The 2012 Olympics Thread

[Kannan]

To understand US dominance, first off, you have to drop the desi habit of only knowing universities listed by US News in its top 25 list, and look at how the system really works.

The top university in R&D expenditure is Wisconsin, with something like $900 million annually. They have decent graduate programs across the arts, sciences, engineering, etc. They also have a highly successful football program. Stanford is another example of a school with highly successful academics and athletics.

Keep in mind, the football program does not "cater to" students, it is a self sufficient and profitable endeavor because graduates love/have pride in their athletics. This means people come back and pay top dollar to watch the games, and the money from this is fed into the athletic department which then sustains the non revenue programs such gymnastics, wrestling, olympic lifting, track & field, etc.

Most of the Wisconsin players are scholarship players, the rest are walk ons from the general body. For the most part, nobody picks going to Wisconsin because they have decent football, but it is part of the culture. There's very, very little chance of the average student actually playing for their team, the level of dedication and athleticism is way beyond most people. The revenue sports (football, basketball, hockey, baseball, women's basketball) generally pay everyone's bills.

Basically, people in the US care about sports, and they sponsor it.

[Victor]

Forget college, even at the high school level the sports-mindedness is unlike anything anywhere else. School tennis, swimming, basketball, volleyball, football (American), baseball, track, golf events are jam packed with city police directing traffic. Even in high school the level of athleticism puts most sports out of reach for all but the most dedicated and talented students, so the training and channeling have to start in middle school or even earlier. College scouts monitor high school sports teams and the cream of the crop are recruited and signed up early with full scholarships. However, they are looking not just for top performance but also a minimal level of academic capability. College students on sports scholarships have to maintain a decent level of academic performance to stay in most programs. Very rarely does a "dumb jock" make it into a good college program but many obviously still do in the smaller, lesser known colleges.

[hanumadu]

There is just too much emphasis on Sports in the US. For every successful sports person, there are dozens if not hundreds who do not make it and do not have a back up plan either. May be in the years gone by, USA would have been able to absorb them into some decent paying job. I doubt its the case any more.

I wonder how many of the college athletes who do not make it to the next stage have a successful alternative career. My feeling is they major in areas that do not require too much effort to get a degree.

[Sriman]

The boxing contingent doesn't appear to have figured out how to deal with the scoring system, unlike the opponents.

That's the harsh truth. But most of them are young and it'd have been a tremendous learning experience.

[sum]

^^ Yep...so for the given hype, the Boxing contingent should join the Archery team as the big let-down ( Even shooting was a super let-down if not for Vijay's unexpected medal)

Hockey of course joined my list of no-hope after these games and have safely decided to stop bothering about it after seeing the utter spinelessness and hopelessness on display

[negi]

For some reason I am not feeling so strongly about this as some of you guys; is something wrong with me or I am just getting fckn old ?

[Suraj]

Yes, our boxers are young:
Devendro Singh : 20 (quarters)
Sumit Sangwan : 19 (prequarters)
Vikas Krishan : 20 (prequarters)
Shiva Thapa : 19 (R1)
Vijender : 26 (quarters)

Only Vijender's chances of being a definite for Rio have a question mark around it, though there are boxers at this Olympics in their late 20s (e.g. Zou Shiming is 31). I don't think Mery Kom should be compelled to fight until then - she's accomplished everything one can ask of her, and it's not her fault that the lightest available category is two levels above hers, and she's up against women with 6in more reach. With the scoring system she could only realistically win by RSC/TKO/KO against the top ones, not PTS because she'd absorb hits while trying to close in. If she were upto it though, she'd probably make an excellent women's coach/mentor.

Does anyone know how scoring in wrestling works ? Is it as subjective as the 5 blind men approach they currently use in boxing ? Or are there particular clearly defined scores assigned to particular holds, throws and moves ?

We put a lot of focus on three sports - archery, shooting and boxing - which have high result variability. The first two are due to the fact that beyond a point, it's literally a crapshoot; you can have a decade of dedicated training undone by an involuntary muscle spasm at the most inopportune moment. There are not too many shooters winning consecutively; it usually gets rotated between a bunch of people, depending on whose day it is. The last - boxing - has become little better than a Vegas casino parlor game now. We need to diversify into sports where there's not so much ambiguity - i.e., strength and endurance events.

