The 2012 Olympics Thread

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 03 Aug 2012 02:33

1 more win for Viji and he gets a Bronze!

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 03 Aug 2012 02:34

Man I wish I had watches Saina play this morning... that girl is a champ!

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 02:38

Vijender's next match is against Abbos Atoev. -World Champion in 2007/2009.

Vijender has a history with him. Shut him 7-0 at 2010 Asian Games Gold medal match. Vijender was injured during that match

Vijender also has lost to him a few times. Will be an interesting Bout

DavidD · Post by **DavidD** » 03 Aug 2012 03:27

Prasant wrote:Boxing body expels referee from London Olympics
LONDON (AP) -- An boxing referee from Turkmenistan was expelled from the London Olympics on Thursday for his handling of a bout in which the result was overturned on appeal.

Boxing's governing federation, known as AIBA, released a statement saying referee Ishanguly Meretnyyazov "is on his way back home."

The federation also suspended German referee Frank Scharmach five days for his decision to disqualify an Iranian heavyweight, and expelled technical official Aghajan Abiyev of Azerbaijan.

They've been rather quiet, stuck mostly to reporting facts and away from opinions. The fan reactions are mixed, which actually reflects the truth pretty well IMO. The organizers screwed up by putting a format that rewards losing, and the athletes failed their codes of professionalism by falling for that temptation.

I actually feel kinda bad for the Koreans, they just keep getting screwed in the Olympics. First the world champ swimmer was disqualified and then requalified, which may have messed with his psyche as he lost a close one in the finals and took silver; then the fencer who lost in the semifinals because the ref/timekeeper for some preposterous reason gave the German fencer THREE(3!!!) attempts with just ONE(1!!!) second left on the clock; and lastly both of their badminton pairs got disqualified, although it boggles my mind as to how they could've possibly thought that an appeal based on the reasoning of "they did it first!" could've ever worked.

saip · Post by **saip** » 03 Aug 2012 03:52

I believe 'they did it first' should have worked atleast for the second quartet. The reason is the umpires screwed this up royally. I mean if they have disqualified first quartet this would not have happened in the second game. Once the officials dilly dallied about the disqualification the second quartet must have thought 'hey this is how you do it' and they went and did it. IMVHO the second match should been ordered to be replayed. What surprised me most was the players did not seem to realize the distinction between trying to lose and not trying hard to win.

saip · Post by **saip** » 03 Aug 2012 04:08

The USA is destroying Nigeria in Basketball. Highest ever score and highest ever winning difference!

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 04:15

The badminton players were punished because they were such poor actresses and the Chinese in particular openly mocked everyone's intelligence by then claiming that they were 'trying to conserve energy'. The Koreans and Indons weren't any smarter either, with their schoolyard 'they did it first!' argument.

Yes, I understand that they wanted a favorable draw, but come on, can't even the world champion team pretend to play well and not be so completely obvious about their intentions ? They got the kitchen sink thrown at them because they were stupid - they thought they could get away with not just throwing a game blatantly, but insulting the paying audience as well. Their longest rally was 4 shots. You can get 2 people who hardly play badminton and get them to hit longer rallies without much effort.

As someone wrote on another blog, Yu Yang: Great badminton player, Bad actress.

However, it's also true that the players were not acting in a vacuum. Chief coach Li Yongbo and the Chinese badminton authorities have a hand in it as well, as do the coaches and administrators on the Korean and Indonesian side.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 05:18

The last two games between Saina and Wang Yihan were both 3 setters. Sania had taken the first set in both the games and eventually got drained and lost the last two. In the last encounter, Sania was very close to beating her in the second set with the score at 21-23

Kakkaji · Post by **Kakkaji** » 03 Aug 2012 05:20

DavidD wrote:BTW, what team sport is India good in as far as Olympics is concerned? The tone on this board seems to indicate that India is pretty good at team sports?

How about Kabaddi?

Seriously, the people in our villages play sports that require little or no equipment, and sports like Kabaddi, Indian wrestling and some others are pretty good tests of strength, agility, and stamina compared to some of the 'sports' that have sneaked into Olympics.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 03 Aug 2012 05:22

http://www.dayandnightnews.com/2012/07/ ... -olympics/

S. Gurbax Singh Sandhu is the national boxing coach of Men's team. He was first appointed coach in 1978 and under him first time Indian boxer qualified to quarter finals in Sydney olympics 2000.

