Your Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics anticipation thread!

It is, once again, never too early...to feel a sense of 'wait this actually happened'

http://www.trbimg.com/img-57badce1/turbine/ct-japanese-prime-minister-abe-super-mario-201-001/650/650x366

and then he proceeded to remove all his clothes in protest, i guess

anybody else get tickets?

I’m trying to

cosport australia? they have been dropping tickets at weird times the past couple weeks (US too)

I’ve missed a few goes but will try for some more

Did not succeed at the ticket lottery, sadly.

Athletes who would participate in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been assured that their cardboard beds won't collapse during sex, as long as they limit themselves to a two-in-a-bed.

I mean everyone was wondering

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/sports/olympics/shacarri-richardson-suspended-marijuana.html

dumbest shit I ever heard, she was in a legal state and smoking to cope with the death of her mother

as usual, the Onion is otm
https://www.theonion.com/dream-crushed-over-trivial-bullshit-represents-nation-b-1847220107

Would toke with her in a second

How is this dumb? Marijuana is a performance-enhancing drug and her levels were above the limit when she won the Olympic trials. It's not banned outside the competition. I'm sure plenty of athletes would like to smoke before the competition to calm the nerves.

is it? https://www.popsci.com/science/marijuana-performance-enhancing-drug-evidence/

good news for your fictional athletes: anti-anxiety meds are allowed

anyway fuck the olympics, what a grotesque institution: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/namibia-teenagers-out-of-olympic-400-over-testosterone-level/2021/07/02/bdb36c80-db2e-11eb-8c87-ad6f27918c78_story.html

Of course these things could be challenged (as all science should!), but this is the current consensus and it's on the prohibited list, so it's kind of a pointless argument, and I'm sure if there's enough evidence to the contrary it will be changed at some point. IIRC they removed alcohol from the banned substances only a few years ago.

Spectator-free Olympics confirmed:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57760883

Should be quite the atmosphere!

Not anticipating. Over it. And I used to absolutely love the Olympics, it just seems superfluous/corrupt/excessive to me at the mo.

enjoyed seeing sweden giving the usa a pasting earlier. 3-0 and should have been 5 or 6. blackstenius and aslani were great. still expect the usa to win gold tho.

It’s here!

Road race highlight so far, boss performance by Carapaz.

Road race was gripping start to finish.

Felt a bit of a traitor to my Japanese friends watching the opening ceremony, but Hiromi and the pictograms were highlights.

Drone planet a highlight, accompanying version of Imagine a very definite lowlight. My Japanese friends were all watching and laughing at it so don't feel bad!

South Korean broadcaster MBC used images to "represent" each country during the #Tokyo2020 Opening Ceremony.

Italy: pizza
Norway: salmon
Haiti: upheaval
Ukraine: Chernobyl pic.twitter.com/KpUXATuZld

— Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) July 23, 2021

Road race was gripping start to finish.

Japanese men’s skateboarders? They’re pretty damn good.

I’ve never watched competitive skateboarding before, but people fall over a lot more than I would have expected.

Risk of the road! Nyjah Huston making it look easy.

But after this cycle of runs, switching to swimming

Damn that Tunisian swimmer in the men’s 400m freestyle! He seemed more surprised than anyone! Loved his coach too!

I want o know who the ojisan they keep cutting to with the Japanese skaters, he doesn’t really fit my impression of what a skating coach might look like.

this is the only time i am regretting cutting off our cable tv because OMG trying to watch this shit through streaming apps fucking sucks balls
i am seriously going to go postal

I’m all Austrian right now.

This is even better than yesterday’s men’s race.

the Dutch TV commenter has been going thru all stages of grief simultaneously for the half hour I’ve been watching this

the best Anna won

turns out the Dutch riders thought they were in control all along, with just the one small breakaway group they would easily catch up with in time - and they did, but they they weren’t aware there was another rider that had broken away from that group. Van Vleuten actually thought she had won when she crossed the line. some serious miscommunication there. unbelievable.

words you only hear once every ~4 years (pt1): strokeside, repechage, gam-jeom

big typhoon headed for Japan, making landfall in the 27th

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/07/c6457801f920-typhoon-heads-for-eastern-japan-may-make-landfall-on-tues.html

To summarise what the Aussie commentators on the cycling said; the Dutch team spent a lot of time going back to the cars early into the race so should have known who was up the road, if you don’t count them in as you catch them, that’s your own lookout.

oh yes, incredible stupidity on their part. they even said they chose not to check with the team car in “the final section” - but I mean, Kiesenhofer had already broken free 41 km ahead of the finish

i haven't been posting here because I'm crazy swamped, but hey I'm actually in Tokyo right now covering the tennis, and climbing after.

my wrap of today's tennis drama: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/tennis-osaka-dominant-form-barty-makes-shock-exit-2021-07-25/

wow awesome !

