OT: Paris 2024 Summer Olympics: Games of the XXXIII Olympiad

[Curufinwe]

Rai Benjamin won the 400m hurdles, beating his arch rival and WR holder Karsten Warholm.

https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/athletics/men-s-400m-hurdles/fnl-000100--

 

[Mkoll]

Breaking is far more entertaining then the gymnastics with a ribbon

 

[DancingPanther]

Everyone's focusing on how bad the Australian looked, but just watched the QF between Chinese and Lithuanian breakdancers and... How is this worse than figure skating / gymnastics? Because muh traditions?

Because it's not hurling. This is dumb

Breaking is far more entertaining then the gymnastics with a ribbon

Sure I'll give you that. Also synchronized swimming

 

[Appleyard]

That's like rugby in the UK vs rugby in NZ.

Tbf rugby union aha.

Rugby league is very working class.

 

[Appleyard]

Back in the day, when I was competing in epee I knew some of the guys on the US pentathlon team since they usually entered the big epee competitions. They certainly didn't seem like the private school type to me. Maybe you get a different class of athletes in the UK.

In the UK modern pentathlon, horse riding, rowing, sailing and fencing are basically "we paid 30,000 pounds a year for 15 years to send our child to school before they even turned 18 and they know four Princes and the children of four foreign dictators" sports.

Albeit a lot of lower class people in the countryside can ride. (Tbf I am the first generation in as long as records go that is not an excellent rider in my family aha... it died with my mother hating riding even though her sister was exceptional.)

 

[Embiid]

Breaking is far more entertaining then the gymnastics with a ribbon

 

[Beef Invictus]

I cannot figure out how US mens coaching hasn't been completely hollowed out and replaced. Lyles is out, so instead of replacing the single leg, we mix up everything and have guys with no experience together f***ing guessing at their exchange.

 

[Taijuan Fedotov]

Another humiliation. At this point they should bring in a 4x1 relay team that is only focused on the relay. You need a coherent team, not four individuals.

 

[Jack Straw]

.

In the UK modern pentathlon, horse riding, rowing, sailing and fencing are basically "we paid 30,000 pounds a year for 15 years to send our child to school before they even turned 18 and they know four Princes and the children of four foreign dictators" sports.

Albeit a lot of lower class people in the countryside can ride. (Tbf I am the first generation in as long as records go that is not an excellent rider in my family aha... it died with my mother hating riding even though her sister was exceptional.)

Actually I knew some British fencers back then too, including this guy who I trained with for a bit: John Llewellyn (fencer) - Wikipedia

Just a regular bloke as far as I could tell. Born in Canada even

Edit: Well, this has got me reminiscing. At the time I was spending a year training in Paris at the Racing Club. Llewellyn trained there for a while until he somehow got invited to train with the French team at their training center. He was sharing a small apartment in Paris with another British fencer, a woman who also trained at the RCF. Llewellyn moved out and I was looking for a place to live so I moved in. I knew her father was a good fencer but I didn't realize quite how good:

Bill Hoskyns obituary

She definitely wasn't rich, I'm pretty sure the apartment we lived in would have been condemned if it had been in the US. But the article says her father went to Eton and then Oxford. So a bit posh maybe?

 

[GKJ]

Passing the baton sure looks and is harder than it sounds like it should be.

 

[ellja3]

Because it's not hurling. This is dumb


Sure I'll give you that. Also synchronized swimming

We can agree to disagree. The only dumb thing there was absolutely no points framework (just some vague criteria, such as improvisation, difficulty etc.). The skill level itself, at least in the semis that I watched - seemed really high.

 

[Appleyard]

.


