olympics deprecation thread

DENNIS:  What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!

ARTHUR:  Well, I AM king... 

DENNIS:  Oh king, eh, very nice.  An' how'd you get that, eh?  By  exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma,  which perpetuates the economic an'  social differences in our society!  If there's ever going to be any progress--

Sorry Debs, couldn't resist....... I agree with your original post though !!

http://www.smh.com.au/olympics...-20120806-23pm3.html

I love this stuff. You may not remember Gosper is the aussie IOC official whose daughter was "lucky" enough to beat out thousands of other kids to carry the olympic torch in 2000. Of course it had nothing to do with dad being in "the management", though. At least in this article he is forthright enough to admit that medals are essentially "bought".

"The money is the difference between silver and gold," said Gosper.

Nah, impossible. Otherwise the Russians, Arabs and the Sicilians would win all the Golds.

Good point.

http://www.smh.com.au/olympics...-20120806-23qmk.html

In the spirit of this thread.

Another Gold for good ol' GB, this time in the horsey jumpingy stuff.

I always knew our inability to get penalties would come in useful one day

And this is an olympic sport because......?

Yes another correct decision ... if you take a place in the race you have got to give it a go. 

Great to see the organising committee is on the ball - I not usually impressed by such bodies, but this time they do seem to be doing a superb job - well done for highlighting it. I knew you'd come around to supporting London 2012.  

Brilliant - 17 Golds - a fabulous performance from the Team GB so far

As a Londoner Guy I agree. There have been inconveniences, but these are more than compensated for by the upbeat mood around the capital and, if the reports I've read are true, elsewhere in the country. At London Bridge this morning there were commuters with beaming faces.  Hell, even in Sainsbury's this afternoon everyone was smiling, happily talking to the checkout girls about Bolt, Murray, Ennis and Mo.

I think Winky kind of knows he's onto a loser with this thread but he's come so far now that he just can't help himself any longer. Look out for some increasingly daft (but entertaining) statements in the coming hours and days...

http://smh.drive.com.au/green-...-20120806-23ppw.html

This was good.

Why not? It has as good a claim as most of the other sports, and certainly a better one than football.

Also, we British get Golds in it - so obviously its inclusion must be mandatory.

Who hasn't had to jump a horse over a six-foot fence modeled on Tower Bridge occasionally?

Yes, rather amusing. A very British farce of the kind so brilliantly satirised in the BBC comedy show Twenty Twelve. But a bit of a non-story, really. He's talking about THREE cabs. There are, according to the HCO, 23,000 licensed black cabs in London. I don't think the cab network's going to grind to a halt just yet.

Nice try Winky, but you're going to have to do a bit better than that to stop appearing desperate.

No, the reason it is relevant is precisely that there ARE only 3 hydrogen cabs. It is symptomatic of the cynical marketing associated with otherwise entertaining (if contrived) sporting competition. Hydrogen cabs for the greenwash points. Nothing for the planet. They did the same here in Vancouver with hydrogen buses. Completely pointless (other than the marketing angle - green games and all that $h!t), and huge producers of greenhouse gases on a per-passenger-km basis. 

This is particularly useless, yet amusing......

"Three hydrogen-powered, zero-emission cabs - which London mayor Boris Johnson has hailed as the future of sustainable motoring in the traffic-choked English capital"

OK, I love loopy Boris and his mad bike schemes, but this is just bonkers. "Zero Emission"?! Are you kidding me? Where does he think the energy to produce the hydrogen comes from? And don't say windmills. Piling the inefficiency of hydrogen production from electricity, subsequent transportation and consumption onto the inefficiencies of wind power and you have one of the very worst ideas anyone could come up with. And how the hell does hydrogen power reduce the "traffic choking". Seriously, does anyone buy this nonsense?

Each of these pathetic efforts was aimed at assuaging guilt for our planet f^%$ing lifestyles and reproductive choices. The message is: "You just keep on doing what you are doing, you good little consumers, technology will fix it".

For some REALLY interesting technology and science, check out the Mars Rover stuff. Now THAT is cool.

OK, so why don't they give the medals to the horses?

Because, although horses are quite intelligent animals, the concept of medals doesn't really mean very much to them. Neither does the idea of "winning". (Although they can of course be conditioned to act in a particular way via systems of rewards but that's not the same thing). I suppose they could have carrot or sugar medals,that would be a nice treat for them, but as horses don't have goals in the way that we do that's as far as it goes.

But now you really are being silly. Perhaps, via your logic, we should also have medals for tennis rackets, bicycles, hockey sticks and boats. And running shoes.

Oh bugger, we appear to have rounder wheels than the rest in the bicycle races. I cant usually be bothered with it as a sport, but have just been glued to it. Brilliant.

What happens when the limits of the laws of physics are reached and people can't go any faster/higher/longer/etc?

steve

Evolve?

Clearly, I needed to be less obtuse. It wasn't a literal suggestion. Just as yours regarding awarding medals to bicycles isn't.

The subtext of my comment is that the the athleticism is largely embodied in the horse itself. The genetics, breeding and training are really all about the horses. No-one can compete at the top level without significant resources and access to the top horses, trainers and facilities. The riders are undoubtedly skilfull, but they are only part of the picture. OK, Zara has proven to us the even working-class people can succeed at this, but she is surely the exception.

This isn't a reverse snobbery thing, but I just don't think horse hopping embodies the same ideals as athletics, for example.

We'll judge them subjectively.

What could possibly go wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...gure_skating_scandal

Then it's a draw.

If the rules where broken, I suppose it was correct, but another example of inconsistency. What about the French track cyclist who was obliged to compete in the road race, he dropped out after a few Kilometers, yet no action taken.

The Algerian wasn't obliged to run the 800m, his team could have withdrew him from the race, but they failed to do so. I feel sorry for him, 4 years of work down the drain due to an administrative error. I hope he's able to appeal.