Oh wow Barty went out? I saw the early part of that match and it did look dicey.

As for the women’s road race, yeah that was bizarre to realize! All credit to Kiesenhofer for that remarkable ride.

Good swims earlier but women’s skateboarding is awesome right now.

Also I like how for all the weird hullabaloo over Peacock coverage here in the US and whatever else they’re doing on the basic channels, the NBC Sports app just has everything from what I can tell, it’s all Australian coverage like I mentioned earlier, the ads are mostly manageable, and that’s all you need? It’s like they’re not publicizing that as much!

nbcsports app still requires a cable provider tho to get full access? or at least thats what i’m led to believe

please someond help me or i’m gonna just run through the streets screaming & waving an antique samurai sword

Impressed by how deep the winner of the men's triathlon went on the run leg, absolutely beasted himself. Looked like he was going to explode any second

xpost Apparently a workaround is to get access via Sling for a month (and take advantage of the promo price).

[muffled screaming]

Nishiya Momiji is amazing.

It does somewhat bring into relief that the most recent music I've heard on the tannoy in the skate park was block rocking beats by the chemical brothers, only one of the finalists was alive when that came out - most of the 'young people's music' would have been even older than the 33 year old on the park (Journey, Talking Heads, The smiths)

13 year old nishiya momiji being the coolest at the olympics i love her 🥺💕pic.twitter.com/QhZOypzSTJ

— gabb 💐 (@tegomass) July 26, 2021

> I’ve never watched competitive skateboarding before, but people fall over a lot more than I would have expected.

this is just Street though, everything they are trying has such a high level of difficulty, even if it all looks the same to me. i think Park will be better, more emphasis on runs than single tricks. and Vert would be better still (skate equiv of snowboard halfpipe) but that's not an event here, strangely.

i taped the uk coverage because it was 1am here. they didn't show nyjah's heat so we only saw him in the final where he spent most of his time failing at the one trick.

Been watching the mountain biking for years, so weird to see a brit win it. That course definitely looked way more technical than previous olympics, lad looked so in control though. Hope MvdP is okay, went over like a statue falling out of a wheelbarrow

whoops totally missed the mountain biking and will have to do catchup

Update on mvdp's crash. Apparently there was a ramp down one of the big drops on the practice laps but they removed it for the actual race. Somehow van der poel missed that info in the rider briefing and just rolled of the drop instead of lifting the front end

OUCH! 😬

A painful crash for Mathieu van der Poel in the opening lap of the men's cross-country mountain biking.

A relief to see him managing to get back on his bike 🙏#bbcolympics #Tokyo2020

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 26, 2021

Incredibly horrifying crash by cycling legend Mathieu van der Poel in the #Olympics mountain bike race. Oh, and he got back up and is still riding. pic.twitter.com/yLPxdROweI

— Remko Rinkema (@RemkoRinkema) July 26, 2021

MVDP did get the info, both from his coach and his teammate, but somehow failed to process it correctly or doublecheck. Dutch cycling really on a roll so far.

not sure if i'm being incredibly dense but i had blithely assumed that all events would be available on catch up on iplayer, but having a hard time finding the tennis. thought last time out in rio p much everything was available.

Discovery/eurosport won the broadcast rights for a lot of the events so there are some things that the BBC won't be entitled to show.

thx nick, i had no idea.

bbc can, aiui, choose what they want to show on bbc1 (or 2) and red button but ONLY that will be available on iplayer later.

so we got all 4 of the women's street skate heats because, i guess, there were no english people beating anyone up that they wanted to show instead. i think some of the qualifiers are literally twice the age of the others (ie 13 and >26)

I never watch much mountain biking, but this is a great course. Also really love the Z! Vetements style paint job Trek have given their bikes.

I see they put the ramp back for the women.

not sure why that would be necessary.

from what I understood it had been raining, so the grass and the rocks would be slippery, whereas everything was dry the day before

"NBC is reporting that Biles didn’t withdraw due to injury but due to her mental health, according to her coach."