Under him we won the first boxing medal (Vijender) and this is his last Olympics and hope that his boxers win a "better colored medal" as a gift for him.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 05:52

2016 Rio Olympics will have Pro Boxers competing in it. Might be hard for our guys
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1171 ... -rio-games

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 03 Aug 2012 06:05

nbc olympics says Vijender just entered the quaters, not semis. Are you guyz sure that Vijender entered the semis

http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/ath ... index.html

partha · Post by **partha** » 03 Aug 2012 06:06

Kakkaji wrote:
DavidD wrote:BTW, what team sport is India good in as far as Olympics is concerned? The tone on this board seems to indicate that India is pretty good at team sports?
How about Kabaddi?

Seriously, the people in our villages play sports that require little or no equipment, and sports like Kabaddi, Indian wrestling and some others are pretty good tests of strength, agility, and stamina compared to some of the 'sports' that have sneaked into Olympics.

Kho-Kho. If Handball can be in Olympics, surely Kho-Kho can be too. It requires great skills. It is exciting to play and watch.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 06:17

Virupaksha wrote:nbc olympics says Vijender just entered the quaters, not semis. Are you guyz sure that Vijender entered the semis

http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/ath ... index.html

You win quarters you get a medal in boxing

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 03 Aug 2012 07:36

India should invest in table tennis and grab some gold in next olympics

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 03 Aug 2012 07:42

With the number of martial arts schools increasing in India today, we should surely be able to produce world beating talent in Taekwondo and Judo (we've already got a start here).

Its important to start now with 4-5 year olds so that they peak as 16-17 year olds in the 2024 Games.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 03 Aug 2012 07:46

I dunno...but lots of schools really lack good infra....many are run in parks and basketball/tennis courts...with real estate being a major biz who wants to give a place for these at least that's the case here in Chennai

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 08:09

kshatriya wrote:The last two games between Saina and Wang Yihan were both 3 setters. Sania had taken the first set in both the games and eventually got drained and lost the last two. In the last encounter, Sania was very close to beating her in the second set with the score at 21-23

Saina has lost 5-6kg since last winter, and has shown significant gains in stamina during this time due to Gopichand's training. Her previous losses (last winter or before) were on account of his game falling apart due to exhaustion leading into the 3rd set. However, she's recently won events in SE Asia (Thailand Open and Indonesian Open) when she fought back to win long matches.

Prediction: Her performance against Wang Yihan will depend on how well she handles her nerves and manages unforced errors. Tine Baun, whom she just beat, has a decent record against Wang (5-7 vs 0-5 for Saina). Tine likes net play along with fast+short rallies. Saina will have to play like her, but with more pace to wear Wang down.

It would be a miracle of sorts if she makes it to the final, but if she does, it will really rattle whoever she faces there; probably Li, because they know she'll do better against Saina than Wang Xin, and will order Wang Xin to lose. They've done this many times before in China vs China matches, ordering the one less likely to win against a non-Chinese in the next round, to lose regardless of head to head record between those two Chinese. If Saina loses, they may go so far as to order Li to lose, so she plays Saina for bronze in a bid to capture gold, silver and bronze.

A dark horse for India will be Vikas Gowda in discus throw. He set a national mark of 66.xx metres this summer. 65.xx-67.xx is medal standard.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 08:17

^^^ Just watched the last encounter between them on Youtube. The strategy Wang used was to make her run a lot with drop shots and then a consecutive corner shot...I'm sure they have prepared well for this...Hopefully

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 03 Aug 2012 08:19

When is Saina's next match?

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 08:25

^^ 1 am PST or 1:30 pm IST

DavidD · Post by **DavidD** » 03 Aug 2012 09:32

Suraj wrote:The badminton players were punished because they were such poor actresses and the Chinese in particular openly mocked everyone's intelligence by then claiming that they were 'trying to conserve energy'. The Koreans and Indons weren't any smarter either, with their schoolyard 'they did it first!' argument.

Yes, I understand that they wanted a favorable draw, but come on, can't even the world champion team pretend to play well and not be so completely obvious about their intentions ? They got the kitchen sink thrown at them because they were stupid - they thought they could get away with not just throwing a game blatantly, but insulting the paying audience as well. Their longest rally was 4 shots. You can get 2 people who hardly play badminton and get them to hit longer rallies without much effort.

