What have I missed at the Olympics?

by philg

Nobody at Oshkosh mentioned the Olympics and it is rare to see a television while participating in EAA AirVenture. Did I miss anything? How much excitement is lost due to the lack of spectators?

This is the first Olympics since all virtuous Americans agreed to condemn gender binarism. With a rainbow of 50+ gender IDs and “men” and “women” now ill-defined ephemeral categories, is anyone pointing out the oddity of having “men’s” and “women’s” events? (I personally think that there should be no gender-ID-based barriers in sports; just have different leagues for people of different ability, as we did in MIT intramural sports (D league hockey for those who couldn’t skate; A league for those who played high school varsity hockey).)

Department of #KnowYourAudience (TV at the Hilton Garden Inn, Oshkosh tuned to Fox News):

25 thoughts on “What have I missed at the Olympics?”

  1. You missed the so called greatest gymnast of all time (GOAT) invent a new medical condition called “twistys” which prevented her from competing in the olympics. Apparently her body and mind were not in “sync”. You also missed all of the pundits and her own team mates congratulate her for her “courage” in deciding to sit on the couch at home and watch the olympics from a far.

    • Spoken like a gold medal armchair contrarian. I get a kick out of all the various folks opining on her decision, whom have likely never competed in gymnastics, nor any sport at a remotely elite level.

    • I have 2 olympic bronze medals from the 94 games in Lillehammer, Norway. As well as several world cup victories. But alas I have never competed in gymnastics and when I competed in the olympics it was strictly for amateurs. So you may have a point!

    • The idea of an athlete suddenly unable to do the things that they’ve been doing their whole lives is hardly new. There’s a history of golfers who suddenly can’t make putts (e.g. Ernie Ells, especially at the 2016 Masters) and pitchers who suddenly can’t throw strikes (e.g. Rick Ankiel). I am not surprised this could happen to gymnasts too. And I have no doubt that a gymnast could hurt themselves badly if they are not operating at or near the top of their abilities.

    • My “don’t quit” criticism bona fides: I’ve never been to the Olympics but I was captain of my high school competition .22 small-bore varsity rifle team, which was undefeated (we never lost a match), mixed gender, 7-time State Championship winners and National Champions in my Junior year, including three-position shooting. We had an exhibition match against Texas A&M University’s rifle team (very good) at *their range* in Texas with jet-lag and scared ’em pretty good – lost by 13 points out of 1,000. Quitting is for quitters.

    • I dislike fake wokeness by artistic gymnastics is dangerous sport. See long quadriplegic 1978 Olympics winner Elena Mukhina. It makes sense that Biles skipped harder events of she feels distressed. I was around high performance achieving sports and recall gymnast/acrobat killing himself training in his apartment.

  2. I haven’t watched it except for video outtakes of the women’s gymnastics team member quitting and the US losing to France in …basketball…. Also, someone on the US Air Rifle team forgot how to shoot, so they lost, too. After that, and seeing the empty venues due to #Science, I couldn’t watch any more. I hear the big Death Star drone swarm during the opening ceremony were enough to make people have Blade Runner flashbacks.

    I think we should eliminate the Olympics based on “nationalism” and just have a “Pan-World Running and Jumping Contest” run by the United Nations. These Olympics are a good start and killing off all the residual interest in the existing Games I might have had.

    • Oh, yeah, in the “It’s Definitely the Apocalypse” department –

      It wouldn’t be Japan without a “black” robot making half-court shots look easy during the U.S. vs. France basketball game.

      Japan is as anti-racist as ***k, as everyone knows from their long history of anti-racism.

    • U.S. Olympic shooting team won three gold, two silver and one bronze medals in Tokyo, local maximum since at least 2008.
      French judo team was something, really skilled.

    • Alex, I do not know what William Shaner did on day one but I know that he bounced back and won gold in 10 meters air rifle. Previously he won bronze in 50 meters rifle. He went uber woke and requested peashooter instead of air rifle 🙂 ?

    • @LSI: I’ll investigate further what happened with Shaner, it sounds to me like nerves on the first day, which are tough to control in a competition setting like this and with tiny underpowered guns like 10M air rifle the slightest bit of “bad vibe” makes the difference between hero or zero.

      I’m proud of Amber English, this was her first time in the Olympics and she really brought it home. This isn’t a particularly “physical” sport but the lack of *consistency* and *focus* are the things that break you and she’s been shooting since age 6. She was visibly emotional at the end and deservedly so.

      It’s a shame they didn’t have a better crowd to make it more “interesting.” In the shooting sports like this, the ability to “tune out” the distractions is extremely important, at least as important as the equipment and experience.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm1cTiR3TgE

    • Alex, I am physically quite strong and I’d say swinging a 12-gouge half a day is bound to put a bruise or two on the shoulder. I watched here to win coming up from behind. What a drama. If Diana Bacosi did not miss Amber English would have a tough time catching up and winning. I am happy for her and US skeet team.

  3. “have different leagues for people of different ability”

    I like that. For weight lifting maybe some minimum lift requirement for ABCD? How do you sniff out those who pretend to lift less so they can compete in the lower grades?

    It’s a long been suggested that people who want to take performance-enhancing drugs should simply have their own league. I think it would be very popular. Humans love their drugs!

  5. Darned if I know. Time to give the cold shoulder to these pampered pests who take a knee or turn their backsides to Old Glory. Thankfully women’s soccer lost to the Canadians so the insufferable Megan Rapinoe will now disappear and no longer be in the running to challenge Greta Thunberg for the title of the most charming woman on the planet.

  7. IOC has overstayed its welcome. Global TV/media should build a venue up north (Canada, Germany?) and stop bleeding cities every four years. Not to mention the time-shifting scam.

    • Interesting stat in that article: And those audiences are … fleeing. “The opening ceremony in Tokyo drew 16.7 million viewers on NBC on July 23, accounting for both the live morning broadcast and the replay in prime time — the smallest audience for an opening ceremony in the past 33 years,” according to The Washington Post.

      We went to Tommy’s Detroit Bar & Grill last night. The TVs in the front room were all tuned to a poker channel. A vacant back room had TVs showing the Olympics (volleyball at what would probably be “B league” level under my personal system).

      (The poker players all had to wear bandanas, per Dr. Fauci. One Asian guy challenged stereotypes by wearing his just barely over his mouth (i.e., well under his nose).)

  9. @LSI: Yes, and those are real (good) shotguns firing actual shotgun loads that you can purchase. The guns themselves are surprisingly lightweight if you’ve ever held one, but they do recoil.
    Without going into all the details, just by watching you can see the recoil, which isn’t “violent” – these aren’t magnum loads – but non-negligible, enough to get your attention on the first shot, and then you have to “shrug that off” and nail the second shot consistently while it’s in flight. Thus it’s relatively easier to hit the first one, and you can see that most misses are on the second shot. It’s like getting a somewhat cushioned punch in the shoulder while you’re concentrating.

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