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Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:07 pm
by Astra
jacob wrote:
Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:22 pm
but also that swimmer guy (who swam way slower than I did in my heydays) a few years ago (in London?).
Happened twice even!

In Rio 2016, Robel Habte competed for Ethiopia, he swam 100m crawl in over an hour (everyone else < 1 min). He was celebrated as "Robel the Whale" because he was a bit chubby.

In Sydney 2000, Eric Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea even took 1h 50min for the same distance. He learned to only swim 8 months before the Olympics, and almost drowned during the 100 m freestyle, the audience loved him as "Eric the Eel".

Both are Olympic heroes and legends by now! :D

Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 7:08 am
by bryan
South Korea women's speed skating relay setting set an Olympic Record in the semi.. after crashing early and spotting half a lap to the field and coming back to win the heat :O

edit: heat after SK women, the new OR got broken by the Italians. I suspect a new WR may be set in the finals (taking it from 2016 SK)?

Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 7:34 am
by Eureka
I find, JP Sears sums it all up nicely:
https://youtu.be/UptsW3pbCJM

Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:40 pm
by bryan
Pretty fair.

Any time I watch cross-country skiing it makes me want to go live in Siberia or Alaska, like @theanimal. Or maybe somewhere more posh..

Really enjoyed watching the biathlon sprint -> pursuit. After the sprint, I bet on a 150:1 guy.. he got silver -_-

Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:14 pm
by Kriegsspiel
JP hits on a really key aspect to the winter olympics, and that's the chance of wiping out in almost every sport. The summers really don't have that.

bryan, a bunch of people have been cross country skiing here the past few days. Some of them are pulling a travois with tiny human cargo for added resistance. It looks intriguing.

Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 7:40 pm
by bryan
I definitely enjoy watching the short track speed skating more than track sprinting, exactly because it involves more strategy/tactics and involves dangerous, highly technical passing. If you or someone else doesn't execute a line correctly or is too boneheaded, there is usually a catastrophic failure instead of just getting a slightly slower time! I like the track relay more than short track relay though..

Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:45 pm
by bryan
Signed up for a youtubeTV free trial so I could login to NBC's website to stream the live events. Old methods of accessing good foreign streams hasn't worked this year.

Watched the women's short track heats last night and saw Fontana from Italy wasn't getting much respect at the books (10:1). Cashed! Open bets now are SK Women's 3k relay 1.714, Desthieux xor Samuelsson in the 20k biathlon at 81.00 (though I think Fourcade will win again.. just good odds, I think)

Re: Anyone else underwhelmed by the Olympics?

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 2:34 am
by DutchGirl
Hockey? Ice hockey you mean!

Had some great confusing discussion once with someone about hockey, as I assumed they meant the outdoor summer variant (clearly "hockey"), and they meant the outdoor winter variant ("ice hockey", duh). Seems like the ice hockey people refer to their ice hockey as hockey and to the summer type as "field hockey".

Funny to have such a weird miscommunication :-)