The 2012 Olympics Thread

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 19:29

^^ Honeslty, gold was decded after 4 rounds itself with the Cuban not missing anything after a poor 1st shot.

But, absolute nerve wracker for the other spots.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 19:31

Sad to see Saina lose. My prediction came unfortunately exactly right - she let the occasion get to her and committed unforced errors galore. At least she plays Wang Xin for bronze. She has a strong chance of winning; she blanked WangX in straight games the last time they played earlier this year.

Congrats to Vijay Kumar!! I didn't honestly expect him to medal, even though he has done so at both CWG and Asian level. He showed exactly the kind of guts we need to demonstrate to win at this level.

Surprising performance from Karmarkar as well. We're definitely becoming genuine contenders in a range of shooting events now.

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 19:32

^^ Btw, thrashed 5-2 by Germany in Hockey.

Quite amazing since was thinking a 10-12 goal difeference was assured.

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 19:38

Cometh the hour, cometh the man....

This subedar from IA shoots his personal best ever straight at the olympics!!! Hat tip to you, sire

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 19:46

I recall that the 25m rapid fire pistol Olympic Record qualification score before the event was 581. Vijay Kumar shot 585 and was still in 4th place going into the final, behind Klimov, Pupo and Ding. Amazing just how cutthroat the competition was. Klimov then fell apart in the final, and subsequently Ding as well. Vijay, while not as excellent as Pupo, was rock solid. Inspiring performance indeed.

DavidD · Post by **DavidD** » 03 Aug 2012 19:55

Suraj wrote: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.

Not sure what's the point of that...is one of the excuses better than the other or something? Besides, the Chinese coach has already admitted his fault and publicly apologized, something the rest have yet to do.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 03 Aug 2012 19:55

Bronze...silver...now lets hope someone helps win a gold

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 20:02

^^ Col. Rathod mentioning on TV that the IA has a specific marksman unit modelled on the US Army and the identified people are even given exposure to foreign travel/5-star hotels etc since they found that its these external factors which unnerve the jawans more than the match pressure when they travel to such high-end areas the first time for competitions like AG, Oly etc.

Good going IA

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 20:10

Kumar's wikipedia profile showed that his previous stable level of performance was a mere 575, with his best ever being a one-time 581. He basically pulled himself up from CWG standard to OG standard with no prior record of doing so - an extraordinary 10pt performance jump over his usual standard

Inspiring stuff. Usually we do things the other way around - come with decent abilities based on training level, but demonstrate lack of big occasion mindset (like the archery team did). This is not surprising since they have not been trained so rigorously, but the Indian Army clearly seems to have gotten the training system right here - both in shooting and rowing. The latter would be a very good medal-winning sport in multiple disciplines from single sculls to coxed eights.

nelson · Post by **nelson** » 03 Aug 2012 20:14

In fact, the Army Markmanship Unit, based in Infantry School Mhow is one of the centers of excellence developed under Mission Olympics 2020 by Indian Army. It was started after Col Rathore's maiden medal in Athens. Other popular nodes are in Pune - Rowing, Boxing, Archery, Atheltics, Mumbai - Yachting and Sailing, and so on.

The ones we get to see now are the early dividends,IMO.

nelson · Post by **nelson** » 03 Aug 2012 20:18

Vijay Kumar.

Pic- courtesy, The Hindu.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 20:20

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 20:26

DavidD wrote:Not sure what's the point of that...is one of the excuses better than the other or something? Besides, the Chinese coach has already admitted his fault and publicly apologized, something the rest have yet to do.

It is. And it's not merely my statement - the nature of punishment and censure has reflected that. All 4 teams were disqualfied, implying that no excuse was better than the other when it came to the actual act of throwing the match. Yet, the Chinese were held out for greater censure because it was everyone's agreement that they instigated the whole thing. That's why LYB was compelled to apologize, but the Koreans and Indons coaches didn't get so much attention. Had the Chinese alone been DQed, then you'd have cause for complaint of bias, but that wasn't the case. The whole episode, in the end, was handled rather well by IOC and BWF.

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 20:47

Found this link asking for funds for the Olympic Gold quest cause. Both the medals( and the near miss of Joydeep) so far are from there.

