Breaking made its Olympic debut Friday—and its already shaky Olympic future got even shakier after the worst breaker in the Olympics went viral. (Plus, weightlifting gold and another relay DQ.)
It’s just dawning on me here, but bowling should 100% be an Olympic sport. Just like pool and its associated stick games. And darts. There should be an Olympic arena sized pub and it should include all pub sports.
"It makes sense that track athletes consider relays a secondary priority. They’re generally individual athletes who train in different parts of the country, and are then asked on rare occasions to give their friend a stick at high speeds. But those issues should be a problem for every country"
It's actually much worse than that. A big reason the US is so good in track - besides being huge and rich and having a lot of good athletes - is that unlike basically everywhere else in the world where you have to decide you want to join a track club, every high school in the country has a track team. And everyone who is good from those teams then goes and runs on college track teams (and the really good ones of those have pro-level training). And every single meet those high schools and colleges run have relays. American sprinters have WAY more relay experience than anyone else in the world.
A Texas high school team - four teenagers from the same school in the Houston suburbs - ran faster this spring than Liberia ran in the heats. And Liberia qualified as one of the top 16 in the world and had an Olympic 200-meter finalist on the anchor leg.
I only saw one of Raygun's performances, but she really that relatively bad compared to the worst in other sports? There was the halfpipe snowboarder that got citizenship in another country to qualify and couldn't do any tricks at all. There were a couple bouldering climbers in this Olympics that were pretty bad compared to everyone else, is anyone calling that an embarrassment to the sport?
I guess the problem is that it was funny in a way that no-trick snowboarding and bad bouldering isn't. She bounced like a kangaroo, did the sprinkler, yawned at her opponent (theatrics, but the others didn't seem to be doing OTT stuff like that) and was dressed, well, comically. I literally cried tears of laughter - so no wonder it's gone viral
You're right , it is funnier and more entertaining than other sports with similar or worse skill disparities. I just take issue with the idea that it's embarrassing for the sport and a reason why breaking shouldn't be in the Olympics. Many other sports have similar situations.
Appreciated the breakdown (apologies for the pun) on breaking. Arguably, Raygun is among the power memes of the games - and not optimal for the sport that hopes to use the Games to level up in legitimacy. (Side question: Has US Women's Rugby 7's been the best-case scenario?)
At the risk of looking too far ahead - the new additions to LA 2028 are Baseball/Softball (Does MLB just take a break during July/Aug?), Lacrosse sixes, T20 Cricket, Flag Football (NFL grabs a precious foothold in the games) and Squash. Perhaps Pickleball mafia hasn't gotten its house in order yet - woulda thought they coulda cracked the lineup.
The men's 4x100 yesterday brought me a lot of joy yesterday despite the US failures because Akani Simbine finally, finally got an Olympic medal in possibly his last chance ever. And he totally earned it too, pulling the South African team up into the medals on the anchor leg.
Also I wish I had seen the women’s beach volleyball match between Canada and Brazil. I watched Canada beat USA and omg Brandi Wilkerson gave off such tough bitch energy that I had too look her up. If I had met her during high school I would have been super intimidated. Team Canada made Regina George look friendly. So excellent to hear that the crowd sang imagine together after a tense fight between the teams. And sadly you’re right that we’ll probably never get to see that footage again.
Such a drag about raygun’s performance. I missed it and only started watching the breaking competition during the round Robbin. It was amazing! I was completely glued to my seat. It was fun and the energy was off the charts! Why couldn’t Nicka or 671 or India’s performance be the video that everyone sees!? Such a shame because those b-girls really brought it and deserved to be there!
I'm not quite sure what happened in the final two minutes of the 74 kg freestyle bronze medal match, but it sure was entertaining. Three official reviews and a medical timeout with an epic grand amplitude throw in the middle and a massive comeback.
I only saw one of Raygun's performances, but she really that relatively bad compared to the worst in other sports? There was the halfpipe snowboarder that got citizenship in another country to qualify and couldn't do any tricks at all. There were a couple bouldering climbers in this Olympics that were pretty bad compared to everyone else, is anyone calling that an embarrassment to the sport?
Rodger, great stuff as usual. Do you know why some sports require bibs and safety pins while others don’t? Partial list of Events that don’t require bibs and safety pins to identify athletes:
It's mainly because they try to set up the schedule to allow a 1500/5000 double, so the 1500 final is before the 5000 heats, or vice versa.
So to get a distance event final that falls in the middle of the schedule, the steeple is often set up so it overlaps with both.
Another piece is, only a few of the top steeplechasers are actually fast enough to be competitive at the highest level in other events. And those few - like men's WR holder Girma, the one who had the terrible fall - are actually able to break away from most of the pack before the final lap and pretty much be guaranteed a medal in the steeple. The flat events usually (not this year!) are more likely to come down to the vagaries of positioning on the final lap, where even a great athlete might miss out on a medal.
