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Summer Olympics

SBrown

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This might be in the degrees of separation world. I first met Billy Bush 25+ years ago...

I would imagine that he got Louche's comments, did the interview, and that his producers thought "This is good stuff. We need to jump on this." He does work for NBC......

Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if he said "I'm having time buying this", and made sure that Lotche was firm in those comments. "Are you sure? You're OK if I go on record on this?"

I don't fault BB. Lochte? Love James' last paragraph! Don't pull a Lotche!

Not sure if you meant to do this, but either way, best Freudian slip evah.
 
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Tricia

Tricia

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The lack of balance on what is getting attention and what is not, during this olympics is a little crazy.

The athletes pour their heart and soul into this. Lets get on with the games and finish with some dignity.
 

Jim Kenney

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Matt Centrowitz, Oregon grad, but went to high school from my area took gold in the men's 1500m run. How cool is that?!? With the African dominance in middle/long distances I wasn't sure we'd ever see that in my lifetime. Matt's dad was also a great distance runner and coaches track at American University here in DC where one of my daughters graduated from. Young Matt has blazing speed so I knew if it was a tactical race he could be in the mix at the end. I didn't expect him to lead almost from start to finish.
 

Monique

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Rant on an Olympic sport no one else probably cares about:

I had exposure to Taekwondo sparring tournaments as a teen, so I like to watch a few sparring matches. I don't follow particular athletes, and I'm really just looking to see what's going on. What's going on does not impress me. Husband commented that it's a terrible spectator sport and that he can't even tell what just happened unless there's a slow motion replay - probably true, although I don't think it's that hard to follow (after years of sparring, and watching friends spar, myself). What's interesting and unfortunate is that the electronic point detection system - something I remember was starting to come into use over 15 years ago, but I don't know when it became part of the highest level competitions - is affecting the "kicks" that the competitors use. They're doing some weird, weird things to trigger the sensor. Now, WTF (World Taekwondo Federation, you peanut gallery) Taekwondo sparring has never been a "fight" - I'd say sparring is to a street fight as chess is to a military battle - but to me, that makes it even more important that competitors at least keep it somewhat legit by using recognized techniques. These people are not inventing moves that would be effective on the street - they're using moves that would get them pummeled in a real fight.

Here's an article husband found on the stupid (my words) kicks: http://www.taekwondo-information.org/taekwondo-sparring-rules.html

And here's an article I found on point scoring: http://www.taekwondo-information.org/taekwondo-sparring-rules.html

I remember when WTF TKD became an Olympic sport, and sparring consequently went from one point per hit to that BS where you get more points for flashier kicks - widening the inherent gap between sparring and real fighting. I do not recommend doing a spinning kick to the head if someone's attacking you. I don't think it makes the sport any more watchable.

Also weird is that 20 years ago, WTF refs of a certain rank wore these banana yellow business suits. Kind of silly looking, but they were easy to find in a hurry. Now the ref suits seem to be some variation of the Sea World employee uniform. Don't get it.

FWIW, the reason I keep emphasizing WTF is that there's another standard with different legal targets and required body protection, called ITF, with the US division being the ATA.

It's a bummer to see a sport change this way. I doubt more kids are active in martial arts due to the Olympic exposure, but it does seem (to this grumpy old person) to have made the sport a lot less ... authentic, I guess the word is. Meaningful. When they don't have sensors, there are four corner judges, and three of them have to have noted a hit for it to score. I like that a lot better. I see that the justification for sensors is that it's hard to gauge head shots accurately, but you know, I find soccer fouls hard to see, too, and somehow the handful of refs on the field manage.
 

crgildart

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I'd like to see more martial arts coverage on the main Olympic feed as well including judo and wrestling. My son got to see a US Judo Team kid train at his dojo when he was really little, barely remembers but would have been neat to get to see that same guy compete. No clue how he did. My son didn't stick with judo long but did start wrestling in middle school and may continue now that he is in high school. I took some tae kwan do when I was his age so I'd definitely not flip the channel if that came on.
 

