Olympics

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by LaurV

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...

Hopefully the men's high bar final made up for it... some crazy awesome routines get 6th and 7th, you know it's a great final. The American commentators were saying the winner's triple release was the hardest thing in any event, men or women, in all of gymnastics, and it certainly looked like it.

[Kosmaj]

Very poor imagination, that's the first impression.
"NO" to all except possibly to surfing but that's impossible to organize at many sites.

How about a race at random distance?
The runners are told the distance they have to run 5 minutes before the start. In the 4000-6000 meters range, for example

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Sincere suggestions:

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

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1...e-summer-games

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Kosmaj

How about a race at random distance?
The runners are told the distance they have to run 5 minutes before the start. In the 4000-6000 meters range, for example

How about instead a 5-10k race that has variation in altitude and terrain types?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_country_running
It once was in the Olympics. It would be a great way to show off a park in a host city.

[Dubslow]

Ultimate!

Seriously, it's the most "sportsman-like" game out there.

http://www.usaultimate.org/about/ult..._the_game.aspx
http://www.usaultimate.org/faq/default.aspx#198

[Brian-E]

How about men's synchronised swimming?

Peter Tatchell points out several olympic sports which are only open to one gender or the other in his open letter to Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee.

Some of the additional events for men are based on the sexist assumption that women are the weaker sex. These male-only events include the 50 km walk and the decathlon.


In two instances, men are denied the opportunity to compete in perceived feminine events: rhythmic gymnastics and synchronised swimming. This is equally discriminatory and offensive.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

How about men's synchronised swimming?

Peter Tatchell points out several olympic sports which are only open to one gender or the other in his open letter to Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee.

I veer towards the "ban boxing" camp, while acknowledging that a confrontation in Mersenneforum may keep me off the streets.

Accordingly I find women's boxing a retrograde step.
(And not erotic in the slightest).

David

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Kosmaj

Very poor imagination, that's the first impression.

Perhaps it's my fault that that confuses the goal of this thread, which is to imagine new sports, with the goal of that article, which is to suggest real, existing, organized sports that should be added to the Olympics.

I did not adequately note that distinction in my previous post with the link.

[pinhodecarlos]

Just to let you all know that now Portugal has one more Olympic medal (23) than Michael Phelps (22).

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

Just to let you all know that now Portugal has one more Olympic medal (23) than Michael Phelps (22).

Speaking of which...
http://xkcd.com/1092/

[cheesehead]

I just discovered that Telemundo has Olympic coverage that apparently doesn't duplicate NBC's.

- - -

Later:

Unfortunately, they sign off earlier and go to paid programs for a paint sprayer.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

NY Times has an interesting set of infographics on evolution of Olympic winning times in the 100m (running and swimming-freestyle) and the long jump.

For some years on those graphics, the gold-medal icon is overlaid by the silver-medal icon, but a careful mouseover reveals the difference.

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".

... and, sometimes, the altitude.

Scientific American had an article analyzing Bob Beamon's amazing jump. It concluded that several inches were courtesy of Mexico City's high altitude (lower gravity and air density) and the maximum-allowable 2 m/s tail wind, but the majority of his record's almost-two-foot (55 cm) "leap" over the previous record was simply due to Beamon's being practically perfect in every aspect of that particular attempt.

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Beamon

... In addition to Beamon's record, world records were broken in most of the sprinting and jumping events at the 1968 Olympic Games. Beamon also benefited from a tail wind of 2 meters per second on his jump, the maximum allowable for record purposes. It has been estimated that the tail wind and altitude may have improved Beamon's long jump distance by 31 cm (12.2 in.). During the same hour Lee Evans set the world record for 400 metres that lasted for almost 20 years.

... but Evans would've had the tail wind offset by an equal head wind on the opposite side of the track.

- - -

BTW, I notice that the ruler beside the long-jump pit this year has the 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-meter distances numbered, but the ruler marks end at 8.2. Beamon jumped 8.9 meters.