We would benefit a lot from unearthing more Irfans. The guys first two events were a 19th place finish in the world championship and 10th in Olympics, which could have been even better since he was in the top 6 till he was warned and didn't want to risk DQing out. For a callow nobody it doesn't get much better. Even Vikas Gowda and Krishna Poonia aren't bad per se - both can easily win gold at CWG level and medal in AG level, but need training input to bridge the AG to OG gap. Figuring out how to bridge this gap is critical to our performance in Rio 2016 - if we get it right and invest in lower profile sports, we can grab multiple golds there. Hopefully entities like OGC and MCT sharpen their focus on these lines.

[Singha]

Krishna poonia is 35 and likely to retire now. she said she had to look after her family too, and travel to foreign locales to find decent competitions was taking up time.

[Lalmohan]

dissapointed with the laishram fight - but it seems under the scoring system - if you fight defensively and counterpunch when your opponent has overreached you can score easy points. that is how the english and irish are winning, even though they are barely standing at the end of round three. the button pressing system seems to have worked better with the ladies fights, but not so with the mens. we dont seem to be learning and adapting fast enough. anyway, the younger boxers have to build on this and look forward to AG, CWG and Rio, plus world championships.
overall i am still upbeat, we've had many more atheletes in the finals, or top 10 in many more events than before. we do have more medals, but only just. i think the bare truth is that sports excellence = fn(money, enthusiasm); however that money is obtained or invested., and however that enthusiasm is generated.
btw in british universities, which dont have extensive sports sponsorship programmes, etc., and even in highly academic places, there is huge emphasis (peer driven) on sports and many national level athletes and players emerge from the university clubs - definitely true for rowing, rugby and athletics. oxbridge do bend the academic rules (a bit) for 'sports blues' but the other univs don't.
btw - saudi girl in hijab finished last in the women's 800m to a standing ovation from stadium. good for her.

[Vasu]

P Gopichand was saying that if you want sports success, you have to forget democracy. Our athletes who retire need to be ploughed back into the system as coaches and mentors because they know what it is to train so hard and so long.

I know the Chinese way of doing it may be one extreme, but even if India implements say 3/4th of it, it'll be great. A big part of the problem is the parasites eating up resources at all levels of sports administration in the country.

[Comer]

From an article here:

http://www.newslaundry.com/2012/08/crib-and-giggle/

But then the figures tell a different story. They seem to suggest that at least India’s top sportspersons are well-supported, even if that backing isn’t close to what the top cricketers are used to. A Centre for Public Policy Research paper quotes Sports Ministry estimates that about Rs 55.22 crore has been spent on the 46 top medal prospects for the London Olympics.

This comes to approximately Rs 1.2 crore per athlete. “Not bad”, the paper writes, “compared to Rs 105 crore spend by Great Britain taking into account the gold medals the country expects from 28 of its majors. Meanwhile, the Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, informed that the Rs 168 crore spend by Australia is not enough for their sportpersons to compete in the Olympics”.

Rs 1.2 crore per athlete! For a country that won’t see a double-digit medal tally, is that a bad amount?

Let me be clear here – this is not a plug for the Sports Ministry or the Sports Authority of India or the Indian Olympic Association, all of which work in deeply unprofessional ways. (Of late, though, there has been a sense that things are changing in the Ministry, if not anywhere else.) But my attempt here is to tell readers that the undernourished, uncared-for “Indian Olympic athlete” is not entirely ignored, even accounting for the slip between the cup and the lip. The reasons why India continues to fare poorly at the Olympics are different – poverty, lack of a sporting culture, societal factors, politics, infrastructural deficits and the like.

Rest of the article seems interesting, you can read it FWIW.

[Gus]

I don't know about others but IIT-M has excellent sport facilities, far better than most other colleges in our area. CEG occasionally used those facilities for its 2nd year sports camps. It wasn't heavily used back then.

oh yeah..after playing in concrete basket ball courts (and a few times without even shoes), the indoor wooden floor BB court in IITM looked really TFTA.

