The 2012 Olympics Thread

sum · Post by **sum** » 06 Aug 2012 18:53

^^ France has 7 medals in Judo!!!

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 19:03

i am also willing to bet that our backcountry boys from kerela and west bengal would make pretty decent canoe and kayakists - they would have grown up in the water and be familiar with how boats of all kinds work

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 06 Aug 2012 19:22

At the AIBA championships this May, Kom was 4th after Cancan (1), Adams (2) and Esperaza (6). However, this was after she had put on weight to enter the 51kg Fly up from her normal pinweight 46kg or light flyweight 48kg. Putting on weight while simultaneously training is really tough and then going out to fight against the best in the World who are experienced in 51kg is quite an achievement in itself. Still, Adams will be tough on home turf.

SandeepA · Post by **SandeepA** » 06 Aug 2012 19:27

apoorv wrote:Kazakhstan has 6 golds and none in silver and bronze. Very wierd medal tally.

Russia and Australia on the other hand seem unable to win a gold. Russia usually bounces in the end withe events like rythemic gymnastics etc. But Australia seems to be a gone case. Couple of golds in atheletics and thats it I believe. Spain also seems to be going back to its Montreal Olympics level of 2 silvers.

Russia has simply been shut out of gymnastics which is its traditional area of strength. This has been the case for the past 2-3 games. No matter how gymnasts perform the results are upto the discretion of judges who can easily be bought.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 19:39

the great days of Adrianov, Nemov and Khorkina are behind us it seems....

I was watching Mary, she is quite short in reach. the Tunisian girl had a lot longer reach and could keep mary out by extending her left arm, but did not have a attacking game to win points. eventually mary managed to step in a few times and land some shots. a better opponent with longer reach can make life very difficult for Mary in terms of scoring points.

anyways, she has done her job and hopefully will inspire more to follow.

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 06 Aug 2012 19:53

Lalmohan wrote:i am also willing to bet that our backcountry boys from kerela and west bengal would make pretty decent canoe and kayakists - they would have grown up in the water and be familiar with how boats of all kinds work

Yup. But what is the inducement to switch from boats that earn them a livelihood to sports? Perhaps search trials followed by guaranteed jobs for a chosen 2-3 hopefuls every year might do it but then again, who will be responsible? The govt has to be involved, if not for the actual management (which I prefer by a mile) then by providing tax breaks and other incentives to private companies.

When measured by medals per million/population, even the top nations don't look so good but India is dead last.
1. Slovenia
36. USA
61. India

How soon this changes will depend on how disgusted we become with this situation. Unfortunately, experience shows that we have a surplus of folks who will trot out a hundred reasons for why this is not a pressing goal.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 06 Aug 2012 19:57

Not just Kerala & Bengal, with a long coastline the potential is huge to find stars. But we do not look for such talent at all even if they are everywhere and nurture them with long term goals.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 06 Aug 2012 20:09

What we need are IITs and IISc/IISER in sports. Indian Institute of Sports. You can get in at 5-6 years age if you have talent. You will complete class 12 and will also have the option to go upto BA/BCom (B.Sc. may be more difficult for serious sportsmen to concentrate on). If you are found to fall short in between you will have the guaranteed option of shifting to say kendriya vidyalas. One can join in between if found to be talented. Plus, we need to encourage private universities and if possible Govt. universities (although they run on measely budgets and small parcels of land) to have sports quota and sports facilities. It is a combination of Chinese and American systems.

I think Mary's expected bronze is good enough. She came back from her retirement and is past her prime. To expect her to win silver or gold may be too high. Meanwhile, Vijender is 26 yrs and this may be his last chance to do something extraordinary.

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 06 Aug 2012 20:09

Why does Vikas Gowda wear 2 different shoes?!

http://sports.rediff.com/commentary/201 ... pdates.htm

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 20:16

I saw a lady discuss thrower do it the other night. maybe its a fashion among athletic community.

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 06 Aug 2012 20:27

Supratik wrote:What we need are IITs and IISc/IISER in sports. Indian Institute of Sports

We already have one. But you are right, NSNIS gets involved too late in the process and doesn't tackle the real issues. It has been Asia's largest sports institute for over half a century

.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2012 20:29

Great job, Gowdre!

