Too many events at the Olympics?
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@antipodean said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@booboo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@voodoo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@booboo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@booboo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@antipodean said in Olympics Thread:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Olympics Thread:
Yeah youāve mentioned the Phelps thing before and it doesnāt help your argument. Another ridiculously stupid statement.
As I said last year: Phelps has won a single Olympic gold medal where he alone was the fastest over a distance: 200m freestyle. Paavo Nurmi and Carl Lewis are better Olympians.
If I recall correctly you also said that Bradburyās achievement was greater than anything Phelps ever did. Thatās easily the stupidest thing Iāve ever seen on TSF, although the argument that butterfly is equivalent to jogging comes close.
Having seen Bradbury do an after dinner speaking thing I have huge respect for him.
He survived an accident where he lost 4L of blood and having all 4 quadriceps sliced by a skate, and a broken neck, and "trained 5 hours a day 6 days week for 12 years to get that lucky".
Multiple Olympic and World Championship medallist who played the best game. It wasn't all about speed. It was about being first across the line. The others were idiots.
Iām not going to question Bradburys dedication or background but that win was more arse than grass. The same thing happened in the semis as well. Only one guy fell and took the others with him. Do you want a race where they all just hang back and wait for someone to fall? Saying the others were āidiotsā is utterly absurd.
Not at all. They were always going to be clambering over each other. He out thought them. Raced the better race.
Akin to a soccer team putting 10 men behind the ball and scoring on the break in the 93rd minute.
Itās akin to defending the entire game and hoping for 2 own goals.
It's probably actually worse even than that, because it's not like he chose a race plan of sitting back and waiting. He had no more choice in it than I would have!
Matter of fact he did.
Coach told him he could not outskate the others so hang back and let them go at each other.
It's a great narrative that it was pure luck, but he out thought his opponents and was tactically better.
I'd believe this if there was a shred of evidence before the fact this was his plan.
It defies the common sense test: I'll skate dead last in the semi final and hope by sheer chance the skaters in front of me crash, otherwise I'm fucked.
I can't see this as anything other than a case of pure luck. Sometimes it just happens that way, better to be lucky than good
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@booboo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@voodoo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@booboo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@booboo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@antipodean said in Olympics Thread:
@rancid-schnitzel said in Olympics Thread:
Yeah youāve mentioned the Phelps thing before and it doesnāt help your argument. Another ridiculously stupid statement.
As I said last year: Phelps has won a single Olympic gold medal where he alone was the fastest over a distance: 200m freestyle. Paavo Nurmi and Carl Lewis are better Olympians.
If I recall correctly you also said that Bradburyās achievement was greater than anything Phelps ever did. Thatās easily the stupidest thing Iāve ever seen on TSF, although the argument that butterfly is equivalent to jogging comes close.
Having seen Bradbury do an after dinner speaking thing I have huge respect for him.
He survived an accident where he lost 4L of blood and having all 4 quadriceps sliced by a skate, and a broken neck, and "trained 5 hours a day 6 days week for 12 years to get that lucky".
Multiple Olympic and World Championship medallist who played the best game. It wasn't all about speed. It was about being first across the line. The others were idiots.
Iām not going to question Bradburys dedication or background but that win was more arse than grass. The same thing happened in the semis as well. Only one guy fell and took the others with him. Do you want a race where they all just hang back and wait for someone to fall? Saying the others were āidiotsā is utterly absurd.
Not at all. They were always going to be clambering over each other. He out thought them. Raced the better race.
Akin to a soccer team putting 10 men behind the ball and scoring on the break in the 93rd minute.
Itās akin to defending the entire game and hoping for 2 own goals.
It's probably actually worse even than that, because it's not like he chose a race plan of sitting back and waiting. He had no more choice in it than I would have!
Matter of fact he did.
Coach told him he could not outskate the others so hang back and let them go at each other.
It's a great narrative that it was pure luck, but he out thought his opponents and was tactically better.
I support booboo here
nb he had a decade of wretched luck, told he could never compete again after major injuries. And he wasn't a hack skater so he did have more options than most of us here (well certainly me, I skate like a drunk U2 surveilance plane on daihatsu training wheels).
Steven Bradburyās strategy leading into remarkable gold medal race
Bradbury won Australia's first Winter Olympics gold medal in 2002.
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Even for the Fern, I find it bizarre that we're debating this.
For Bradbury, sure the tactics were sound. He had no chance of challenging by skating his fastest, so he sat back maybe further than he would have normally, to clear the carnage from any potential crash. Great. He said they thought that if it came off, a bronze may be possible.
What actually happened was a skater took everyone out, and he skated through to claim Gold. Unbelievable luck! Would be good to go back through all the finals of similar events and see how often the bloke in last on the final lap actually wins because all the other skaters fall.
I'm guessing not many.
A fine strategy for Bradbury. But what is unarguable, is that it would be a ludicrous strategy for any actual gold (or other) medal hopeful. You're resigning yourself to a roll of the dice, with the odds massively against you, rather than backing your ability. To suggest that any of the actual medal chances should have done the same is just nuts.
He didn't out-think anyone. He did the only thing he could possibly do. He bought a lottery ticket and he got the winning numbers.
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@voodoo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
Even for the Fern, I find it bizarre that we're debating this.