As someone wrote on another blog, Yu Yang: Great badminton player, Bad actress.

However, it's also true that the players were not acting in a vacuum. Chief coach Li Yongbo and the Chinese badminton authorities have a hand in it as well, as do the coaches and administrators on the Korean and Indonesian side.

What you suggested is simply impossible. Keep in mind that it's not one team that wanted to tank, it's both teams, and that quickly degenerates into the farce that happened.

Khabaddi is a pretty cool sport, I for one would love to see it in the Olympics, along with something like Sepak Takraw. Much better than the stupid crap they have now like Trampoline or Handball or something. I also think sports like Sailing are totally against the Olympic spirit of promoting health and athleticism because most of the world can't even dream of owning a sailboat, it seems to be specifically designed for rich countries, but I suppose it's got too much tradition to be eliminated.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 09:46

DavidD: I saw the match. My subjective view remains that the Koreans were at least trying to some visible extent, while the Chinese pair didn't even bother to make a pretense. To that end, I believe there's truth in the Korean claims that 'they (Chinese) started it'. The Chinese side never denied that, and just claimed the 'we were conserving energy' excuse that even someone born yesterday would find hard to believe.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 Aug 2012 09:51

fencing is another sport that looks expensive with those touch sensors and wifi gear...and its dramatic lighting and french(?) shouts from the referee. no poor nation can create such infra for a mass user base. only +ve seems to be it attracts a few good looking people.
artistic gymnastics is also a marginal case imo....the old school bread and butter pommel horse and gods of the vault/high bar/roman rings is what works best...only the mightiest warriors dare step into those arenas.
synchronized diving < individual diving.
beach volleyball again needs to be kicked out - good % of the people are there to watch female bottoms.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 03 Aug 2012 09:56

kshatriya wrote:
Virupaksha wrote:nbc olympics says Vijender just entered the quaters, not semis. Are you guyz sure that Vijender entered the semis

http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/ath ... index.html
You win quarters you get a medal in boxing

yes, but the match which happened is pre-quarters or the round of 16.
The round of 8 or the quarters is on the 6th.

If vijender wins on 6th, he gets a bronze.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 10:02

Virupaksha: I don't see anyone except you referring to Vijender entering the semis. Which 'you guys' suggested that ?

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 03 Aug 2012 10:08

Suraj wrote:Yes, I understand that they wanted a favorable draw, but come on, can't even the world champion team pretend to play well and not be so completely obvious about their intentions ?

I think it comes from an utter lack of morals or ethics. It can only happen when they think that there is nothing wrong with what they were doing. A cloistered upbringing with a 'winning is everything'/'end justifies the means' attitude.

OTOH we have people like our Srinath who bounces and hits Hayden and then asks if he is ok very apologetically and gets told to **** off. And our whole team running in and consoling Jayasurya because he missed out on highest test score.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 03 Aug 2012 10:13

Suraj,
mmm, I could have swore that around 6 hours ago, people said he won a bronze. anyway might have been my imagination.

James B · Post by **James B** » 03 Aug 2012 13:42

Saina lost first set by 21-13

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 03 Aug 2012 13:49

saina looks tired. 3-5 in set 2.

lots of mistakes. 3-6.

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 13:51

^^ Damn these Chinese robots!!

Seem to have locked onto gold like some heat seeking AAM

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 03 Aug 2012 13:56

yihan is very charged up. made a mistake from overeagerness.

OT : she is wearing what looks like 'hindu zionist ka dhaga'.

11-10 now.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 03 Aug 2012 14:00

Saina is playing very un-Saina like.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 03 Aug 2012 14:01

17-13 to Wang now.

James B · Post by **James B** » 03 Aug 2012 14:02

She is losing it.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 03 Aug 2012 14:03

Wang has won it now.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 03 Aug 2012 14:04

13-18

yihan suddenly found a burst of energy.

saina is playing a bit more defensively for my taste.

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 14:04

^^ Hope atleast we get a bronze out of this else will be heartbreaking.

member_23629 · Post by **member_23629** » 03 Aug 2012 14:07

Saina lost.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 03 Aug 2012 14:08

Saina made a lot of unforced errors today. And she looked a bit flustered and nervous. Nevertheless, she is an absolute gem.