Really seems a worthwhile cause to help out. Thank you OCG for your efforts and may we see more medals for the country:

OCG Link

nelson · Post by **nelson** » 03 Aug 2012 21:00

http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-spo ... 723310.ece

Hope Mr Maken keeps his promise of making the medalists equivalent to IAS.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 Aug 2012 21:21

next big events are 2014 Asiad in Incheon and CWG in Glasgow.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 21:37

^^ Check out events in CWG Glasgow...The host gets to pick events and most of the events there are Gora type events onleee

http://www.glasgow2014.com/the_games/sports.aspx

Athletics/Shooting/Boxing/Badminton/Wrestling is what we will mostly be competing

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 21:43

Interestingly Joydeep Karmarkar, who finished 4th in the 50m prone event, is a newcomer. He doesn't show up anywhere in the qualifiers list in either 2010 CWG or AG events in 50m prone or 50 three positions events. Our team then was Narang and Hari Om Singh. Does anyone know more about his performance history ? Are we improving our shooting system so much that we can get people who were nowhere 2 years ago close to OG podium now ? Of course, his performance today would have earned him the AG or CWG gold two years ago, the latter by several points. Had they applied pistol scoring rules (final score starts from scratch), Joydeep would have a bronze now.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 03 Aug 2012 21:45

WoW this is great news , Congratulations Vijay Kumar.

Looking at the medals tally
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/201 ... /countries

Cant believe a country like NoKo can win 4 Gold in Olympics , Hail Kim Jong Un

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 22:09

Man i hope Saina beats Wang Xin tomorrow. Could be a tough game. Hope she is not demoralized after today

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 22:10

^^ More wierd than that is tiny NZ having 5 medals ( 3 gold), lots of the tiny Baltic nations having a few medals and even Mongolia having 1S+1B. Wonder why TFTA Spain is stuck on 1 medal though!!

Hope that we reach a stage some day when we are only trailing sport superpowers like US, China, Korea etc.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 03 Aug 2012 22:15

For our size we should have been a regular with total tally of around 10-20 medals with minimal effort...not at the scale of what China and USA puts in.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 22:18

^^ For Indians the reason is plain and simple. Lack of facilities and the Corrupt Politicos.

Was just reading how YSR Reddy cancelled the Land Allotment for Pullela Gopichand Academy because it was given by Chandrababu Naidu. Gopichand is spending money from his own pocket and has mortaged his house to run the Academy...

wasu · Post by **wasu** » 03 Aug 2012 22:35

kshatriya, Gopichand got the land. He had to mortgage his house to build the academy.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 22:39

V. AZARENKA just got blown out by Serena... So i think Leander/Sania match will start in a few hours

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 03 Aug 2012 22:40

Is there any relationship between the size of the population and sporting success or even success of any kind? There are always statements like "1 billion people cannot produce fast bowlers/medal winners" etc.
There are obvious caveats like it is not the size of the population but the function of the number of people who are interested in the domain.
Still, does the statement hold true at all?

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 22:43

kshatriya wrote:V. AZARENKA just got blown out by Serena... So i think Leander/Sania match will start in a few hours

Was it deliberate to ensure freshness for the mixed doubles match since it was anyways a no-hope against Serena and so no need to waste effort?

Thats what some comments in different blogs were mentioning.

member_23629 · Post by **member_23629** » 03 Aug 2012 22:43

wasu wrote:kshatriya, Gopichand got the land. He had to mortgage his house to build the academy.

Sania too had approached Chandrababu Naidu for land for a tennis academy, but he saw through the game and laughed her off.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 03 Aug 2012 22:44

there are no simple correlation factors for sports performance - drivers that hold true for one nation do not hold true for others, i.e. there is no magic bullet. you need passionate athletes, fans, facilities, time, money and coaches plus the science infrastructure. pure GDP/head is not enough

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 22:49

sum wrote:
kshatriya wrote:V. AZARENKA just got blown out by Serena... So i think Leander/Sania match will start in a few hours
Was it deliberate to ensure freshness for the mixed doubles match since it was anyways a no-hope against Serena and so no need to waste effort?

Thats what some comments in different blogs were mentioning.

Highly Possible. Serena has always destroyed Azarenka ..I think its 8-1 or 9-1 something like that

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 22:52

Judo 100 Kg +

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 03 Aug 2012 22:52

by Sum

This subedar from IA shoots his personal best ever straight at the olympics!!! Hat tip to you, sire

Congratulations!! Subedar Vijay Kumar IAS!!!!! You made us proud!!