Shardulla and I promise you special By 2 Chaai in JCE Downs if you get us a medal.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 20:40

with La shawn merritt injured during semi round, USA has none in 400m mens final after a long long time.

and chances of G in 200m are bleak with the jamaican duo in action.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 20:40

adams fought a tough fight, and so did esparza, i have not seen ren
semis will be tough and if mery gets through, so will the final
but it is possible, i have hope

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 20:43

Bade wrote:Not just Kerala & Bengal, with a long coastline the potential is huge to find stars. But we do not look for such talent at all even if they are everywhere and nurture them with long term goals.

river people are more abundant in these regions, but point taken. perhaps the army once again can encourage these as part of its regular adventure training?

example of how the brits have been developing sporting talent
Olympic Ambition Programme

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2012 20:53

Which India events do we have today (Monday)?

negi · Post by **negi** » 06 Aug 2012 20:57

Like all other things we need to catch them young; the stage between 5-15 years of age is critical as this is the time when body grows and develops rapidly unfortunately in our case a big chunk of the population in that age group is deprived of requisite nutritional needs and of the ones who can afford it not many get enough physical activity during their school hours. If I am not mistaken be it a KV or a private school like Don Bosco they only have at most 1 games/sports period per day for a class . For a child in that age group spending just 1 hour in school in field is just ridiculous. Even there majority them only play kirkit.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 06 Aug 2012 20:59

Hahahahah

US judoka tests + for marjuana

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2012 21:01

Olympic medallist Vijay Kumar wants to quit Indian army
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spor ... 377000.cms

negi · Post by **negi** » 06 Aug 2012 21:01

Weed remains in body for far more long time than other maal. Phelps was once caught doing the same thing too (it was off season though).

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 06 Aug 2012 21:02

Good article on Kom in WSJ and a keeper quote:

WSJ: Who is the opponent you fear most in the ring?

Kom: I fear no opponent but hold out respect for all of them. No boxer worth her [or] his salt would ever allow fear to enter their psyche as that is a sure route to disaster. Even when one loses to someone, the next bout is not about fear but about understanding what went wrong the last time and addressing that.

Heart of a fighter.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 06 Aug 2012 21:07

negi wrote:Like all other things we need to catch them young; the stage between 5-15 years of age is critical as this is the time when body grows and develops rapidly unfortunately in our case a big chunk of the population in that age group is deprived of requisite nutritional needs and of the ones who can afford it not many get enough physical activity during their school hours. If I am not mistaken be it a KV or a private school like Don Bosco they only have at most 1 games/sports period per day for a class . For a child in that age group spending just 1 hour in school in field is just ridiculous. Even there majority them only play kirkit.

Yes, competitive sports at this level is like getting into IIT/IISc/IISER/MIT/Harvard. You need dedicated institutes. KV or Don Bosco isn't going to make it. They are built for a different purpose. But they can help in improving the general health of the population.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 06 Aug 2012 21:23

regarding diff shoes

its like NFL kickers I think

one probably has better grip to allow for a launch after the momentum gained

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 21:28

US school/college system seems to be very good for grooming athletes - for kudos and for feeding professional sports
European model is more club/local team based, with Univ's doing some of the heavy lifting - these rely more on personal funding or fund raising
in all cases, you need a passion for sport and the ability to try it out or have a go
as someone said earlier - we probably need an inbetween system to above and cheeni/soko central planning (albeit corporate in the latter case) - atleast to bridge the financial gaps

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 06 Aug 2012 21:43

Congrats to Mery Kom! I hope she beats Adams in the semis to get revenge for Stalker's dubious points win over Manoj Kumar!

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 06 Aug 2012 21:58

Singha wrote:emmons won the silver behind bindra I think. kind of choked in last round...but was consoled by his rather pretty gold medalist wife, so he was ok...seems to have recovered and back in the hunt now!

He was in fact THE example of choking - while he was in the lead he had a brain fade and shot his opponents target - and got disqualified in the process. Like I said, precision events at this level don't respect rankings or training. Leuris Pupo, who won gold ahead of Vijay Kumar in 25m rapid fire pistol, was #22. Klimov, the world champ, shot a 2 or 3 at the clutch and lost. An involuntary muscle spasm can be the difference between gold and bottom of the finalists.
Emmons shoots wrong target, loses gold medal on last shot

Edited: he did win a silver in Beijing - the above happened in Athens.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 22:02

the #6 ranked trap shooter in quals from croatia won the gold in single trap. trap shooting seems like a "manly" sport with the beefy shotguns and heavy recoil. must be pretty costly in eqpt, shells and clay pigeons combined.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 22:12

^^^ trap is good fun. the gun is heavy but if well balanced, not too onerous. the recoil is not too much - good technique helps. the hard part is maintaining concentration over a long period

Sen_K · Post by **Sen_K** » 06 Aug 2012 22:26

World Olympic Dreams: Meeting Mary Kom

She's such an inspiration!! got the privilege to cheer for her yesterday at excel arena.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 06 Aug 2012 22:40

" The whole country is supporting me, be it Hindus, Muslims or Christians, I have everyone’s support and that makes me happy. "

- MC Mary Kom

http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online ... ropes.html

member_23629 · Post by **member_23629** » 06 Aug 2012 22:46

Marten wrote:When is Viju bhaiya's match?