One of the Chinese gymnast's floor routine was to an orchestral version of "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran.

the ROC female gymnast tracksuits are so fire.

Was anyone else like, lol taiwan doing well with all these russian ringers

One for the Real England thread?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/27/nicola-sturgeon-snp-criticised-failing-support-team-gb-olympics/

I always like to see British athletes do well, except when they're dickheads, but there's almost nothing more pleasing in sport than watching overhyped British athletes fall on their arses - sometimes literally.

so does the russian ban actually affect anything at all beyond 'having a slightly different team name' and 'listening to tchaikovsky'?

ROC used in much the same way as 'Team GB' come to think of it, except nobody forced british media to stop saying britain or great britain, they just kind of did

that guy who won the surfing is my new god

the "olympic channel" (?) cycles the same content too often but i enjoy seeing the athlete interviews

simone mid air on that vault looked like a boxer out on his feet imo, scary

Fiji beating the All Blacks is awesome

Looks like Argentina and France are both going out in the football, with Egypt and Mexico qualifying.

big upset in badminton men's singles, top-seeded mamota kento lost in 2 games to heo kwang-lee. good match! heo had some insane smashes and the net was kind to him

canada over brazil on pens in women's qf. been impressed here and in euros how quickly goalies have refined their technique when facing pens to keep one foot on or behind line at impact.

gymnastics was good y'day although beam seems basically impossible to look good on to me. or as one of the commentators put it - 'a horrendous piece of apparatus'

gb awarded well dodgy pen in extra time vs aussies. saved.

then aus score 30 secs later

aus add their 4th but gb pull it back to 4-3 with 5 mins left. epic.

aus have basically stopped attacking the last 10 mins, barely been out of their half.

aus see it out. great game.

Djokovic lost thank fuck. Shame it was Zverev who inflicted it.

novak (w/ stojanovic) also loses in mixed. will hope to settle for two bronzes

havent seen zverev once this tourney but his stats (v minimal double faults + lotsa winners) look like hes playing amazingly

Lol I was wondering about this but not caring enough till I saw this piece on ROC

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/30/roc-olympic-successes-mean-absent-russia-more-present-than-ever-tokyo-olympics

For a paper that goes on about Russia this was p even

badminton mixed doubles final was great.

yeah, loved that

straight up cackled at Djokovic going home without a singles medal for the third Olympics in a row

I'm glad to say I was there on Court no.1 nine years ago when Del Potro beat him for the bronze... and I stayed up until about 4am to watch DP knock him out of Rio too. No mixed medal either - looks like he's pulled out of the 3rd-place match. Excellent (though that sucks for Stojanovic).

First time Novak has lost back-to-back singles matches since... Tour Finals 2019 (Thiem/Federer)?

He'll be back in Paris 2024 though :(

Athing Mu looks phenomenal in the 800m. Won the semi final barely breaking a sweat.

Jamaica 1-2-3 in the women’s 100m. Thompson-Herah just broke Flo Jo’s Olympic record.

they only showed the gbr female and male runs of the bmx freestyle, two runs each. these were heats, actually down as 'seeding' because *everybody* qualified, there were only 10 women and 8 men competing. finals tonight.

(actually one of the Americans may've thrown his two runs so as to keep his final run secret, will be interesting to see)

svitolina over rybakina in the bronze match was p epic, especially the last game. svitolina is scarily intense.

bencic just gave a break back in the deciding set vs vonderosa. both players feeling it now that gold is tantalisingly within sight.

bencic comes out of a medical timeout at 4-3 to play a perfect game to break. serving for gold.

15-40

back to deuce now mp

saved. now bp

bencic does it!!! so happy for her.

Just left the tennis venue at a little over 1 am cursing both women’s matches for dragging this on for way longer than necessary. I also blame my editor who sunnily told me I would be able to go home early since Djokovic withdrew - not a chance. It’s been a crazy, insane week of tennis and I both don’t want it to end and can’t wait for it to be over.

I'm usually a fan of the obscure sports - but I'm skeptical of 3x3 basketball. Anyone a fan of 3x3? Does it have a following?