[krishnan]

Devendro starts off aggressively but Barnes, who has a huge crowd backing him is equal to the task. It seems Devendro had most of the punches on the sport but yet again the judges rule against him. Barnes takes a crucial 7-5 lead in the first round.

[Lalmohan]

barnes basically put his gloves up in front of his face and devendro punched him repeatedly on the gloves, soon as devendro pulled back, barnes flung his fists forward and caught devendro as he was regrouping. no reward for aggression and dominance only for making contact. same happened with vijender

[Lalmohan]

sahana kumari currently at 1.8m in the high jump, leaders are at 1.93m
is she at her PB? or national record?

[sum]

From rediff:

Apparently, the International Boxing AssociationPresident Dr Ching-Kuo Wu was not too happy with the Indians for lodging protests.

"He has said that the 'Indians are protesting too much. They should look at the bouts carefully and then see whether there was a case for protest'. But we have to live with this, accept what has happened and move on," a source in the Indian contingent said on condition of anonymity.

[Rahul M]

aur ek medal dila de baba !

[KJo]

We need at least 1 Gold to feel ahead of 2008. Collecting bronzes mein kuch dum nahin hain

[Dilbu]

I am going back to kirket dhaga.

[krishnan]

SA were good in hockey...no ???

India and SA playing for 11-12 position match...

[Lalmohan]

you boys are all into instant gratification, no long term stamina!! we need to get mort on here

[kshatriya]

Geeta wrestling game on..Canadian leads 1-0

1-1 after the second...Game is very close

Geeta loses the match.

[Lalmohan]

geeta loses, but good fight
still has a chance depending on how others do

[kshatriya]

She could have won the first game. Hard luck for her. Needs to improve her stamina

[Rahul M]

now hope the winner of her match does really well.

[SBajwa]

I agree with Dhanraj Pillay that "Arjun Halappa, Vikram Pillay, Rajpal Singh, Deepak Thakur, Prabhjot Singh" had lot more hockey left in them and were victims of politics between HI and IHF.

There is no comparison with sports culture in USA and rest of the countries in world. Most of the sports that children play here are not even in olympics (American Football, Baseball, Lacrosse, etc).

Parents are dedicated and determined to back up their child and whole families (grand parents, uncles aunts) show up on Saturday games. The games are played on a well maintained ground (with lights too if it gets dark) and are played in all weather conditions. The referee's are generally older kids (8th grade children for 5 grade games and so forth) and each team knows about all rules which are diligently followed.

[Deans]

devendro has a lot of energy, but his punching was not accurate. he was also over aggressive thus lowering his defence allowing the irish guy in with a lot of accurate punching. overall if you discount the fouls, rd 2 and 3 were even while devendro lost rd 1. devendro needs to work on the accuracy of his punching and his defence instead of trying to do a street brawl. yesterday, vijinder could have shown more aggression and hunger to win. overall disappointed that we did not medal in men's boxing.

My thoughts exactly. Glad someone had an opinion other than `referees cheated'. I was desperately hoping for Men's boxing medals
and I liked Devendro's fighting spirit and aggression but it cant replace accuracy and technique.

Except for Sangwan (whom I thought was very unlucky), we lost our bouts by 5+ points, that's a significant difference. Perhaps
careless judging accounted for a couple of points, but we would do well to analyse each game and see what we could have done better.

I also don't understand why Brig Raja comes on TV and claims that refereeing cost us all the matches, but then does not bother
to file a protest for any bout (except for Sangwan). He was shown up when he claimed to have filed an appeal with CAS and CAS
said nothing was filed.

[Rahul M]

Deans, it's not only sangwan. there was no way that vijender lost his bout, esp the 2pt diff after 1st round. often that alone makes all the diff.

[Lalmohan]

rahul - vijender got caught with soft jabs after he'd spent his energy in attack and was stepping out of the clinch with his guard down

[Rahul M]

saar ji, not in the 1st round. he clearly landed more punches in that one.

I don't know who came up with this system but I preferred the live point system of 2008.

[Lalmohan]

yes thats true, he definitely dominated the first round

[Rahul M]

once you are down in round 1 you have no option but to go for broke and in that way provide opportunities to your opponent.

