Posted: 8/10/16 at 12:07am
Exciting night tonight. I just love the women's gymnastic team. Laurie Hernandez is just adorable.
Posted: 8/10/16 at 12:30am
Great night for the Americans! It's been a pretty exciting games so far.
As for less common sports, I happily stumbled upon some white water kayaking. So fun!
Posted: 8/10/16 at 12:34am
Gymnastics is definitely my favorite sport in the Olympics. Ditto on Laurie Hernandez. I find her most enjoyable on the floor exercise. And Madison Kocian is so great on bars.
Posted: 8/10/16 at 1:26am
Marianne2 said: "Gymnastics is definitely my favorite sport in the Olympics. Ditto on Laurie Hernandez. I find her most enjoyable on the floor exercise. And Madison Kocian is so great on bars. "
Totally agree on Laurie!
And that bars event final is going to be something between her, Gabby and Aliya Mustafina
Posted: 8/11/16 at 9:54am
Blockhead24 said: "Marianne2 said: "Gymnastics is definitely my favorite sport in the Olympics. Ditto on Laurie Hernandez. I find her most enjoyable on the floor exercise. And Madison Kocian is so great on bars. "
Totally agree on Laurie!
And that bars event final is going to be something between her, Gabby and Aliya Mustafina
"I love watching Laurie when she doesnt know she is being watched, always laughing, smiling, eyes darting back and fourth. She is like a bottle of electricity!
Posted: 8/11/16 at 12:29pm
I didn't hear about this until yesterday, but it's an odd story.
Apparently the Ukrainian men's gymnastics team came in last in the team competition because they only had 2 gymnasts perform on 3 apparatuses versus 3 on all 6. It's strange because they claim that a team member just came back from the hospital with an injury and they couldn't change their lineup at the last minute. There is also the theory that they threw it on purpose. I'm not sure what I believe and we will probably not find out.
http://www.bustle.com/articles/178019-watch-ukraine-throw-the-mens-gymnastics-final-because-its-the-weirdest-rio-development-yet
But, if I remember correctly, didn't Samantha Peszek get injured in Beijing right before competition? She ended up only doing uneven bars and Bridget Sloan was put in on all 4 events because they had no other option since Chellsie Memmel could only do uneven bars because of an injury as well. That's why I am not sure if the injury thing is completely true.
Posted: 8/11/16 at 1:08pm
Marianne2 said: "I didn't hear about this until yesterday, but it's an odd story.
Apparently the Ukrainian men's gymnastics team came in last in the team competition because they only had 2 gymnasts perform on 3 apparatuses versus 3 on all 6. It's strange because they claim that a team member just came back from the hospital with an injury and they couldn't change their lineup at the last minute. There is also the theory that they threw it on purpose. I'm not sure what I believe and we will probably not find out.
http://www.bustle.com/articles/178019-watch-ukraine-throw-the-mens-gymnastics-final-because-its-the-weirdest-rio-development-yet
But, if I remember correctly, didn't Samantha Peszek get injured in Beijing right before competition? She ended up only doing uneven bars and Bridget Sloan was put in on all 4 events because they had no other option since Chellsie Memmel could only do uneven bars because of an injury as well. That's why I am not sure if the injury thing is completely true.
"
Yes, Peszek got injured and Sloan had to fill in on events that she wasn't originally intended to, however, that was back when there was six people on the team, making it easier to find someone to substitute in if there was an injury.Granted, Ukraine probably could have used their other two gymnasts on the events that the injured gymnast was supposed to go up on - but it is slightly more difficult to have five all around gymnasts (gymnasts who compete all of the apparatuses) for men since there's six apparatuses, opposed to the women's four.
Creating a five person gymnastics team for a three-up. three-count format is very challenging. Marta Karoyli's greatest strength (and she has many strengths!) is creating a team that has backups already in place. This year she chose Gabrielle Douglas over Ashton Locklear which many people whined about thinking Gabby was only getting in because she was the all around gold medalist four years ago. While that definitely helped her cause, Gabby also can compete on all four events, while Ashton only does bars and beam. Sure, Ashton's bars score is through the roof and would have challenged for an event final medal, but say if Aly had become injured, they would not have had someone to fill in on the events that Aly typically contributes. Having Gabby Douglas on the team still brings in a great bars score, and ensures that there's someone on the team who can go up on any of the events at any time. Not that any of this matters now, since the team final is over and luckily there wasn't any injuries!
I don't love that article because it seems to be suspicious of something and it ultimately doesn't really matter anyway.
Posted: 8/11/16 at 2:46pm
Good points. I have been following gymnastics pretty closely since the London games, but do admit to not knowing a lot still. I just hope that they didn't throw the meet purposely because there were other teams that wanted to compete that didn't get the opportunity.
Posted: 8/11/16 at 2:48pm
It's definitely possible, I just don't see the reason to why they would do that. There's no benefit for anyone!
Posted: 8/11/16 at 3:02pm
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/08/11/the_daily_beast_s_olympics_grindr_stunt_is_dangerous_and_unethical.html
An interesting read about gay hookups in the Olympic Village being exposed.