I hadn't even heard of it before the games, but I find it very enjoyable. It's like condensed greatest hits version of normal basketball.

bbc 6music news has just spoilered the bmx results for me 8(

Bit bummed we only got to see Logan Martin’s safety run.

bbc 6music news has just spoilered the bmx results for me 8(

The guardian spoils pretty much every result for me.

Tried to watch some judo last night. Incomprehensible.

7 man playoff for bronze in golf right now lol.

During the BMX, especially during Nakamura Rim’s round, they kept cutting away to a line of fans on the bridge by the arena. A little bit of pathos, there.

Enoshima is a great location for the sailing. (I really need to go and visit, that area is on Japanese TV a lot)

bbc changed channels halfway through the women's second bmx with the gbr having fallen during first run...

No Jamaican in the men’s 100m final.

love the Kenyan singlets

Yulimar finally smashes the World Record in the triple jump. Beaten after 26 years.

Aw, Bashim and Tamberi were given the option of having a jump-off in the high jump or sharing the gold and they chose to share.

That was terrific.

that Barshim-Tambera moment will be the best gif of these Games

*Tamberi

Wow, Italy gold in 100m too!

History made 😍

Gold medal for both Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi after the two athletes agree on it!#Olympics #athletics #TokyoOlympics2021 pic.twitter.com/zpWXVmsuiw

— George Orfanakis (@G_Orfan) August 1, 2021

Fratus é a personificação do meme do emocionado do pódio 🥉🇧🇷 pic.twitter.com/EfqwUwlf8s

— Vinícius (@vinni_pereira) August 1, 2021

lol badminton women's doubles final one player ran off court mid point leaving her partner to hold on, grabbed a spare racket off the table, ran back and won the point. and the indonesian pair win gold despite being unseeded

!!

This is rather worrying but not unexpected: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/exclusive-olympics-belarusian-athlete-says-she-was-taken-airport-go-home-after-2021-08-01/

Looks like Facebook is good for something:

"The 25-year-old Rojas, who has already won two world titles and a silver medal in Rio in 2016, paid credit to her coach, the legendary Cuban long jumper Ivan Pedroso, with whom she linked via Facebook. After its algorithm suggested they be friends, she wrote to Pedroso to say how much she admired him. He replied that he rated her as well and then invited her to train with him in Spain.

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“It was destiny,” she said. “It was meant to happen. I think that meeting Ivan through Facebook was definitely a turning point in my life. I just broke a world record and have an Olympic gold medal. This is priceless. I am making my dreams come true.”

Rojas, who had initially wanted to be a volleyball player only to find there was no team in her local sports centre in Anzoategui, beat Patricia Mamona of Portugal and her training partner, Ana Peleteiro of Spain, into silver and bronze respectively.

“I was looking for the world record, I knew we had that distance in my legs to get it,” she said. “I could hear the ‘wow’ from the crowd and Ana screaming – I didn’t have to look because my head, my heart, my body already knew. My coach was screaming and jumping and cheering. It is incredible!”

When told that she was the first Venezuelan female gold medallist, she said: “I think I am opening doors – and not just for myself. I am also opening doors for people who want to achieve great things and to write great things for my country.”"

Lol bcz it's true

who cares https://t.co/ZsBL4B7loO

— raandy (@randygdub) August 1, 2021

"Can we have two golds?"

Best Olympic moment I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/vZP8XNegVq

— Ana Breton (@missbreton) August 2, 2021

That was magic.

Not so magic are TeamGB’s Lotus bikes.

The moment of this Olympics for sure! And all the right people have been triggered by it. I'm curious why anyone would choose to have a jumpoff: "You can either both have the gold now, or potentially lose. It's your choice."

Canada beat US in the women's fitba. A shit match and US had the better of it tbh but would be cracking if Sinclair can end her career with the gold

sweet sweet revenge for 2012

This is rather worrying but not unexpected: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/exclusive-olympics-belarusian-athlete-says-she-was-taken-airport-go-home-after-2021-08-01/

She has been offered asylum in Poland. The whole story is crazy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/world/asia/belarus-olympics-kristina-timanovskaya.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage

Oh look, the foundations of women's sport have not in fact been ripped asunder, dashing the dreams of little girls everywhere or whatever the TERFs told us would happen https://t.co/h8TsdnJ0fH

