[billybobsky]

They only started allowing professional athletes in the early 1990s I think. It was sport dependent, though most of the famous athletes now have sponsorship which would have been considered professional.

[Eugene]

I like how it took half a decade for the various governing bodies to determine how NOT HAVING LOWER LEGS is not as good as HAVING LOWER LEGS.

[turbulentfurball]

Best competitor names: Mahboob and Bumyoung

[adamb]

Bryan Coquard

[pscates2.0]

I just went to Yahoo's home page and over in the "Trending Now" box where they briefly list the top 10 stories throughout the day (not full headlines, just a 1-4 word synopsis/link), the #1 position was "Tyson Gay".

Not being a sports or Olympics follower, my first reaction was "wow, that'll make a few headlines...", followed by "wait, didn't Damon Wayons riff on such a thing in a standup routine about 15 years ago?"

But, no...I was wrong in my assumption that the former heavyweight champion came out over the weekend.

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by Eugene I was wondering who the gigantic, absolutely cut swimmer on the US team was. Things you find out on Wikipedia:

Yeah, wow, what a cutie. I didn't realize he was so tall. Maybe he's standing on a stair or something. When he won an individual event, he was so shocked and overwhelmed while still in the pool that his humility made him seem especially appealing to the viewer. It's kind of a shame that all these guys have to modify their responses to their own victories because the commentators keep asking them about Phelps and about how great he is. I'm glad he's retiring, though I hate to see all those gold medal hopes diminish with his absence from future Olympics.

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by Naderfan I was listening to NPR the other day and they did a story about how for a while, there were Olympic competitions in art, writing, and music. I think they said it ended in the 1950s. How's that for non-athletic events!

I heard that story too, and I was surprised that it went on until so recently. I remember reading about the samurai warriors of old, and about how the most respected would compete in writing poignant haiku before battle. Such an interesting combination, with the ferocity of a warrior paired with the sensitivity of a poet.

[murbot]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 I just went to Yahoo's home page and over in the "Trending Now" box where they briefly list the top 10 stories throughout the day (not full headlines, just a 1-4 word synopsis/link), the #1 position was "Tyson Gay". Not being a sports or Olympics follower, my first reaction was "wow, that'll make a few headlines...", followed by "wait, didn't Damon Wayons riff on such a thing in a standup routine about 15 years ago?" But, no...I was wrong in my assumption that the former heavyweight champion came out over the weekend.

He was the butt (heh) of some joking a while back with this (surprisingly non-Fark) headline:

Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 meters

[Windswept]

Congratulations to host Team Great Britain for all the medals they have been winning lately. I can't even keep track of them all! I watched Gold for Ennis and Murray yesterday, and Team Jumping in equestrian today, plus all the other GB medals that have slipped out of my memory already from the last three or four days. Yikes! What a haul.

Does anyone else get nervous watching the horses jumping all those tall barriers? You hear the horses gasping for breath between each jump, and yet they have five more enormous jumps to go. I just dread that they'll take a badly placed step and heaven only knows what will happen. I wonder if the horses like jumping, or if it's a real drag for them to be put through such ordeals. Anyone know how the horses feel about the jeopardy some of these events place them in?

[torifile]

What the hell was that indoor cycling thing? It was old people racing for the first lap and a half.

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by torifile What the hell was that indoor cycling thing? It was old people racing for the first lap and a half.

The one with the motorized bike? That's a Keirin style competition where cyclists vy for position rather than racing against a clock. It's weird that they enforce a slow pace with the motorized bike, but in most of these position based sprints, everyone lays back until the bell lap anyway.

Team Pursuit is my favorite track cycling event because it requires 4 equal riders, slipstreaming and maximum speed for the entirety of the race

[torifile]

Originally Posted by Eugene The one with the motorized bike? That's a Keirin style competition where cyclists vy for position rather than racing against a clock. It's weird that they enforce a slow pace with the motorized bike, but in most of these position based sprints, everyone lays back until the bell lap anyway. Team Pursuit is my favorite track cycling event because it requires 4 equal riders, slipstreaming and maximum speed for the entirety of the race

Not that but I think it was called Sprint cycling. http://www.london2012.com/cycling-track/

The match I saw (the gold medal one) had the french guy staring behind him at the British rider for much of the "race" at really slow speeds until the last 1.5 laps. It was bizarre.

[Eugene]

Well it's not exactly uncommon or unique to track cycling. You see it all the time in middle distance running, short track skating and other races.

[Eugene]

Cure for boredom = https://www.google.com/doodles/hurdles-2012

Also beat my score if you can. *taunt*

[_Ω_]

57.6 seconds. I even looked puffed afterwards.

