The 2012 Olympics Thread

negi · Post by **negi** » 05 Aug 2012 22:57

SamG wrote:Federer must have charged serious dollaaahhh to throw away this match to Murray,me thinks.The whole Olympics is such a sham.Its funny that developing countries get sucked in it.

Federer makes millions every year from endorsements alone.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 05 Aug 2012 22:59

^^ Never seem Federer so listless in a match before...That too against Murray... Very odd

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 05 Aug 2012 23:04

post match interview, federer says he was emotionally drained from previous rounds, criticised himself for the loss. he has said before that all that really separates the top 4-5 guys in tennis is mental attitude on the day

negi · Post by **negi** » 05 Aug 2012 23:06

Well my bias against Britania notwithstanding Murray is a solid player his head to head against Federer is 9-8 after today's win, so it's not like this was a fluke or a surprise victory; Federer turns 31 in couple of days and is past his prime, he played a marathon 4+ hours match against Del-potro to make the finals.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2012 00:47

kshatriya wrote:^^ Never seem Federer so listless in a match before...That too against Murray... Very odd

Maybe the cheating Brits drugged him.

member_23629 · Post by **member_23629** » 06 Aug 2012 01:00

Saina’s bronze: China’s head coach blames ref for Xin’s injury

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 06 Aug 2012 02:17

And Usain Bolt wins again! 9.63 seconds!

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 06 Aug 2012 02:18

Bolt/Blake just blew everyone away in 100m. Bolt might have been running slower... Broke the OR in Finals

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2012 02:20

Asafa Powell just gave up (11.99 sec)

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 07:32

powell suffered a groin injury around 50mts and pulled up. none of these pros give up just like that.

Bolt answered his american critics in emphatic style. if you look at head on slow motion, gaitlin and blake were running at their extreme edge and infact gaitlin ran his personal best and blake equalled his pbest. but looking at bolt he still had something in the tank should anyone have challenged him....he wasnt under extreme stress here.

looking fwd to the 200 and 4x100 - hopefully khan will get smacked there too

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 06 Aug 2012 07:34

Does anyone have the link to the part of the opening ceremony where Rowan Atkinson participates in the playing of the Vangelis theme song? Google chacha is ruthlessly removing all such clips from YouTube

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 07:35

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm4yRIgjBZw

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 06 Aug 2012 07:38

^^No saar - its just the soundtrack, not the video. The link in the description is 500% broken too. I dont get the logic behind not allowing these clips to be rebroadcast - typical movie/music industry mentality and now chacha is a party to the nonsense.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 06 Aug 2012 07:50

I managed to see one clip before it was removed

the b@stards move with great speed

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 06 Aug 2012 08:45

Makayla Maroney was favorite in the gymnastics event but her second vault failed as she basically fell and couldn't stick her feet. the Romanian won Gold in that one. she was pretty good. in both rounds, her feet stuck solidly. Maroney was graceful in defeat. she really was the favorite for Gold but will get a silver.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2012 08:54

devesh wrote:Makayla Maroney was favorite in the gymnastics event but her second vault failed as she basically fell and couldn't stick her feet. the Romanian won Gold in that one. she was pretty good. in both rounds, her feet stuck solidly. Maroney was graceful in defeat. she really was the favorite for Gold but will get a silver.

NBC highlights were talking about her non stop. As if the other contestants did not exist.

McKayla took her defeat well.

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 06 Aug 2012 08:59

Victor wrote:Archery womens team apparently came down with mild fever due to "change in weather" when competition began. Knowing the fickle englandistan weather and that mental prep is critical for archery, we should have acclimatized them in some colder, wetter place in India and eliminated "change in weather" as a variable.

They trained in Gangtok, which was supposed to be closer to English conditions.

sum · Post by **sum** » 06 Aug 2012 09:08

Victor wrote:Archery womens team apparently came down with mild fever due to "change in weather" when competition began. Knowing the fickle englandistan weather and that mental prep is critical for archery, we should have acclimatized them in some colder, wetter place in India and eliminated "change in weather" as a variable.