— Stefan Bielik (@prstskrzkrk) August 2, 2021

the gifs are there:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/e4d4faf7e08b89ee2dbdc89e6ab1f6e9/69b89261e2dd4630-43/s400x600/7afdbac63454fc135fbf0a7054ad4a205a918348.gifv

https://64.media.tumblr.com/3f656ace3fb595eb46f7b1ab849391b7/69b89261e2dd4630-2e/s400x600/4ca58607e65de171e69e3e519ab3fb4d59e05711.gifv

https://64.media.tumblr.com/bd62aee6ecaf991e7df8128b9d58a61d/69b89261e2dd4630-e9/s400x600/b3938ac4d86b5eda785e6727d1dec0183aeb3e90.gifv

I was watching some of the totally nuts women's badminton duo championship and got a chuckle when the guy calling the game apologized for the cursing in Mandarin by one of the competitors.

I never realized there was so much posturing in pro badminton

the Indonesian player switching out her racquet midway through a game, such a boss move

Buat yang ketinggalan momen Greysia Poli ganti raket di tengah rally seru, retwet dan share ke WA grup kamu

Indonesia!! #greyapfinaltokyo2020

🇮🇩🇮🇩🇮🇩 pic.twitter.com/WXx6lib6Pa

— Ridlwan ꦗꦺꦴꦏꦺꦴꦮꦶ (@ridlwandjogja) August 2, 2021

That was incredible. I love Badminton but we don't get enough coverage of it here.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/02/masilingi-and-mboma-racing-against-olympic-elite-and-complex-cruelty

"Mboma and Masilingi are women."

Do you want to run that past some of your colleagues at The Guardian?

USA/Spain b-ball not on tv, streaming only...yeah that makes sense.

IOC 'looking at' potential Chinese political gesture on podium
Alex Capstick

BBC Sport

The IOC is looking into a case of two Chinese athletes who wore Mao Zedong badges on the podium. The badges were pinned to the jerseys of Team Sprint gold medalists Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi during their medal ceremony at the Velodrome. It’s a potential violation of rule 50 which bars political gestures on the victory podium.

wow!! at that 400m hurdles final.

biles just killed her beam routine. love to see it. 2nd atm

Still waiting for a result in the men’s team pursuit semi. TeamGB should have lost to Denmark as they made the catch, but the front Dane took out the last British rider, seemingly not looking where he was going. The rules are not clear what happens here.

The bouldering section of the sport climbing is absolutely fascinating.

Had the best time covering climbing’s debut today: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/climbing-men-begin-olympic-summit-attempt-sports-games-debut-2021-08-03/

👍

So jealous you got to see that. That’s a great story.

I had to take myself to be after the first American nearly made it to the top of the lead wall. I did a lot of climbing as a teenager and I guess I have a slight appreciation for what they are doing, but I didn’t expect it to be so fascinating. It’s a mental problem as much as a test of strength and skill.

Are you going back for the rest of the contest, I think between the rest of the climbing and the rest of the track cycling I have my Olympic viewing fixed till Sunday.

watching the lead climbing now and it's fascinating that they are multiplying the scores of the 3 disciplines.

Are the bouldering & speed available on the BBC?

Can’t help you there, in Australia we have channel 7 giving the all sports all the time multi channel experience, all for the small price of watching commercials for ‘The Voice’ during crucial bits of the action.

just caught the lead by accident, didn't see the other bits. BUT that was only the men's qualifying, the women's qualifying is tonight and the finals are on over the two after that. 09:30 it says, so maybe watchable live.

lol at the swimming marathon feeding station

The women’s 800m was great. Mu won, as expected, and broke the US record but looked like she could comfortably have taken at least another second or two off her time if she really needed to. Hodgkinson broke Kelly Holmes’ British record for silver. Both are 19 years old.

The 800m is famously grueling, because it is the longest race where you pretty much are sprinting the whole time, but Mu runs so loose and easy she's amazing to watch.

Are you going back for the rest of the contest

yes, will be covering all of climbing. I don't have much time to post on here, but I (try to) update regularly on work twitter: https://twitter.com/rozlatiff

meanwhile, bassa mawem, who came very close to breaking the world record in the speed climbing qualifier, has pulled out of the final after injuring himself in the lead event. :(

Him and his brother Mickael are super fun, we did a video profile of them before the competition started: https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/climbing-frances-mawem-brothers-shoot-fo-id733546384?chan=c1tal5kh

women's skateboard results spoilered by radio 4 this morning. still very watchable though - it's more bowl than the usual plywood features and smoother because of that. looks fun to skate.

some of the uniforms are too skimpy though, rara skirts and teenage midriff. conversely, Japan seem to be wearing full on button up dress shirts with collars.

