this is amazing, 28k french people in the crowd went from LOUD to QUIET
so the Indian wrestler (that upset the 82-0 girl) didnt make weight for the gold medal match… online it said it was a matter of 100grams.
i guess the system is you weigh in before first match and before medal match? kind of a weird system.
Becoming a volleyball guy. Two nieces are on travel teams - both tall but one is 6’ - and I’m into watching all the men’s and women’s OLY matches.
US-Poland men tied 1-1 in the semis. Each set has been tight.
i enjoy watching it as well. it’s cool to see the high flying. i always wonder how the play calling structure works with all the moving parts.
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Super impressive performance by Hampton Morris to get bronze in the 61kg category. First Olympic medal in 40 years for USA men
200M and steeplechase were insane races. Some serious WIM by the Americans. And next 2 days will have some premier showdowns in track.
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400M was even crazier.
Yah, I meant the 400M, not 200M. How about that guy in lane 8 just going for it from the opening gun in YOLO mode?
400m is such an interesting distance. I think of it as a sprint, and the athletes seem to treat it like one, going all out, yet to the naked eye everyone seems to lose their form with about 50-75 yards to go because they’re tired.
It’s been a long time, but I ran the 400 at the beginning of high school and then switched to the 800. Both are awful, but the 400 is worse. It’s almost a sprint, but it’s impossible to go full speed the whole time. You have to go about 90%, but the body just can’t handle it. The final 100-150 or so is all mind over matter. There’s so much lactic acid buildup in your legs that you’re amazed that you can even get to the finish line.
With the 800, at least you can pace yourself a little bit, but not much. I was ok, just a middle of the road guy, never won any individual races. Was good on relays. My final race was regionals, top three made sectionals (state was next). I liked to get off to fast starts to avoid getting boxed in and I was leading through 600 meters. I couldn’t believe it. I felt great and figured I had to be running my best race ever. I had never been leading that late. At 650, I heard someone behind me say, “Ok, let’s go,” and I realized a couple guys had been sandbagging it since they only needed top three.
My legs turned to concrete in the final 100 - I came in 5th. Was still my career best, though! Finished high school on a good note.
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I tuned in late to the 400 yesterday, NBC was showing a replay and I had the audio muted. The replay was focused on Quincy Hall’s grimacing face, and I just assumed he was injured during the race and lost. Amazing the ground he made up with that look on his face.
as a preface i dont know anything about track. but it is interesting to me that pretty much everyone involved says 400 is the most difficult race to run, but yet it doesn’t seem to be considered the premier race? like as an outsider you would think the uniformly described “hardest”/“most difficult” race would be seen as THE race, where it looks like both the 100 and the 200 get far more press.
I heard the 800 was the most painful.
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After I posted about the 400m seeming to cripple all these elite athletes towards the end of the race, I came across some IG reel that talked about it being the hardest race. I can’t remember what the source was exactly, but this article speaks to the same idea:
I think it’s just that the 100 and 200 are displays of pure speed and are thus cooler.
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Yeah, it’s the whole “fastest man in the world” thing that’s been built around the 100 that mythologizes it. Casuals can tell you who won the 100 in many different Olympics, but you’d need the most hardcore track fan to be able to do that with the 400 or 800.
The decathlon had that for a time as well, when Jenner was winning and being called the “world’s greatest athlete” as a result. That died out when the whole Dan vs. Dave Reebok campaign flopped.
Omg Dan vs Dave. Those guys were awful. That campaign was something else.
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And because they flopped so hard, we never get coverage of the decathlon anymore.
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If I recall correctly, the Czech guy who actually won the Dan vs Dave decathlon also wore Reeboks, but didn’t have any kind of advertising deal. He wore them just because he liked them.