For Bradbury, sure the tactics were sound. He had no chance of challenging by skating his fastest, so he sat back maybe further than he would have normally, to clear the carnage from any potential crash. Great. He said they thought that if it came off, a bronze may be possible.
What actually happened was a skater took everyone out, and he skated through to claim Gold. Unbelievable luck! Would be good to go back through all the finals of similar events and see how often the bloke in last on the final lap actually wins because all the other skaters fall.
I'm guessing not many.
A fine strategy for Bradbury. But what is unarguable, is that it would be a ludicrous strategy for any actual gold (or other) medal hopeful. You're resigning yourself to a roll of the dice, with the odds massively against you, rather than backing your ability. To suggest that any of the actual medal chances should have done the same is just nuts.
He didn't out-think anyone. He did the only thing he could possibly do. He bought a lottery ticket and he got the winning numbers.
I was going to agree with you then I thought no, he knew he could not consistently keep up with the speed of the four. So he did what he had to do. Lucky, sure, but the best tactic for him, he had 10+years of international experience and a helluva lot of injuries.
It's not unbelievable if his coach predicted it could happen (as Bradbury said). Just unlikely. But possible.How good was he? He'd been better, according to him https://www.athletesvoice.com.au/steven-bradbury-medal-i-struggled-to-accept/
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@nostrildamus pretty sure you just did agree with me... š
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@voodoo Iām not sure about it resulting in Gold, but I found a few articles that essentially concluded the same thing that crashes are pretty common in short track speedskating.
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@act-crusader said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@voodoo Iām not sure about it resulting in Gold, but I found a few articles that essentially concluded the same thing that crashes are pretty common in short track speedskating.
Of course theyāre common. Thatās the only reason anyone watches it.
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@act-crusader said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@voodoo Iām not sure about it resulting in Gold, but I found a few articles that essentially concluded the same thing that crashes are pretty common in short track speedskating.
Absolutely they are. But that doesn't meant you make the hope for one your primary strategy if you're a contender!
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@voodoo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@act-crusader said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@voodoo Iām not sure about it resulting in Gold, but I found a few articles that essentially concluded the same thing that crashes are pretty common in short track speedskating.
Absolutely they are. But that doesn't meant you make the hope for one your primary strategy if you're a contender!
Perhaps Bradbury knew a bit about the guys in his race and that they liked to be aggressive up the front? I agree that itās a risky strategy, but itās a sport with probably a fair more risk than other sports where you are going head to head like that, so you never know.
My own view is that given the publicity around this race, I feel like the āit was part of the strategyā narrative has taken on a life of its own. I donāt doubt that there will have been a watch and see approach, much like a runner in a longer distance track race, but I still think the stars aligned for him in that race.
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@voodoo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@nostrildamus pretty sure you just did agree with me... š
Except this bit: "But what is unarguable, is that it would be a ludicrous strategy for any actual gold (or other) medal hopeful. "
Unless you meant there, likely /feasible gold medal hopeful.
Hell, even feasible ain't the right word... -
To get into the final he needed three other skaters to fall on the last lap. This is the final:
Anyone who believes that performance was deliberate I have a bridge to sell them.
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Iām pretty sure a similar thing happened in his semi final. Given that he didnāt have the speed to get anywhere near the main contenders, what other tactics did he have? He was going to tail the field regardless.
Just checked. He only made it past the qf because someone was disqualified. He then had 3 fall in front of him in the semi. Thatās not brilliant tactics thatās farking lottery win luck.
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@voodoo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
Really strange debate. Fucking lockdown.
Weāve just joined you in Brisbane. Any tips?
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@rancid-schnitzel said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
@voodoo said in Too many events at the Olympics?:
Really strange debate. Fucking lockdown.
Weāve just joined you in Brisbane. Any tips?
Red wine and exercise. You have 50% covered, but you're going to have to go out of your comfort zone here...
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I'm willing to believe the strategy story is somewhat true if his strategy was strictly aimed at farting out a bronze rather winning.
There are only five skaters and if two take each other out then he is in the medals.
At that stage Australia had so few medals at the Winter Olympics a bronze still would have been a massive achievement.
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late to this party but yeah, too many events
i have to say im not a fan of any that require judging (subjective) and not a huge fan of those that require a tournament (uneven)
I think they should all boil down to "strongest" "fastest" "highest" "longest" etc
each country should also only be able to field one person in each event
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I think the judging sports are my second favourite behind the athletics.
Love the diving and trampolining.
I love that I can watch diving and go yip, small splash, nice synchro - then leave it up to 5 judges to mark from a criteria I don't care enough to know more about, where they then remove the two worst Oui Jeromes from the marks anyway. Brilliant.
Bit of crossover from my rant here: https://www.forum.thesilverfern.com/post/613049
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Hate golf at the Olympics - but can stay just change it to
LONGEST FUCKING DRIVE.
only thing that really matters when it comes to bragging rights in golf anyway right?
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Also. Do any of you guys have youngish daughters?
They love the gymnastics, diving, especially trampolining. Good family sporting viewing.
Too many of you are in some imaginary ancient greek psuedo-gay naked manly bubbles - where apparently horses hadn't been invented yet ....
But, let me take this opportunity to diss flippin race walking ....