As LImba Ram ( coach of the team) said today:

We have no excuses to offer: Limba Ram

“We trained hard, we were given all facilities by the Archery Association of India, the Sports Authority of India and the Government. We are also disappointed with the results,” he added.

“...the presence of huge crowd and the glitz surrounding the venue made Deepika nervous and that showed in her results,” he explained.

He admitted that the Indian archers could not adjust to the cross wind conditions.

“We tried hard, practised in these conditions but still could not make anything out of it and also luck also deserted our archers at crucial stages,” he said.

“The Windy conditions affected all the teams. See the scores of all the teams and you will notice the inconsistency. Unfortunately our archers fell ill a day after they landed here. It took couple of days for them to recover and that also had some impact on their physical training,” he added.

So, all the things are just that, excuses.

We just couldnt adapt to the pressure and conditions as well as the other teams, period.

Anyways, nothing to be disgraced about since great players( if our archers are no flash-in-the-pan) will pick themselves up and use this as a learning curve to improve at the next shot in 2016.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 06 Aug 2012 09:14

There was no really no fight it in the Archery team.. Ofcourse Its easy to judge sitting on a computer..But still felt like Deepika especially in her event was not even trying against the Brit... I don't know if the elimination of other archers had some effect on her...

What i cant really comprehend is why some of our athletes do well at World events but not in Olympics ...Is it because top athletes give it a miss ?And our media hypes them...

The ones that our media hyped a lot have gone down badly this time..

I was expecting better stuff from Ronjan Sodhi, Shagun Chowdhary( who trained in Italy for over 5 years now) And then we have people like Irfan who did not have any money for the Olympics and Mohanlal eventually foot the bill. .. Are they spending money on the wrong candidates ?

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2012 09:15

"... till next time".
Story of our lives.

johneeG · Post by **johneeG** » 06 Aug 2012 09:56

kshatriya wrote:China is seriously hunting down every game that was dominated by Goras... Won't be surprised if there are going to be no olympics after a decade

True. If it goes on at this rate, then China may be getting all the 3 medals in most events. If that happens, I think the gora media will stop taking interest in the games which will mean that gora people will also move on. In essence, Olympics is hit, as long as goras win.

PS: Can't help but thinking that Olympics is essentially a celebration of western civilization(taken from the greek concept).

wasu · Post by **wasu** » 06 Aug 2012 09:59

Saina's win will hopefully push the badminton to the next stage, both in terms of player pipeline and the requisite infra beyond Gopichand and padukone acadamies.

http://www.firstpost.com/sports/olympic ... 71873.html

..At Saina’s matches, as many as twenty different Chinese coaches and assistant coaches keep vigil, watching from different angles, taking notes and planning individual strategies. All this data is then the ammunition for the main Chinese coaches who train the top three Chinese players.
....

So in a sense, what Gopichand is doing is to play chess with the Chinese long distance. And many days in advance. Think and think hard of what moves they must be making now and plan his moves accordingly. Gopi has always admired the Chinese system of preparing for a tough rival. He imagines – and not entirely in jest, mind you – that they would have five Chinese `Sainas’, who play like her, perhaps even look like her, to prepare the top three, both craft-wise and psychologically to play the champion player from India.

Gopi’s best chance is to ensure the Chinese Plan A does not work. He believes if Plan A does not work, the Chinese aren’t very good at course correction in the middle of a match.

Another significant positive from the recent tournaments is that Indians are no longer seen as chokers. Both Saina and Kashyap gave it back to the Chinese in good measure at the Indonesia Open and perhaps for the first time, the Indian badminton contingent will not be travelling as tourists to the Olympics.
.....

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 06 Aug 2012 10:01

Precision sports are hard to reliably train for at this level. I would say it's not a really meaningful comparison to contrast Irfan's record-breaking performance to the shooters and archers because they're vastly different kinds of sports.