It’s just dawning on me here, but bowling should 100% be an Olympic sport. Just like pool and its associated stick games. And darts. There should be an Olympic arena sized pub and it should include all pub sports.
"It makes sense that track athletes consider relays a secondary priority. They’re generally individual athletes who train in different parts of the country, and are then asked on rare occasions to give their friend a stick at high speeds. But those issues should be a problem for every country"
It's actually much worse than that. A big reason the US is so good in track - besides being huge and rich and having a lot of good athletes - is that unlike basically everywhere else in the world where you have to decide you want to join a track club, every high school in the country has a track team. And everyone who is good from those teams then goes and runs on college track teams (and the really good ones of those have pro-level training). And every single meet those high schools and colleges run have relays. American sprinters have WAY more relay experience than anyone else in the world.
A Texas high school team - four teenagers from the same school in the Houston suburbs - ran faster this spring than Liberia ran in the heats. And Liberia qualified as one of the top 16 in the world and had an Olympic 200-meter finalist on the anchor leg.
I only saw one of Raygun's performances, but she really that relatively bad compared to the worst in other sports? There was the halfpipe snowboarder that got citizenship in another country to qualify and couldn't do any tricks at all. There were a couple bouldering climbers in this Olympics that were pretty bad compared to everyone else, is anyone calling that an embarrassment to the sport?
I guess the problem is that it was funny in a way that no-trick snowboarding and bad bouldering isn't. She bounced like a kangaroo, did the sprinkler, yawned at her opponent (theatrics, but the others didn't seem to be doing OTT stuff like that) and was dressed, well, comically. I literally cried tears of laughter - so no wonder it's gone viral
You're right , it is funnier and more entertaining than other sports with similar or worse skill disparities. I just take issue with the idea that it's embarrassing for the sport and a reason why breaking shouldn't be in the Olympics. Many other sports have similar situations.
Oh yes on a serious note I do hope it doesn't affect breakdancers going to the Games in the future - huge talent out there
Appreciated the breakdown (apologies for the pun) on breaking. Arguably, Raygun is among the power memes of the games - and not optimal for the sport that hopes to use the Games to level up in legitimacy. (Side question: Has US Women's Rugby 7's been the best-case scenario?)
At the risk of looking too far ahead - the new additions to LA 2028 are Baseball/Softball (Does MLB just take a break during July/Aug?), Lacrosse sixes, T20 Cricket, Flag Football (NFL grabs a precious foothold in the games) and Squash. Perhaps Pickleball mafia hasn't gotten its house in order yet - woulda thought they coulda cracked the lineup.
The men's 4x100 yesterday brought me a lot of joy yesterday despite the US failures because Akani Simbine finally, finally got an Olympic medal in possibly his last chance ever. And he totally earned it too, pulling the South African team up into the medals on the anchor leg.
Also I wish I had seen the women’s beach volleyball match between Canada and Brazil. I watched Canada beat USA and omg Brandi Wilkerson gave off such tough bitch energy that I had too look her up. If I had met her during high school I would have been super intimidated. Team Canada made Regina George look friendly. So excellent to hear that the crowd sang imagine together after a tense fight between the teams. And sadly you’re right that we’ll probably never get to see that footage again.
Such a drag about raygun’s performance. I missed it and only started watching the breaking competition during the round Robbin. It was amazing! I was completely glued to my seat. It was fun and the energy was off the charts! Why couldn’t Nicka or 671 or India’s performance be the video that everyone sees!? Such a shame because those b-girls really brought it and deserved to be there!
I'm not quite sure what happened in the final two minutes of the 74 kg freestyle bronze medal match, but it sure was entertaining. Three official reviews and a medical timeout with an epic grand amplitude throw in the middle and a massive comeback.
I only saw one of Raygun's performances, but she really that relatively bad compared to the worst in other sports? There was the halfpipe snowboarder that got citizenship in another country to qualify and couldn't do any tricks at all. There were a couple bouldering climbers in this Olympics that were pretty bad compared to everyone else, is anyone calling that an embarrassment to the sport?
Rodger, great stuff as usual. Do you know why some sports require bibs and safety pins while others don’t? Partial list of Events that don’t require bibs and safety pins to identify athletes:
Swimming
Volleyball
Basketball
Soccer
Golf
Ping Pong
Water Polo
Rugby
Handball
It's mainly because they try to set up the schedule to allow a 1500/5000 double, so the 1500 final is before the 5000 heats, or vice versa.
So to get a distance event final that falls in the middle of the schedule, the steeple is often set up so it overlaps with both.
Another piece is, only a few of the top steeplechasers are actually fast enough to be competitive at the highest level in other events. And those few - like men's WR holder Girma, the one who had the terrible fall - are actually able to break away from most of the pack before the final lap and pretty much be guaranteed a medal in the steeple. The flat events usually (not this year!) are more likely to come down to the vagaries of positioning on the final lap, where even a great athlete might miss out on a medal.