Actually I knew some British fencers back then too, including this guy who I trained with for a bit: John Llewellyn (fencer) - Wikipedia

Just a regular bloke as far as I could tell. Born in Canada even

Edit: Well, this has got me reminiscing. At the time I was spending a year training in Paris at the Racing Club. Llewellyn trained there for a while until he somehow got invited to train with the French team at their training center. He was sharing a small apartment in Paris with another British fencer, a woman who also trained at the RCF. Llewellyn moved out and I was looking for a place to live so I moved in. I knew her father was a good fencer but I didn't realize quite how good:

Bill Hoskyns obituary

She definitely wasn't rich, I'm pretty sure the apartment we lived in would have been condemned if it had been in the US. But the article says her father went to Eton and then Oxford. So a bit posh maybe?

Tbf of those sports Fencing has the most "non-toff" participants I guess in the UK. Though still a loooot of very rich people.

Aha, Eton THEN Oxford? And owning an apartment in Paris city centre?

Right now Eton costs around $70,000 a year. And people go there for 6 years. It is the most exclusive school in the entirety of the UK.

He was a multi-millionaire aha with just a tiny bit of looking at Bob Hosykns...

this is the families ancestral home: North Perrott Manor House - Wikipedia
and the house he grew up in until he was 10
he had his own plane
he was a major in the British Army... before the 1960s... so basically had to be a "gentleman" at the time.
seemed to own an enormous amount of family inherited orchards and farms
he married Georgina Howard De Cardonnel Findlay... whose Grandfather was Sir Mansfeldt de Cardonnel Findlay... one of the richest men in Britain... who grew up in Boturich Castle!

So yeh, she might not have seemed rich... but was from landed gentry on both sides of her family

 

[Flybynite]

Passing the baton sure looks and is harder than it sounds like it should be.

Good thing for US swim relays there's nothing to pass.

 

[Jack Straw]

Tbf of those sports Fencing has the most "non-toff" participants I guess in the UK. Though still a loooot of very rich people.

Aha, Eton THEN Oxford? And owning an apartment in Paris city centre?

Right now Eton costs around $70,000 a year. And people go there for 6 years. It is the most exclusive school in the entirety of the UK.

He was a multi-millionaire aha with just a tiny bit of looking at Bob Hosykns...

this is the families ancestral home: North Perrott Manor House - Wikipedia
and the house he grew up in until he was 10
he had his own plane
he was a major in the British Army... before the 1960s... so basically had to be a "gentleman" at the time.
seemed to own an enormous amount of family inherited orchards and farms
he married Georgina Howard De Cardonnel Findlay... whose Grandfather was Sir Mansfeldt de Cardonnel Findlay... one of the richest men in Britain... who grew up in Boturich Castle!

So yeh, she might not have seemed rich... but was from landed gentry on both sides of her family

Hmm. Guess I should have stayed in touch with her

But she didn’t own the apartment. We rented it from a guy from Yugoslavia or somewhere who owned a laundry next door. And it was a dump. Two rooms, no heat, no kitchen, and a bathroom that I avoided to the greatest extent possible.

 

[Flybynite]

USA's goalie made a really good save, but I haven't been super impressed by her ability to actually get the ball back into play. She's turned it over to Brazil a few times. US hasn't controlled the ball very much.

 

[Rebels57]

US Womens Soccer needs to dig deep in the 2nd. They look flat.

 

[Jack Straw]

1-0!

 

[Rebels57]

1-0 USA!!!

 

[Jack Straw]

Oooh! Great chance for Rodman.

 

[Jack Straw]

The Madison event in cycling is bonkers.

 

[Jack Straw]

Great job by the USWNT. And great job by Emma Hayes. Very impressive how well she has this team playing in such a short time.

 

[Cody Webster]

What a run for Grant Fisher!!!! First American to ever double medal in the long distance runs.

I thought he was toast when he fell back on that last lap, but had an amazing last 200M

 

[Curufinwe]

High jump shoot out at 2.36m ….

Now going up to 2.38 - just USA and NZ left

 

[Tripod]

How sad is it that Canada set a record for their most gold and most overall medals in a Summer Olympics...non boycotted.

They have 8 gold and 26 medals

 

[Curufinwe]

Hamish Kerr wins the high jump gold.