At 2:30 am IST.

praksam · Post by **praksam** » 06 Aug 2012 22:50

Some photos from the Olympics

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012 ... ys/100347/#

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 07 Aug 2012 00:03

http://www.firstpost.com/sports/archers ... 07789.html

Archers did not have strength to withstand media hype

In a fall-out of the disastrous performance of the Indian archers in the London Olympics, Archery Association of India (AAI) general secretary Paresh Nath Mukherje has decided to quit saying it was his “personal defeat”.

Mukherjee, who was overall in-charge of the archers’ preparations and also went to London as the team manager, said a principal cause of the pathetic showing was the tremendous media hype ahead of the Games that had increased the “pressure of expectation” on the Indian competitors.

“I have decided to quit both as the AAI general secretary and also as the overall in-charge of the team’s preparations. I was the effective boss. This is my personal defeat,” Mukherjee told IANS.

He would submit his papers once the Games were over.

World no.1 Deepika Kumari also crashed out earlier than expected. PTI
“The problem is we look like winners even before actually winning in the arena. The players did not have the strength to withstand the media hype,” he said.

However, days ahead of the Olympic Mukherjee had justified the media hype.

“Hype about the archery team is based on certain logic and reasons… Deepika Kumari is world No.1, while Indian women team is ranked No.2 and men’s team is 5th in the world. However, previous record has no value on the day of competition,” he had said in London a week before the Games started.

India came up with a miserable showing in London saw four of the six-member contingent, including the world No.1 woman archer Deepika Kumari fall flat in the first individual round. Both the men’s and women’s teams also fell at the opening hurdle.

Two male archers Rahul Banerjee and Tarundeep Rai were the only ones to win their individual opening battles before bowing out in the second eliminator.

Mukherjee conceded that he had no excused to offer. “We did not click, that’s all.”

Denying that chief coach Limba Ram was sidelined in London and he called the shots, Mukherjee said: “Why should I do that? I brought Limba as chief coach in 2009. Under his coaching, we came up with lot of medals in international competitions. Our men’s and women’s teams were in the top bracket.

“He was very successful. Our archers were firm favourites ahead of the games,” he said.

On whether the team could have attained success under a foreign coach, Mukherjee said: “We had brought lot of foreign coaches in the past. But they could not produce the results. Since 2009, we had no foreign coaches. But we got fantastic results in the last three years”.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Aug 2012 00:10

at least someone has the decency to own up to the failure and quit. unlike someone called "sir U made lakhs" .

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 07 Aug 2012 00:43

Precision sports preparation needs significant mental conditioning too. The World Cups are just not at the same level as the OG or AG. We have a pipeline of past archers who coach. We also need people who can help with the mental conditioning aspect. I'm not terribly disappointed with the archers, but I agree that Dola Bannerjee's experienced presence in the place of Swuro (Dola, Deepika and Bombayla Devi were our usual team, but Dola did not qualify in the trials) would have helped. Swuro was our weak link in the team events.

The only organization or parties really deserving of blame in this Olympics are the AITA and Bhupathi/Bopanna. They ruined all our tennis doubles teams. Archery, badminton and boxing are all in good hands, as is presumably wrestling. They need more money, more talent spotting and more coaches to build a pipeline of sportsmen instead of just one solitary star like Saina in badminton now.

The Chinese are probably bemused at how we produced a Saina or Kashyap with so little - just one guy (Gopichand) running an academy that barely pays its operational bills - while they have a massive system fed by sports schools, with former legends as coaches. They expend extraordinary amounts of effort to retain their stranglehold over their pet events (TT and badminton) and the only way to beat scale is with scale on our part, as Singha said.
Saina's moment, but it's time to salute Gopichand
Gopichand’s belief: Want a champion, forget democracy

Since the shooting events have concluded, we can now state that we have the second best performing Asian team in the men's shooting category:

Code: Select all

Country G S B T
Korea 2 2 0 4
India 0 1 1 2
China 0 0 2 2

The Chinese, on the other hand, had the strongest women's team in Asia, followed by Korea. We don't have enough depth on the women's side, beyond CWG level where we spank everyone else in both men's and women's fields anyway, nor do we have a strong presence in the large bore events - we do best in rifle and pistol events right now.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Aug 2012 02:08

vijender's match in 10 min. dhoti shivering already.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 07 Aug 2012 02:30

Shivering violently in dhoti while praying in cold dark narrow places.

No Central Asian or known controversial judges in Vijender's match.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 07 Aug 2012 02:31

if mods are shivering, what about us mere mortals??

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Aug 2012 02:33

3-3 at round 1.

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 07 Aug 2012 02:35

At least the crowd is behind Vijender. 3-3 1st rd.