James

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Thankfully Brazil beat Germany in pk's for the gold medal. It takes some of the sting away from the 7-1 loss the Germany at the wcup 2 yrs ago. Plus Neymar cenented his legacy. This free kick was amazing:
Nice that no one missed their pk after the overtimes. Brazil saved one, then the last was Neymar:
 

Philpug

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Thankfully Brazil beat Germany in pk's for the gold medal. It takes some of the sting away from the 7-1 loss the Germany at the wcup 2 yrs ago. Plus Neymar cenented his legacy. This free kick was amazing:
Nice that no one missed their pk after the overtimes. Brazil saved one, then the last was Neymar:
These guys are good, placing that kick in basically the only 1'x1' sqaure that the goalie couldn't get it. Artwork.
 

fatbob

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I watched some Taekwondo cos it turns out GB are reasonably good at it. Some fights are impressive but some are BS running away contests. A Korean girl in one of the lighter weight semis got a golden point win without a single attempt at an attack in regular rounds. And I tend to agree that hooking your foot on someone's shoulder then contorting to try and drag it against the back of the head isn't actually real combat.
 

Monique

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I watched some Taekwondo cos it turns out GB are reasonably good at it. Some fights are impressive but some are BS running away contests. A Korean girl in one of the lighter weight semis got a golden point win without a single attempt at an attack in regular rounds. And I tend to agree that hooking your foot on someone's shoulder then contorting to try and drag it against the back of the head isn't actually real combat.

There used to be something, I don't remember the exact terminology, but basically if the match was a tie, judges would decide the winner based on who had the more aggressive fighting spirit.

I have the official WTF documentation at home somewhere. Wonder if it's in there.
 

Monique

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We're watching the women's mountain biking competition right now. Hardtails on those technical sections - much respect.
 

Jim Kenney

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Galen Rupp got third in the men's marathon. It's only his second official marathon race.
Very nice! Only his second marathon, maybe he needs to forget the 10k? Perhaps we'll see him again in four years. Old guys can do well in the marathon. US had quite a resurgence in middle and long distance races with men and women taking medals in many events this Olympics: Matt Centrowitz winning the 1500m gold!! Galen Rupp gets bronze in marathon. Chelimo (immigrant from Kenya, enlisted in US Army) gets silver in 5000m. Coburn 3rd in womens steeple, Jager silver in mens steeple. Simpson bronze in womens 1500m. Murphy bronze in mens 800m. Not sure if this is a fluke or beginning of a shift from decades of African distance running dominance??
 

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As we close this out I have to point out all the nay saying and skepticism that seems to precede every event of this magnitude.. Security nightmares, venues not ready to host, not enough resources, Zika plague of the century, on and on.. Only real high profile problem was caused by some drunk American that was too scared to tell his mama that he messed up and lost all his spending money hahahahaha! Well done Rio, congrats on the Futbal Gold!
 

Karen_skier2.0

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Galen Rupp got third in the men's marathon. It's only his second official marathon race.

He's done one half-marathon and two marathons--friggin' amazing!!!!

Unfortunately, this Lochte incident (I hate even typing his name), has been a huge distraction from the games for the past week. NBC used his interview as a marketing gimmick Saturday night to "wait and see" his big interview. If Lochte truly was remorseful and didn't want to be a distraction, he would have refused to do any interviews until after the Olympics were over. What a waste of talent. I bet no one even remembers which medals he won at this games and no one will care about his medal total.

Although, I do hope he has a strong support system since athletes in his situation have hit rock bottom and lower after an incident like this. Jeret Peterson, Aerialist and 2x Olympian, never forgave himself for getting sent home from Torino after getting in a fight and the consequences were deadly.
 

Muleski

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Interesting games, really enjoyable to watch. Great points above, too.

We're friendly with some people involved with the sailing, crew and kayaking teams. They were somewhat concerned heading down there. I haven't heard any chatter about their competitions, other than there being a fair amount of trash and debris in the water where the sailing was held. A friend of mine did say that it's pretty much the same conditions for everybody. Didn't detract from much. Certainly from what we saw on TV, it seems like a huge success. We also really enjoyed watching some of the more obscure stuff as well.

We're outside of Boston, and the TV news just did a spot on Abbey D'agostino, the 5K runner who was lauded for her sportsmanship. Neat story, she's evidently a great person. There was some talk that the USOC would have like her to be the flag bearer, but of course she was on crutches with the injury {ACL, MCL, meniscus tears...}

Once again one of the lead stories on the network news was about Lochte. He has lost his endorsement deals with his four biggest sponsors, Speedo and Ralph Lauren being the two biggest. The guy is obviously not bright, but I also hope that he has a big support system, and a supportive family around him, as Karen_skier2.0 noted. He's getting crushed, and will need it. Too bad that it's has this much airtime.

And yes, great to see Brazil win big in their two big team sports. Fun to watch!
 
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