all there is to it, not 'exposure' or 'corruption' or whatever. There are lots of countries give pretty much no exposure (NoKo) or are corrupt too (east Europe/FSU republics) but produce Olympic winners.