Aww! They have a webcam and screen set up to allow athletes to Skype their family back home if they weren't able to make it. That's really sweet!
I find it interesting how much time the boulderers seem to take looking at the wall before their first attempt. Are they not allowed to have seen it before they head out? And if so, how does this get enforced? Is everyone just locked in a room without communication until their turn to start?
Exactly that. They have to go into isolation a few hours before the start of the session. Isolation means no internet/bluetooth/outside contact in an area with warm up equipment. They then have 5 minutes to "read" the boulder and climb it.
In the finals it is different and they get a 2 minute shared observation per boulder before they start. But they are still in iso while the others are climbing.
An impressive performance on the black & pink bouldering wall with a big overhang from the Aussie. I only caught the end of it, but the commentators gave me the sense that she was the first one, or one of the first, to make the 25 point mark on that wall.
Ok the skateboarding park is a lot more impressive (to the casual audience) than the street was. Street was literally laughable in how bad it was. Park is looking actually fairly impressive. Still subpar though, when compared to, say, the BMX freestyle. I've been watching a little while now: probably seen about 7 or 8 runs. Only one of them didn't end in a crash.
Street really needs good commentators if you're not into the sport already. The subtleties of what makes a trick hard to execute are really easy to miss to an untrained eye.
Hell, that's true of BMX Freestyle too to a certain extent. The men's winning run might have looked less impressive than silver/bronze, but there is a lot of stuff like gaps, lines, use of the arena etc that the judges look at.
Yeah, the need for better commentators is definitely a big piece of it. Especially when it comes to the score differences between two different tricks/runs.
But even the best commentators can't make the fact that there was a roughly 60% failure rate look good. The idea that the supposed best in the world (because that's what Olympic athletes should be) are failing to land any points 60% of the time made it absolutely laughable. And I mean that quite literally. The people I was watching with were quite literally laughing at how absurd it was that this is the standard.
Lopez wins his 5th gold in his 6th Olympics in heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling. What an absolute titan. 6-0 in the final, barely broke a sweat all tournament. Apparently lost almost 30kg to get back to match weight for this comeback too.
Bows out on the absolute top, leaving his shoes in the ring as he finally retires. What phenomenal images, what a moment again at this incredible Olympics.
Bows out on the absolute top, leaving his shoes in the ring as he finally retires
omg that would have been amazing to see! Stupid time zones.
Ok I went and watched the replay of that. Absolutely beautiful symbolism.
It was one of the top highlights of the olympics for me, so beautiful!
Second 1500 repechage everyone's staying in the one group, with Australia's Hall out front.
The most impressive part was the Kiwi speeding up right at the end to overtake the Pole for 6th place, as the Aussie gets 8th.
Javeliners throwing themselves forward along with the javeline will never not be funny.
Oh gods. The forward flips off of a backwards dive absolutely terrify me. What if you don't push off far enough and end up flipping your head directly into that solid board? 😬
Oh and the Saffa misses the button at the top. Absolutely hate seeing that.
But not as hard to watch as a false start from his opponent, I guess.
New Olympic speed climbing record, by 1/100th of a second! Well done Watson of America.
Oh and it's almost immediately beaten! By another 2/100ths of a second by the Kazakh climber Maimuratov.
And another new Olympic record, equalling the World Record, by Leonardo from Indonesia!
Tanaka going out with a huge lead at the start of the first women's 1500 m repechage. My instinct says this is likely to be a poor strategy.
And going into the final lap that instinct seems correct. She's now slipped to 4th, and seemingly falling further.
Ooof yeah. She looks to be really struggling even to stay on her feet going round the final bend falling to 11th of 15 as Ethiopia's Tsegay, Britain's Muir, and Kenya's Ejore finish in the top 3 places of that heat.