[kshatriya]

Geeta is in the Repechage Round. One match away from the bronze medal match

If she makes it to the Bronze medal match she will face Jackeline whom Geeta destroyed in 2011 World Championship First round.

[Supratik]

i think vijinder won rd 2 and was even in rd 1 where both started very defensively. i agree with rahul that if he led after rd 2, the whole game strategy would have changed. there was some dodgy refereeing no doubt. they should revisit the videos and see where they are coming short.

can someone explain how this repechage thing works in wrestling.

[Uttam]

i think vijinder won rd 2 and was even in rd 1 where both started very defensively. i agree with rahul that if he led after rd 2, the whole game strategy would have changed. there was some dodgy refereeing no doubt. they should revisit the videos and see where they are coming short.

can someone explain how this repechage thing works in wrestling.

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repechage

[Lalmohan]

geeta was quite impressive, and her opponent was much higher ranked and much more experienced
hopefully she gets through next round

[Bade]

Apparently, the International Boxing AssociationPresident Dr Ching-Kuo Wu was not too happy with the Indians for lodging protests.

"He has said that the 'Indians are protesting too much. They should look at the bouts carefully and then see whether there was a case for protest'. But we have to live with this, accept what has happened and move on," a source in the Indian contingent said on condition of anonymity.

Total BS. When you have only a few medal prospects I expect the Indian contingent to throw everything at the officials including the kitchen sink. I saw how vociferous and agitated the US Sr. coach/consultant ( the famous Nadia Comenci's coach) was and was prompting the one on the floor to file and they got the bronze overturned in their favor. We need to show that kind of attitude from our officials too.

[kshatriya]

Her opponent in the Repechege round is also pretty experienced. Hopefully she crosses that hurdle

[Suraj]

From rediff:

Apparently, the International Boxing AssociationPresident Dr Ching-Kuo Wu was not too happy with the Indians for lodging protests.

"He has said that the 'Indians are protesting too much. They should look at the bouts carefully and then see whether there was a case for protest'. But we have to live with this, accept what has happened and move on," a source in the Indian contingent said on condition of anonymity.

Presumably this joker will NOT get the Indian vote in the next AIBA elections. Set up a scoring system that's a travesty to boxing, and then accuse those who complain about it. At least, after these controversies, the system will not last until Rio 2016.

But still, rather poor job by the Indian boxing contingent to not figure out the system. There's no point in holding some 'the world is out to screw me' victim mentality, and even if it is, you can game the system too here.

Bade: yes I saw Bela Karolyi doing a Sonia Gandhi remote control appeal from the stands, screaming and yelling from the stands at the US coaches who seemed to have no idea what they were gesticulating for initially, and of course, the Japanese coaches running around with cash in hand to file appeals during the team events. Both incidents looked really crass.

[krishnan]

A simple 4x400-metre relay heat turned into high drama when South Africa [ Images ] first crashed out of the race with Pistorius waiting for a baton that never arrived in the changeover zone. Almost two hours later, a jury of appeal surprisingly ruled to give Pistorius's team Lane 9 — which otherwise would have been vacant — in Friday's final because it could not be blamed for the collision with Kenya.

"Emotional roller coaster!" Pistorius sent in a Twitter post. "Really can't wait!"

South Africa won a silver medal at last year's world championships and now has a chance at an Olympic medal.

First, the South African team never made it to the third section of the 4x400-metre relay in the opening heat after Mogawane crashed, leaving Pistorius no chance to run.

When he realized the race was lost, Pistorius raised his hands to his head, and waved his arms down in frustration. "It's not the place you want something like this to happen," Pistorius said.

The judges later ruled that Kenya's Vincent Kiilu had cut across Mogawane, causing the collision and leaving the South African with a dislocated shoulder. At first, Pistorius could not believe they would be added to the final.

Oscar Pistorious"Even a protest isn't any consolation," he said immediately after the heats.

Then came the surprising ruling.

"The Jury of Appeal met and agreed to advance the South African team to the final, even though they did not finish the race, considering that they had been severely damaged in the incident with Kenya," the IAAF said in a statement. "South Africa will run as an additional team in lane 9."