Vikas Krishnan fighting Spence Errol in 69kg Welter weight boxing at 4:45 PM EST.

Shooting team has come of age.. we have lots of athletes qualified in variety of events in shooting. Next we need to build numbers!! The competition is with ourselves!!

Go Saina, Mary, Geeta, Vijender, Gowda, Paes, Mirza, Amit, Sushil, Vikas, Devendro,Manoj, Narsingh Yadav, Yogeshwar Dutt and rest!!!

Sumit Sangwan, Jai Bhagwan, Kashyap Good luck next time!!!

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 22:55

^^ Feel sad for Joydeep who actually beat the Olympic record to qualify for the finals and was the 3rd best in finals but came 4th because of the earlier qualification points also being added up.

Little more luck and even he would have been a household name by now...Anyways, am sure he will do very,very well in future.

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 Aug 2012 22:56

Shooting team has come of age.. we have lots of athletes qualified in variety of events in shooting. Next we need to build numbers!! The competition is with ourselves!!

We need to bulk up in Womens shooting side too.

Our pistol shooters currently seems more at CWG/Asiad level. Need to pull them to OG level and need to unearth some rifle and trap women shooters also. Are there any in the pipeline?

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 23:25

Gopichand's badminton academy costs him $150000 a year to run, and he barely gets by. Why 'blame the system' ? Send him a cheque for $100 and/or help provide him sponsorship. He only has the money to pay for one Indonesian coach to help him handle Saina, Kashyap, Jwala, Ponnappa and Diju at the Olympics.

China wins so many medals because they invest a LOT. A recent article before the Olympics showed the difference - their annual sports budget is over $500M . Ours is approx $30M. In effect they invest over $2 billion in every four year cycle. They have a system where they identify talent in a range of disciplines young. The ones best suited are sent to academies dedicated to the sports they focus on. When they have the ability to do so, they invest in new disciplines and utilize the talent that the underlying system provides that new discipline. It's clinical and efficient, but nothing new - just a copy of the Soviet and East German system, with more bodies to throw at.

Here's an example of what it takes in shooting:
Why Vijay Kumar should thanks a Russian for medal

India’s Olympic silver medallist shooter Vijay Kumar should thank his Russian coach Pavel Smirnov for his success at the 2012 London Games.

The Russian’s appointment was a part of the Army’s Olympic Mission Programme that was launched in 2004 to turn potential talent into medal winners.

“I always believed that army shooters have the ability to strike it rich. Vijay has proved it.

The soft-spoken Moscow man has been with the Army Marksman Unit in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, since 2007. He has been working with Vijay for the last five years to turn him into a champion shooter.

Smirnov remained like a shadow with the Indian Army Subedar during the Games here and now can finally heave a sigh of relief after his ward became the first Indian pistol shooter to win an Olympic medal.

Vijay is also the second Indian shooter to win a silver medal, after double trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in 2004 Athens.

Vijay credits his success to Smirnov.

Smirnov, however, remains modest and said: “In the last three years, Indian Army shooters have done extremely well at international competition. We are in the eighth year of the programme and still have a long way to go. We need more coaches to take the programme forward,” he said.

“Now I have to look after 30 shooters and that becomes an impossible task. I have asked the management for more coaches so that all the shooters get equal attention,” he added.

I hope what he said in the last two paragraphs gets attention. If we need depth in multiple shooting disciplines we need more coaches in this academy to help out this guy, who has been working there himself, far from home, for half a decade.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 23:37

Its the system that is to blame. If someone like Gopichand is struggling for 150k , then what options does an ordinary citizen with Olympic Ambitions have ? Private citizens can fund them, But what is the role of Govt here ?

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Aug 2012 23:39

The 'system' has always been to blame. So what ? What's the point of wasting time blaming it ?

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 03 Aug 2012 23:50

Poonia threw the farthest in qualifiers. But shown Red Card for Foul

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 04 Aug 2012 00:02

Poonia Qualifies for Finals. Currently 3rd in Qualifiers

Uttam · Post by **Uttam** » 04 Aug 2012 00:05

kshatriya wrote:Poonia threw the farthest in qualifiers. But shown Red Card for Foul

But she qualified after second attempt = 63.54 m