I though the Japanese girl wearing the white boiler suit had the coolest look.

she was 12, and killed her heat.

the polish shirts are quietly stylish. but nothing yet up to the standard of the Dutch cargo pants from Street.

"I'm extraordinarily grateful to the IOC"

The first openly transgender Olympian, Laurel Hubbard, is set to retire after failing to record a successful lift in the women's +87kg weightliftinghttps://t.co/te4kyuf1hE pic.twitter.com/NXkh8ngbnU

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 4, 2021

climbing (women's speed) on red button freeview 601 now

i don't really know what's going on.

(it's highlights)

overall im just not that into the skateboarding stuff. not having the halfpipe was a big miss imo.

the street and trick stuff is better suited for a highlight package. way too many falls and too many slow and disjointed routines

favorite addition to the olympics so far has been the mixed gender relays in swimming and track. pure chaos.

Yeah, especially the medley swimming one, as that is the one where the teams may have most reason to choose different M/W orders based on characteristics of their particular teams.

yah that was wild

The Slovenian woman in the bouldering was an absolute climbing machine and flashed all four problems, but she’s still beatable in the other disciplines. It sets up for a really exiting final.

the speed climbing looked like they were being pulled up, mainly the way they weren't using footholds all the time

imagine a lot of this is down to time zones, but i doubt nbc's programming choices helped

"NBC's TV audience for the summer Olympics is down a whopping 45% from the Rio games in 2016. Viewership in prime-time is even worse, down 51%," @frankpallotta reports https://t.co/zJ55Q20kIV

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 4, 2021

Would never have guessed this. I feel like I'm about as attentive to the Olympics as I always am, the number of my friends who are following is about as usual, etc.

everyone i talk to is frustrated with how hard it is to find stuff and how everything gets spoiled 15 hours in advance of primetime. other than that im sure its just splintered like crazy with streaming + cable sports viewership is down across the board.

no giant stars, too damn hot...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/04/lasha-talakhadze-dominates-but-could-this-be-weighliftings-last-heave

Impressive to lift a piano even if you are doping.

men's skateboarding looks like more of a race than anything, doing laps of the bowl.

rune glifberg's a name i recognise from when channel 5 would show the x games at 2am back in 200x (maybe even 199x)

he was in the original tony hawk game!

That climbing final was intense and the multiplication system makes for big changes in the order right up to the last move.

Some really cool dives here by this 14yo

'She's 14 and doing stuff like that - amazing'
Women's 10m platform

Fourteen-year-old Quan Hongchan racked up the perfect 10s as the Chinese diver claimed gold in the women's 10m platform earlier

The combined climbing format promised some surprises and boy, did it deliver. My wrap: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/climbing-spains-gines-lopez-claims-first-climbing-gold-thrilling-olympic-debut-2021-08-05/

That 14-yr-old Chinese diver is incredible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXg30_BgOEQ

If YouTube didn’t spoil everything with their clickbaity video titles, they’d have the best coverage.

These are the videos of the dives (YT link doesn't work here)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/olympics/58098855

What racism

Former Polish sprinter Marcin Urbas has requested Olympics organizers to run a test on Namibian teenager Christine Mboma (18) to find out if she is a woman after she ran a semi-final time of 21.97 seconds in the women's 200m race.#Olympics #Tokyo2020 #AST #olympics2020 pic.twitter.com/9Qqirusmax

— African Sports Today (@africasportoday) August 3, 2021

xp Coach holding her up is a bit 🤨 to say the least.

imagine a lot of this is down to time zones, but i doubt nbc's programming choices helped

I think the ratings are down in the UK too? I haven't watched anything, even highlights, and I usually love the Olympics. It's a combination of the time of events, the BBC not being able to show everything, the fact that the majority of the Japanese people didn't want it to go ahead in the middle of an COVID outbreak but they went ahead anyway, no crowds and general pandemic stuff.

it has been a good thing to have on in the summer holidays while both me and my wife are working, I've had it on every day and sometimes even looked up when something interesting was happening

my younger son loves all sport, older son dngaf about any sport

Paris will get the same reduced coverage.

