Olympics Discussion Thread

[Drake Tungsten]

**** you too, Greece.

Gardner, protesters square off at Acropolis

Former Olympic wrestling champion Rulon Gardner found himself in a political face-off during a visit to the Acropolis on Saturday morning.

Gardner, who retired from his sport on Wednesday after winning a bronze medal in the Greco-Roman 120-kilogram class, climbed to the Athens hilltop with his wife, parents, brother, sister and in-laws to take in the view and see the famed Parthenon.

When they reached the top, however, they encountered about 35 Communist protesters, who had hung a banner that read: POWEL (sic) KILLER GO HOME, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who on Saturday canceled his planned trip to Athens to attend the Olympic closing ceremonies. "I tried not to let it bother me," Gardner told SI.com of the banner.

After walking around, Gardner and his family decided to have their photo taken with an American flag and the Parthenon in the background. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a U.S. flag, which began flapping in the strong wind. Upon seeing it, the protesters began booing and hissing at Gardner, and a uniformed security guard came up to him. According to Gardner, he and the guard had the following exchange:

"Please put your flag away," the guard told him.

"Wait -- what's fair about this?" Gardner replied, gesturing to the anti-U.S. banner.

"Look, their [banner] was already up here. We wish they had taken it down. Please give me your flag."

"I will not give you my flag," responded Gardner.

"I wasn't trying to start an incident, so after a few minutes I tucked [the flag] back into my backpack," said Gardner, who won a gold medal in Sydney in the Greco-Roman 130-kilogram class.

"But from there on, for the rest of our time at the Acropolis, there was extra security around us. As we were getting ready to leave, we walked back near where the banner was hanging and the Communists were sitting. I was wearing a USA shirt. They started hissing at me. My brother [Reynold, a former Oregon State wrestler] came over next to me. He's 6-3, 300. I think they realized it was something they didn't want to mess with."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/08/28/gardner.protest/index.html

I wish Rulon had kicked the living **** out of those Turkish commies.

[Ted Striker]

They are losers

Still upset over the junta and the entire Communist world that has collapsed, never to be heard from again.

It's very annoying

[Urban Ranger]

Gee wiz.

Why are these people from "Land of the Free" so opposed to other people's freedoms?

[Drake Tungsten]

Why, after years of posting on an English language board, is your English comprehension still so bad that you can't even understand the point of a simple article?

[GePap]

Some numbers to boost and deflate egos:

Currently, by the end of today, 855 medals had been given out in 285 events...

So, a quick look through the medal count shows the US with 100 currently and Russia second with 84, while China is third at 62 (or so).

A quick comparison of the % of medals earned to their % of world pop. for the top 5 medal count states gives us the following multipliers.

US=2.5 (that means our % of medals was 2.5 times what our % of World population is)
Russia=4.3
China= .4 (with 7.25% of medals, BUT 20.3 % of world pop)
Australia=18.4
Germany=4.2

And for Sloww, cuba=13.

[Ted Striker]

Did anyone notice that the USA didn't even qualify a team for baseball?

That is traditionally considered "America's pasttime."

Nobody in America even noticed.

[Drake Tungsten]

I noticed, but not until a week or so into the games. I couldn't believe it...

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Did anyone notice that the USA didn't even qualify a team for baseball?

That is traditionally considered "America's pasttime."

Nobody in America even noticed.

Its not exactly surprising though. The thing is all the Major League Baseball players are still playing baseball as they were not let out to play in the games. (I don't know exactly how it worked for the minor leagues, but I believe many of them still were not out of their professional duties to play in the games.) I believe many other professional baseball leagues were either not playing, or were let out for the games. In the case of Cuba they are not allowed to play on any team other than the one dedicated to playing in the olympics, so all their best players are playing in the olympics. This gives a huge advantage for teams outside of the US.

[Drake Tungsten]

I also can't believe that the Japanese Dream Team didn't win. They're going to be pissed about that for a while.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by GePap
Some numbers to boost and deflate egos:

Currently, by the end of today, 855 medals had been given out in 285 events...

So, a quick look through the medal count shows the US with 100 currently and Russia second with 84, while China is third at 62 (or so).

A quick comparison of the % of medals earned to their % of world pop. for the top 5 medal count states gives us the following multipliers.

US=2.5 (that means our % of medals was 2.5 times what our % of World population is)
Russia=4.3
China= .4 (with 7.25% of medals, BUT 20.3 % of world pop)
Australia=18.4
Germany=4.2
And for Sloww, cuba=13.

And for the winner of the % by population, comparing all countries...

Jamaica = 5 medals for 2,713,130 = 1 medal per 542,626
Cuba = 21 medals for 11,308,764 = 1 medal per 538,513
Slovenia = 4 medals for 2,011,473 = 1 medal per 502,868
Estonia = 3 medals for 1,341,664 = 1 medal per 447,221
Australia = 49 medals for 19,913,144 = 1 medal per 406,391
Bahamas = 2 medals for 299,697 = 1 medal per 149,845

The Bahamas look even better compared to other countries if you only consider gold medals by population.

[Ted Striker]

good lawd

the USA men just PWN3D the 4x400 relay

Nobody else came close, a 5 second distance between them and second

The American women seem to dominate all the events they are supposed to

[Imran Siddiqui]

They keep neglecting to mention the other judging error on Yang's performance...if you want to run instant replay, go for it, but do it all the way. Take away his bronze. Otherwise, quit complaining and be happy that there was an error in his favor.

Um.. then why don't you run the instant replay on Hamm and see what he messed up but wasn't caught? The fact is that this isn't an 'instant replay' error, but an INITIAL score error. It'd be like playing a football game, but the official scorer said one team actually was starting with -3 points.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It was a judging error. The starting score was up there in big lights through the whole routine, and nobody questioned it. The rules say that, if you're not even paying enough attention to let them know at the time, too bad. I bet that somebody would complain if the initial score of a football game was -3 to 0...

It is an 'instant replay' error in that they want to go back in time and change an official's decision. If you start doing that in a competition that depends entirely on (at least somewhat subjective) judging, then the whole system falls apart. There's no reason to think the judges would or would not have given the same results with an extra tenth added even if the starting score had the extra tenth. It becomes a hypothetical situation where nobody knows what would have happened, which is why the rules for challenges are set up as they are.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The rules say that, if you're not even paying enough attention to let them know at the time, too bad.

The South Koreans said they told the judges, who said, wait until afterwards and then file it. So if a team was down by 3 at the beginning of a game and then was told to wait until later, they condoned it?

[Ted Striker]

Who cares?

Let's get to what's really important

Is Bob Costas wearing a wig or not???