The shooting events saw many fancied sportsmen fail. For example, the 10m air rifle didn't have either Bindra or Qinan Zhu (the dude who cried on the podium in Beijing after losing to Bindra). In Vijay Kumar's final, the Russian champ Klimov fell apart in the final. I'm sure there are more examples in other events.

To broaden our medaling potential, we need to pick sports we can pursue, in precision, strength and endurance events. Racewalking is an excellent option, and Irfan showed that he could keep up with the winners until 2km from the finish, when they hit the afterburners. Further, as he himself stated, he slowed down because he accrued two warnings for not having his heels grounded, and slowed down at that point to prevent a disqualification. His performance is amazing, considering he has never competed against world level opposition outside India until May, when he went to the world racewalking championship (and set a PB there). He then traveled to London and set a new NR, finishing within 2min of the gold medalist.

I don't think Saina will win a medal in Rio. She will be 26 then, and is apparently not a natural athlete. She wins by force of will and aggressiveness. PV Sindhu, on the other hand, could become our Wang Yihan if trained as brutally as the Chinese train their players.

Gopichand's thinking of the Chinese cloning players to play like Saina is not beyond belief. They almost certainly do that. They have done so in table tennis when Europeans like Schlager started winning - they trained a bunch of players to play exactly like him, and had them hit against their top players. That they gave Saina the same treatment is the ultimate compliment to her. Their system isn't foolproof though - despite all their simulated training, some real virtuosos like Waldner could never be reliably beaten by them. I don't know if Saina is at that level. She needs to embellish her credentials by winning at least one All England and World Championship, where competition is harder because there's no 3-entries-per-country limit as in the Olympics.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 06 Aug 2012 10:38

^^^ 2012 Indonesia Super Series did have all the Top Chinese Players..all the Wangs..Saina did win that...

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 06 Aug 2012 11:42

The Indonesian Super Series is certainly a very prestigious event, but it's not the All England or the WC. Those two have a catchet the other Super Series events don't.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 06 Aug 2012 12:00

sum wrote:
Victor wrote:Archery womens team apparently came down with mild fever due to "change in weather" when competition began. Knowing the fickle englandistan weather and that mental prep is critical for archery, we should have acclimatized them in some colder, wetter place in India and eliminated "change in weather" as a variable.
As LImba Ram ( coach of the team) said today:

We have no excuses to offer: Limba Ram

“The Windy conditions affected all the teams. See the scores of all the teams and you will notice the inconsistency. Unfortunately our archers fell ill a day after they landed here. It took couple of days for them to recover and that also had some impact on their physical training,” he added.
So, all the things are just that, excuses.

We just couldnt adapt to the pressure and conditions as well as the other teams, period.

Anyways, nothing to be disgraced about since great players( if our archers are no flash-in-the-pan) will pick themselves up and use this as a learning curve to improve at the next shot in 2016.

I agree the rest are excuses, but when I have travelled to both London and US, I have had the equivalent of Delhi belly and headaches, my body is not immune to the bacteria there. When I travelled back to India I easily adapted.

This aspect is not appreciatted enough especially the elite India. Team should have been in London 2 weeks in Advance. I hope it is taken care of before the next time.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 12:04

1 Saina or Sindhu cannot turn the tide against 3-4 world class cheen players and they will continue to have a strong pipeline of threats.

we need to do what the Jamaicans did and the US/USSR did in WW2 = build scale.

rewind back a few yrs and what was jamaica - Merlene ottey. for a long time she fought against the american machine alone like saina does today. but finally in last few yrs they have built enough scale now to put 5-6 men and women on the track who can go head to head with the best in RoW and win.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_at_the_Olympics

bolt has goondas like blake and powell for support now. its the khan who is running scared

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 12:11

except for powell's injury - all the 100m's guys finished below 10s
that is serious running

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 12:15

to me Irfan and vijay kumar are the indian heroes of these games.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/olym ... 11909.html

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 12:27

i watched most of the walk on tv - irfan stayed with the leaders till near the end; he is a serious prospect for the future

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 06 Aug 2012 12:53

I hear when Irfan used to train back home in Malappuram people used to make fun of him asking 'are you mad?' 'Are you Usain Bolt?' etc. Let all those idiots eat crow now. Good job Irfan.