[Windswept]

Wow. After wall to wall, exhaustive coverage, suddenly *wham*... it's all over. Even though two weeks is plenty, and just about the perfect amount of time to devote to the games, I find the sudden, instant, and complete cessation quite a let-down, and I seem to be suffering withdrawal, apparently. I keep looking for more "final, wrap-up" type coverage to provide closure. But, no. Hardly anything at all. eek!

I tried to watch the men's basketball gold medal match, but I just couldn't do it. That is, I watched just enough to find that I couldn't watch... with the score continually so close. I couldn't handle the tension...

Not after the US women lost to Brazil in volleyball, that is (regular, not 'beach'); which meant that any disaster could happen at any venue. First, we win 25-11, or something like that. Rather promising, one might think. Then a complete reversal occurs, and we lose. I couldn't watch that one either, once I saw how things were going. Tsk. I'm such a coward.

I so wanted to watch the US women's gold medal match in basketball though, but I never caught even a few minutes of it. Don't know 'when' (if ?) it was repeat-televised.

I wonder if NBC puts out a DVD of the games. Does anyone know?

All in all, London seems to have done a great job with the games. I always feel such a *huge* relief when no security problems have occurred. It seems almost miraculous, that with an in-pouring of so many thousands of people from all over the world all at once, that no security problems cropped up. The games would be such a perfect time for terrorists to call attention to themselves, which seems to be what they seek the most. But the security, including all those rocket launchers on apartment buildings , carried the day and kept everyone safe. Yay!!!

[Brave Ulysses]

If you get NBCSN (formally Versus) then you can view reruns of many of the events for the next few days.

[Luca]

Originally Posted by turbulentfurball Best competitor names: Mahboob and Bumyoung

Vania Stambolova
she failed to finish in the hurdles

[Luca]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 I just went to Yahoo's home page and over in the "Trending Now" box where they briefly list the top 10 stories throughout the day (not full headlines, just a 1-4 word synopsis/link), the #1 position was "Tyson Gay". Not being a sports or Olympics follower, my first reaction was "wow, that'll make a few headlines...", followed by "wait, didn't Damon Wayons riff on such a thing in a standup routine about 15 years ago?" But, no...I was wrong in my assumption that the former heavyweight champion came out over the weekend.

There was a case a few years ago where a homophobic news site put up an article about Tyson Gay, except this particular site had a word filter that automatically replaced the word "gay" with "homosexual." So he was constantly being referred to as "Tyson Homosexual."

Poor guy, I really feel sorry for him. He's the fastest American ever, but an injury put him out of the 2008 Olympics, and Usain Bolt is so dominant in sprinting that he doesn't get much attention. He finally got an Olympic medal (a silver) in London in the 4x100m relay.

[turbulentfurball]

The Paralympics opening ceremony is about to start. The trailer from channel 4 is awesome.

[Adrien8100]

I really enjoyed this event.I'm swimming lover.Michael Phelps again perform very well in this event.A victory in the event he has owned for 11 years would have made him the first man in history to win three consecutive 200m butterfly titles.
The American victory brought the 17,000 crowd to its feet to salute Phelps’s moment of history.

[drewprops]

Originally Posted by Adrien8100 I really enjoyed this event.I'm swimming lover.Michael Phelps again perform very well in this event.A victory in the event he has owned for 11 years would have made him the first man in history to win three consecutive 200m butterfly titles. The American victory brought the 17,000 crowd to its feet to salute Phelps’s moment of history.

This was my favorite part of the Olympics. This post. Above it is GOLD!!


...

[FFL]

Originally Posted by Adrien8100 I really enjoyed this event.I'm swimming lover.Michael Phelps again perform very well in this event.A victory in the event he has owned for 11 years would have made him the first man in history to win three consecutive 200m butterfly titles. The American victory brought the 17,000 crowd to its feet to salute Phelps’s moment of history.

Excellent post, David ... err.... "Adrien".

Do you think that the great Michael Phelps ever trained in an Above Ground Pool?

[Chinney]

Originally Posted by FFL Excellent post, David ... err.... "Adrien". Do you think that the great Michael Phelps ever trained in an Above Ground Pool?

That 'bot post derailed the whole thread on that forum.

[ronmexico]

I always enjoy it when you guys go after spammers. This one made me laugh out loud. Let me ask, though, what are they trying to accomplish when they post something like that?

[turtle]

Originally Posted by ronmexico I always enjoy it when you guys go after spammers. This one made me laugh out loud. Let me ask, though, what are they trying to accomplish when they post something like that?

I think it is normally that their signature is the spam, just like in that forum FFL linked to. Here, Brad has set it so they don't show until a certain member status IRRC.

[ronmexico]

So how does this work...clearly this was some sort of stock paragraph that was posted. Does someone spend their time googling the olympics and pasting this line into forums? Ultimately, how could they make any money doing this?

[ronmexico]

I looked up Forum Spam on Wikipedia and they did a good job explaining what's going on here. People really come up with some odd ideas for making money.