I've just been following via the odd clip for athletics, swimming, cycling or gymnastics but I haven't been able to see any badminton or table tennis, or the team stuff I get to see once every four years that I like to watch (handball, volleyball, water polo).

Feeling a bit sad about it though oddly I've been off the Olympics as a thing for a good decade. Think it's the pandemic but also how it could be the end of the Olympics as a thing. Despite its problems, such as the sheer wastage of it I do like to see lots of the world getting together and winning medals. But it's unsustainable, as in it will be just too hot for some events, which is an existential problem for all summer sport.

Yes, it's sort of a monster now. As I said the opposition to it in the host country left a sour taste in my mouth.

not a peep of the women's climbing so far, 3 hours into it. (which means, under the current rules, that there'll be no highlights to show later)

They could have it in Greece every four years, imo. Maybe not in July/August though.

I could listen to Denise Lewis and Michael Johnson all day. Paula Radcliffe, not.

Women’s climbing has a late breaking stewards enquiry but we don’t know what into.

Imagine: You come 4th in Rio, you go again, train so hard, ‘Tokyo will be my Games’. The big day comes and it’s going brilliantly, you have one of the biggest leads in #Olympics history. And then a random horse ruins your dream. Crushing for Annika Schleu pic.twitter.com/sbXI3C8Ox1

— Jason Keen (@Jason_Keen) August 6, 2021

this horse should get a medal for services to making posh English brats cry.

pro-horse anti-rider

that's hilarious. good for horse.

Wow, Italy in the 4x100! Holy smokes.

"And then a random horse ruins your dream"

lol, yes, a random horse in the horse sport.

labbe vs lindahl

apparently horse are drawn at random from a local pool. what's japanese for 'woah neddy'?

this is too nerve racking

OH MY GOD GO CANADA

:)

my daft cat woke me at 5.45am and im not working today so i managed to watch the majority of that. back to bed for me.

ha, that was quite a game

"that was just athleticism at its highest!"

(hyperbole at the table tennis)

re pentathlon the same horse is randomly drawn to be ridden by 2 diff riders, cos not enough horses, refused to move for either rider which kinda makes whole event unfair imo. clearly a duff horse.

also the leader until then was german not british and the british woman went onto win so really the horse made a posh brit happy you'll be pleased to know calz.

ffs!

british woman was 15s behind going into non-horse event* so it wasn't just the horse.

*laser-tag, or something. i wasn't watching that closely.

those penalties were insane. so so happy for christine sinclair

laser tag/800m run combo was the last event. british woman was 8th going into the horse event(which was penultimate event)
xp

wait the one with the bad horse ended up winning? why did she have to hit the horse so hard then ffs

i want to buy that bad horse, i love him

the one with the "bad horse" was the german rider Annika Schleu, the gold medal winner was the British competitor, whose name, just to make this more confusing, is Kate French

I see the confusion; the crying horsebeater is from Germany, not the UK

Weird that I didn’t get an xpost notification there

That horse got the revenge it deserved pic.twitter.com/rM75NmVEfQ

— Hoet Laureate (@Sean_nanigans) August 6, 2021

lol def a meme in the making.

Is there a non-paid way to see this pentathlon event, I'm grimly fascinated now

you can piece it together with tweets

Imagine: You come 4th in Rio, you go again, train so hard, ‘Tokyo will be my Games’. The big day comes and it’s going brilliantly, you have one of the biggest leads in #Olympics history. And then a random horse ruins your dream. Crushing for Annika Schleu pic.twitter.com/sbXI3C8Ox1

— Jason Keen (@Jason_Keen) August 6, 2021

I love any sport that involves a horse but some of these modern pentathlon showjumping rounds are not comfortable to watch… pic.twitter.com/xvBT4viq3z

— Molly Hunter (@mollhun) August 6, 2021

Modern pentathlon riding seems to be very large jumps for the ability of the horses and some of the riders. Considering they only have a short time to ride a strange horse how safe is this? I’d be wearing a BP and air jacket! And they get back on! 😱🤷🏼‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/mOCitZJVIQ

— Clare E Gabriel (@ClareEGabriel3) August 6, 2021

🐴🐴🐴

lol def a meme in the making.