Posted: 8/11/16 at 7:46pm
HenryTDobson said: "http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/08/11/the_daily_beast_s_olympics_grindr_stunt_is_dangerous_and_unethical.html
An interesting read about gay hookups in the Olympic Village being exposed."
I was just reading about this. Absolutely VILE. The "journalist", Nico Hines is rightly getting dragged on Twitter by dozens - if not hundreds - of people for his recklessness and callousness. I can't believe that neither he nor his editor recognized what they were doing at the time. Unbelievable.
This other reaction, from Slate's LGBTQ vertical, contains a long Twitter smackdown from Amini Fonua, out gay Olympian from Tonga and is well worth reading.
Posted: 8/12/16 at 12:38am
Wow, intense words. I actually think the article on the surface level is interesting enough (the high levels of sex occurring in the Olympic Village is a topic that has always intrigued me), yet it's horrible that he felt entitled to name certain athlete's countries. Poor decision by Daily Beast to run the article.
Posted: 8/12/16 at 12:39am
But in happier news - what a night for the United States! Phelps! Biles! Murphy! Raisman! And that win by Simone Manuel was so thrilling, I feel lucky to have seen it live.
Poor Missy Franklin though...
Posted: 8/12/16 at 3:44pm
I love this picture!
Posted: 8/14/16 at 1:14pm
Anybody watching the synchronized swimming? One thing that has always bothered me is the quality of some of their pointed toes --- kind of like overly-pointed crunchy toes. Instead of looking like pretty feet, they look gnarly. Anybody else bothered by this? LOL.
Posted: 8/14/16 at 2:34pm
Of all the things one could think of to do with Ryan Lochte, robbing him would be the farthest thing from my mind!
At least he is okay, but why the USOC stopped an interview with him and Billy Bush seems odd. I guess the truth will come out soon.
Updated On: 8/14/16 at 02:34 PM
Posted: 8/14/16 at 2:52pm
Sounds like the always endearing Ryan didn't even realize they weren't actually cops until they put a gun to his head. Poor guys, at least they all still have their gold medals (and their lives) as consolation.
NYT
Updated On: 8/14/16 at 02:52 PM
Posted: 8/14/16 at 3:04pm
That wasn't even the first incident of the games.
Posted: 8/14/16 at 10:06pm
So thrilled for Team GB today.
Posted: 8/15/16 at 7:12am
Great night for Team GB! 2 golds and a silver within one hour. So fun to watch!
And of course Simone Biles!
Posted: 8/15/16 at 9:31am
I hate the NBC coverage. If you are not American or Usian Bolt, you get ignored. If an American is not a favourite to win a sport, they do not show it. The live feed is much better, i think it is BBC coverage, they highlight how everyone is doing not just the United States.
For a good example check out the womens 50 meter on Saturday. The winner is Pernille Blume of Denmark and they did not even mention or show her before the race or during the race until she won it, and then practically ignored her to talk about how great the American who was favoured came in second place raced. Blume had the most emotional touching reaction to winning, and the carmera is showing all this and still,all the announcers talk about was how great the American favourite swan the race, even though she came in second.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/pernille-blume-claims-gold-simone-manuel-silver-50m-free
Updated On: 8/15/16 at 09:31 AM
Posted: 8/15/16 at 9:51am
I have no issue with the coverage skewing toward Americans, however I hate the amount of banter we must endure. Costas is insufferable, and the others at NBC are not much better. There are almost always multiple events going on at once; I see no reason why we should be subjected to inane banter.
Also, NBC doesn't seem to know that it is 2016. They withhold gymnastics coverage from live TV (it is available online), then they present it late in their coverage and try to create drama when anyone who has a smartphone knows the results.
Posted: 8/15/16 at 11:41am
madbrian said: "I have no issue with the coverage skewing toward Americans, however I hate the amount of banter we must endure. Costas is insufferable, and the others at NBC are not much better. There are almost always multiple events going on at once; I see no reason why we should be subjected to inane banter.
Also, NBC doesn't seem to know that it is 2016. They withhold gymnastics coverage from live TV (it is available online), then they present it late in their coverage and try to create drama when anyone who has a smartphone knows the results.
"Yes! who do they think they are fooling! it is all in the same timezone too, not like Sochi or London which maybe they have a reason to delay. Their rooting for their favourite players is annoying and not in the Olympic Spirit. And I do not need to see Ryan Seacrest either. He seems to not know anything about Sport or the players he is interviewing.
Posted: 8/15/16 at 4:43pm
I agree that NBC needs to rethink some of its Olympic coverage. I find it incredibly irritating when they're rambling on about one of the gymnasts while she's warming up or waiting to get a score, when we could instead be watching another piece of gymnastics. I don't know why NBC thinks the USA is so self-absorbed. Don't get me wrong, I wanna see the USA, of course, but I also would like to see the other players because (surprise!) they're people too. And incredible athletes.
Unfortunately it has been this way for many Olympics now. I don't think they'll ever get it right.
Posted: 8/15/16 at 4:47pm
Mike Hixon is like a hotter Zac Efron.
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