MN Kumar · Post by **MN Kumar** » 06 Aug 2012 12:57

Singha wrote:1 Saina or Sindhu cannot turn the tide against 3-4 world class cheen players and they will continue to have a strong pipeline of threats.

we need to do what the Jamaicans did and the US/USSR did in WW2 = build scale.

rewind back a few yrs and what was jamaica - Merlene ottey. for a long time she fought against the american machine alone like saina does today. but finally in last few yrs they have built enough scale now to put 5-6 men and women on the track who can go head to head with the best in RoW and win.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_at_the_Olympics

bolt has goondas like blake and powell for support now. its the khan who is running scared

Very true. I guess we made a start and a new generation of seeds are sown. Saina, Kashyap and PV Sindhu took inspiration from Gopichand. Key thing we saw from Saina was her focus. I was proud when she said she was aiming for the final and nothing else. She never thought about the bronze.

I was reading an interview from Gopichand after Saina's bronze medal win, he was mentioning about China and its huge pool of players who are ready and waiting to takeover from the current players. Unfortunately something like this has been happening only in Cricket till now. They studied the Chinese threat and were prepared for it.

Apart from this we need more support from the government. Gopichand's academy was a good start. There was a time when the state government was trying to take back some of the land given to the academy and Gopichand was running around the government corridors to prevent it. This needs to stop. We need to more such academies.

My bronze will inspire youngsters to take up badminton: Saina Nehwal

LONDON: Saina Nehwal reckons that her Olympic bronze medal will inspire more youngsters to take up the sport and the badminton scenario in the country will change soon with new talents coming through.

"This medal will change a lot of things. We will see a change in the badminton scene and more girls will take up the sport. PV Sindhu is doing well and similarly many more girls will come through like in China and Korea," Saina said at the press conference after her Chinese opponent Xin Wang retired hurt from the bronze medal play-off match.

"My aim was to win an Olympic medal and I have worked hard for it for the last five, six years. The whole thing is yet to sink in, I can't believe that I have actually won an Olympic medal," she said.

Saina said she will now take a few days break and watch some movies and eat chocolates.

"I have no celebration plans, (will) just take a few days break. I will watch some movies as I like movies. My dad doesn't allow me to eat chocolates, but probably now I can eat some chocolates. Does not matter if I put on weight," she said cheekily.

Asked whether she slept well last night, Saina said, "I slept well last night. But could not sleep well ahead of the semifinal match. I had a feeling that I will do well. She changed her strategy in the second half of the first set," the Hyderabadi said.

"Initially I thought she (Wang) wasting time as she was getting tired. But later I realised that it was a serious injury," she said.

On whether she was satisfied with her match, she said, "It's OK, not too good. I was playing well at the end but unfortunately she went down. I was lucky to get this medal.

"It's a dream. I wanted gold but I am happy. At the next Olympics I will do better. I never thought a player from India would get a medal at badminton. It's a very proud day."

Saina said that the Chinese players were now "scared" of her as she has beaten quite a few of them in recent past.

"At least I know they are scared of me, I can see it in their eyes, I am happy to scare six or seven of them. I just have to work out a good strategy again them. I have to be ready for them," she said.

She said she will analyse her semifinal match against Yihan Wang and see what actually went wrong.

"My strategy was wrong with her. I allowed her to dictate terms and could not engage her in rallies. I have to come up with better plans for these players," she pointed out.

On being the only women's singles badminton player from India at the Games, Saina said, "It's much easier for the players like the Chinese as they have a lot of other players in the country to play against and they know each other's games.

"I have to worry each round. It's tougher for me because I'm a single player."

Asked whether she has spoken to her father after the semifinal match, she said, "I have not spoken to him, I felt bad losing the match and not being able to bring the gold medal.

"Whatever he did for me, everything that he did, I still cry because parents hardly ever do as much for their children as he has done for me," she said.

