I'm not a fan of "California sports" - bastardizations of traditional events involving gratuitous "rad gear, d00d", like beach volleyball, half-pipe in skiing (= skateboarding on snow), etc. My favorite example of this kind of crud - which thankfully has not survived - is "ski ballet". Remember that?

I know, beach volleyball is wildly popular, but seriously, without the bikinis and kewl gear would anybody watch? The olympics are supposed to be a celebration of athletic prowess, and we already have indoor volleyball in that particular case. I would like to see other nontraditional events which actually *are* more about athletic skill than the marketing of colorful accoutrements. Like rock climbing, for instance. Depending on the venue, one could have both indoor-style climbing wall (that could also be erected outdoors) and natural wall. How cool would a top-roped version of a famous climb at Joshua Tree, Yosemite, or one of the famous gorges in Europe, be?

[url]http://1045theteam.com/american-tv-neglected-the-saddest-story-in-the-olympics/[/url]

I had in fact heard about this earlier, but not about who was in charge of time keeping.

Edit: Great Britain/England [i]suck[/i] at penalty kicks.

[QUOTE=pinhodecarlos;306900]It's was because of Denis Pankratov underwater swim that after the jump the swimmers now have 15 meters limit to emerge (new rule since those Olympics). If you notice when he jumped he went deeper than the others, with full underwater speed he was able, with help of impulse force and slowing increasing inclination to the horizontal (with power increase), to swim faster below water than others above.
Each arm is considered a stroke.[/QUOTE]
It's been 35 years since I swam, and for us it was always try to dive horizontal as possible to almost skip on the water to get moving. I asked about the stroke, as I used to swim 8 strokes before breathing on anything under 100M and when doing the 500M would slowly go from 8 to 6 to 4. I preferred to swim the Navy readiness tests, but I was never in the shape I was in during junior high/high school; I could do a 12 min 500M with no training, and the one time I spent 6 months swimming daily, I did it in 8:12. When I mentioned it to my mother, she dragged out the old ribbons and found one at 7:46 for a 4th place finish... and I wasn't even a great swimmer compared to the other kids.

[url]http://olympics.yardbarker.com/blog/olympics/article/you_cant_spell_usa_gold_without_douglas/11375689[/url]

hehe

[QUOTE=ewmayer;306921]
I know, beach volleyball is wildly popular, but seriously, without the bikinis and kewl gear would anybody watch? The olympics are supposed to be a celebration of athletic prowess, and we already have indoor volleyball in that particular case. [/QUOTE]
The virtue of volleyball is that it can be played on
any surface, since the ball doesn't touch the ground.
It is thus a globally accessible sport.
As for athleticism, folk often dive to prevent a shot hitting the ground,
and from a common sense safety viewpoint, I am happier to see them
landing on sand than on a hard surface necessitating knee pads etc.

David

[QUOTE=davieddy;306991]As for athleticism, folk often dive to prevent a shot hitting the ground, and from a common sense safety viewpoint, I am happier to see them landing on sand than on a hard surface necessitating knee pads etc.[/QUOTE]
Granted, diving into sand is softer than onto a gym floor ... but there is plenty of diving in indoor volleyball and one rarely sees serious injuries resulting from it. On the flip side of diving, leaping is much more effective off a hard floor, as is lateral movement.

--------

NY Times has an interesting [url=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/05/sports/olympics/the-100-meter-dash-one-race-every-medalist-ever.html]set of infographics[/url] on evolution of Olympic winning times in the 100m (running and swimming-freestyle) and the long jump. The long jump shows a distinctly different trajectory, which appears to rapidly asymptote toward a kind of "natural limit" in the 9-10m range (this is the men), whereas the other 2 events show no such plateauing.

It seems to me that the running-time evolution have been rendered qualitatively different from long jumping because it offers more opportunity for equipment-aided performance, by way of hi-tech track surfaces, shoes and suits. The long jump can benefit a bit from those, but to a much lesser extent because the run-up is shorter and top speeds limited by the need to perform a legal takeoff and transition from running to jumping at the end. In others words, with jumping "it's much more about the human".

Swimming is a tough one ... until the advent of hi-tech skinsuits in the past 20 years it's hard to argue "better equipment" (unless breeding for large hands and feet counts :), yet times steadily improved throughout the past century. Maybe the combination of evolution of swim-techniques, training methods and human body size (which confers advantage in swimming but apparently not in long jumping) gives swimming many more ways to improve times. Since there are naturally occurring genetic glitches leading to humans being born with webbed hands and feet, I wonder how long it'll be before we have our first legal wrangling over a swimmer with that highly-advantageous-for-that-sport adaptation.

Interesting to compare the evolution of long and high jump, too. (You have to dig up the high jump data yourself, no handy NYT graphic for that). In high jump you've got evolution of the equipment (jumpers used to have to deal with sticking the landing as well as the jump), technique (e.g. Fosbury flop), and more of a body-size benefit than in the long jump.

"Diving"
 

Talking of falling on hard surfaces, the most effective way of avoiding injury is to do a somersault (according to my GP father).
I consequently find it infuriating that commentators constantly accuse soccer players of "play-acting" when then do this after a foul tackle.

[QUOTE=Flatlander;305805]Anyone going? I know davieddy likes to keep fit.

I could have forced the finances but my health is dodgy. I'm near Gatwick so just a few miles away, about a ten hour drive apparently.[/QUOTE]

Not sure if I should start a new thread as this one has gone splendidly off-topic.

Anyway I did the Olympic Park and stadium yesterday for the first time.
Not sure how to report this, but contrary to the gloom-sayers, everything went well:
trains - less busy than my usual commute
security - run with military efficiency: can we have soldiers at Heathrow please
catering - OK. Got a good cup of tea. Didn't feel up to trying what they called "Ale".
Merchandise - very expensive but good stuff and hadn't run out of small T-shirts
Marshalling and crowd control - As good as any other events I've been to.

Well done to all.


There were no British medals last night: no-one upped their game sufficiently. Two UK all-comers records though: Kirani James 43.94 400M and Yuliya Zaripova 9:06.72 3000M SC so good quality athletics.

Richard

[QUOTE]Talking of falling on hard surfaces, the most effective way of avoiding injury is to do a somersault (according to my GP father).[/QUOTE]That brings back some [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_landing_fall"]bad memories[/URL]!

:choppa:

Just watched man's horiz bar, one of the best shows in years! Wonderful job all of the finalists. Worth to see. Especially after women's balance beam, one of the weakest shows ever, not because the Romanian girl was robbed of the medal, but c'mon! so lousy performance all finalists, five girls from eight to fall down? grrr...

Sincere suggestions:

"2012 Olympics: 10 Sports That Must Be Added to Future Summer Games"

[url]http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1283590-2012-olympics-10-sports-that-must-be-added-to-future-summer-games[/url]