― pomenitul, Friday, 6 August 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Nothing but support for withholding your labor at the most critical point of production. pic.twitter.com/VsvBjqwYtY

— Brett "Unions 2021" Banditelli (@banditelli) August 6, 2021

Challenge Annika,lol

Bunch of savages

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/07/german-modern-pentathlon-kim-raisner-coach-thrown-out-of-tokyo-olympics-for-punching-horse-annika-schleu

Spanghero wants to know your location

Hassan wins the 10k, to go along with gold in 5k and bronze in the 1500.

Just looks so fucking shattered

Well done Brit posho for saving 🐴

Maher withdraws from team final
Showjumping team event final

It's all over for Great Britain in the showjumping team final as Ben Maher takes the decision to withdraw.

With Team GB sitting ninth in the standings on 24 penalties, he has decided it's not worth risking Explosion W.

daughter of the boss is gonna get a medal in showjumping.

ooh sweden hit last fence to tie usa with one country to jump

and fence down and refusal for france, from first to out on last rider

so belgium bronze and sweden vs usa in jump off for gold.

maybe punching a house can be an actual event come Paris 2024

No typo detected ^

USA could still top the gold medal table. Women's volleyball, boxing and they will win women's basketball.

Team GB might get another gold or two tomorrow (cycling and boxing). Lottery cash means there is some resource to chase sporting dreams. The dominance in cycling is over but that's generational, and there are prospects. It's rowing where it looks like it's a goner.

I would watch competitive house-bashing.

The 'gold medal table' is a rotten artifact of the 20th century.

Should be medals per capita. (San Marino would be top.) Or maybe per gdp.

Well done, Neeraj Chopra. India’s first ever athletics gold and, unbelievably, only the second individual gold in any event.

shoutout to aditi ashok who played her heart out to finish 4th in golf just 2 shots off first place,

Canadian dude who won the decathlon (the event that really matters) seems cool

Artistic swimming... words fail. Truly insane.

there are some Olympic events that seem insanely difficult like beam for instance and then there are those in which I truly believe some sort of sorcery must be involved in navigating successfully like rhythmic gymnastics and synchronised swimming.

Insanely hard yes but also the whole idea, the expressions, even (or especially) the way they walk up to the pool! (The free routine, haven't seen the technical.)

I could listen to Denise Lewis and Michael Johnson all day. Paula Radcliffe, not.

― Sam Weller, Friday, 6 August 2021 13:12 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

no way, Paula is a good commentator

Enjoyed the marathon this morning. It’s nice to see Sapporo even if I’m a bit sad I won’t make it to the food festival this year. (Normally takes place at odori park inside the loop they did at the start). Found an interesting restaurant on the run north from the station.

Great end to the velodrome programme. Excellent silver from the Malaysian in the men’s Keirin. (Tiger strip track tops are a strong contender in the best uniform stakes). Strong showing from Trinidadian and Surinamese riders too, who come out of the non-traditional cycling countries programme.

Now all we have left is to see if the Japanese woman’s can overtake the American in the points race for the Omni I’m, which would be a great finish.

Tiger strip track tops are a strong contender in the best uniform stakes

lol the tiger is our country mascot and I hate it. :D

Azizulhasni is a beast though for a guy who’s 5’5 - feel like I mention this every Olympics but he’s most famous for this incident back in 2011 when he crashed, got a wooden shard pierced through his leg, got back on his bike and still finished third.

US beats China to win volleyball, basketball and a cycling gold to finish top on golds.

Ha Roz, I can’t say I’m a fan of the Team GB strip, it’s not modern and cool like the Kenyan, neither is it a stone cold classic like the Belgian.

I note "Over the moon" has made a major comeback in interviews with athletes.

Oops, Nicola Adams talking about the successes of England's boxing team after Lauren Price had won the gold.

lol I was not expecting so much ska at this closing ceremony

is that a moth on the podium?

Definitely a moth.

needs less sound of music and more kaiju imo.

pretty excited about the us women's volleyball win! i remember them watching them take silver in 1984 with the late flo hyman

They dominated. Got hot at the right time

can't wait for

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Ive just seen the horse punch and my god its as well twitter has never had to work on a farm isnt it

it is insane in the horse mane

if you consider the horse to be an Olympic athlete, then punching it enters a different light

Guess this was never going to happen anyway what with the pandemic and all, still a shame

https://aramajapan.com/news/tokyo-2020-opening-ceremony-original-plan-leaks-in-full/114631/

a friend (and former member of Dweeb) went to cover the archery and wrote this:

http://www.theinfinitecurve.com/archery/tokyo-2020