Saina's coach P Gopichand said she was starting to come back and could have won the match had Wang not retired.

"She was starting to come back. The way she came back from 19-12 to 20-18 -- it was really sad and unfair that it had to finish that way (before Nehwal could come back). I think Saina was going to win. Wang was looking tired," he said.

On what Saina's bronze means for Indian badminton, the former All England champion said, "Huge, I think. It's been my dream for many years.

On her strategy to beat Wang, the coach said, "Today the plan was to get longer rallies and stay in the match. I think yesterday she was a bit off colour and Yihan was too strong.

"I thought today she looked good and was starting to come back. The way she was going I feel she was going to win," he said.

The acting president of IOA, Vijay Kumar Malhotra said Saina has done the country proud.

"Although China surrendered and it was not an outright win it is still a victory. We cannot say that we wanted this to happen but a medal is a medal and we are very proud of Saina. She is one of the best sportswomen in our country," Malhotra said.

On the reception Saina will receive in India, he said, "She will receive millions and millions of rupees, there will be many functions in her honour and she will be very popular when she comes home."

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 06 Aug 2012 13:02

In order to medal in Rio or a major world level event Irfan needs 1-2 fellow Indian walkers to help him walk tactically against the opposition. The Chinese and Russians both had multiple walkers who were capable to keeping the pace. Irfan's more seasoned colleagues, on the other hand,never could keep pace with him and were 3-4 minutes adrift of him by the end. The guy is young, and those warnings are just a sign of his near total inexperience at this stage. He probably got rattled when told he was on his last warning, and lost his rhythm. But for that he'd have probably finished 5th or 6th.

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 06 Aug 2012 13:05

He has specifically said he was not concentrating on speeding up at the final stage but more worried about finishing it without picking up another warning and thus getting disqualified. He could have finished around 5 without these errors.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2012 13:07

the russian and the 2nd chinese were also on their last warnings. the chinese scaled back and the russian collapsed from exhaustion soon after.
people do need to be very careful, in beijing the leading girl was DQed on the doorstep of the stadium!
it seems to be all very subjective based on the observers along the route spotting someone or not spotting someone with no scope for review or appeal.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 06 Aug 2012 13:11

I'm particularly happy to see that Irfan is from a part of Kerala that's faced communal discord lately. I hope his performance inspires may young kids, not just Muslim, to take up sports. It would be one of the best means of integrating them as productive and nationalist members of society, while also giving them great pride of accomplishment. Far better than have a generation of kids ruined from the nonsense filled in their heads by useless KSA sponsored schools. If that region can produce an Irfan amidst all other news from there, then there's still a lot of hope to sort things out.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 06 Aug 2012 13:13

the three shooters are on in 20 mins time
Vikas Gowda at 1000 UK
Mery Kom is on at 1400 UK
Vijender at 2200 UK

re - racing partners, in the women's triathlon the GB team deployed a "domestique" - which i assume comes from french cycling road racing practice - to provide a mark for their main medal hope. the domestique's job is to track the leader (in this case she was strong in swimming and decent in cycling, whilst the main medal hope was strongest in running) and ensure that she either sets the pace, or sets a mark (often the 2nd and 3rd placed in the lead pack will just follow the leader to conserve energy). this girl did a fantastic job through the first two legs and then the main girl took over on the running. unfortunately for them she finished 5th, whilst the domestique finished 20th after the running leg.

long range endurance sports seem to do well from this sort of tactical teaming, cycling being the main example

btw - now that dilli has a world class velodrome, i hope we are grooming some indoor cyclists? malaysia has done ok at this event, i am sure that we can too

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 06 Aug 2012 14:16

vikas gowda's event started.

in 3 position both are our shooters are within 4 pts of leader.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 06 Aug 2012 14:44

Vikas Gowda is leading with 65.20m as of now.

Sriman · Post by **Sriman** » 06 Aug 2012 14:49

^^
+1. Updates on Gagan Narang as well please. Looks like he qualified.