2020 Tokyo Olympic Games - Day Seven (30 July)

[Theatregirl1122]

The US gets disqualified in the 4x100 in athletics a lot because they are not used to racing as a team. Getting disqualified in the 4x400 is really rare as right handovers aren’t as important.

PS : The US is really good at athletics.

I feel like there's a joke here and I'm missing it.

I do know that the US has a history of doing well in athletics (and, er, also a history of having results taken away due to cheating) but I've never gotten into it. It seems completely illogical to like damp racing and not dry racing, but I cannot explain. With summer olympics, I have a specific investment in swimming, gymnastics, and cycling, and then I go looking for weird things.

I've just watched trampoline. The commentators were quite bad at their jobs as they literally never told me anything other than whether the gymnast was in the middle of the trampoline, and also they did not tell me if/how that mattered. At no point did they name any skills or tell me which ones were hard. One time they were like "I don't think she has the difficulty for gold" about one lady.

Apparently trampoline generally involves a lot of complete failures and not getting through your routine, but there was only one in the finals.

 

[Wyliefan]

I don't remember ever seeing trampoline in the Olympics. Now I kind of want to check it out, even with bad commentators.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I don't remember ever seeing trampoline in the Olympics. Now I kind of want to check it out, even with bad commentators.

It was fun to watch, even with bad commentators. For the sake of time, I did only watch the finals, so perhaps they did explain it all in the prelims, but even if they had, I feel like they should assume I'm dumb.

(Although we skating fans hate it when they talk like we are dumb, so.)

 

[ilovepaydays]

The US gets disqualified in the 4x100 in athletics a lot because they are not used to racing as a team. Getting disqualified in the 4x400 is really rare as right handovers aren’t as important.

PS : The US is really good at athletics.

I still don’t get why the 4x400m mixed relay was what was chosen to get added. Shouldn’t it have been an event that actually gets regularly competed? Like the Distance Medley Relay (DMR)? Or cross country?

The 4x400m mixed relay almost never happens - in high school through college.

 

[allezfred]

I still don’t get why the 4x400m mixed relay was what was chosen to get added. Shouldn’t it have been an event that actually gets regularly competed? Like the Distance Medley Relay (DMR)? Or cross country?

The 4x400m mixed relay almost never happens - in high school through college.

Well the mixed relay is now a World Championships event since Doha. Have to start somewhere....

 

[overedge]

I don't remember ever seeing trampoline in the Olympics. Now I kind of want to check it out, even with bad commentators.

If you can find any of the CBC coverage of the women's final on YouTube, that is worth watching. One of the commentators was Kyle Shewfelt (gymnastics floor exercise OGM in 2004) and he had excellent insights on how the scoring works.

 

[Garden Kitty]

Sorry if this is posted somewhere else, I've been swamped this week and still haven't gotten the knack of when events are happening vs, when they're on tv, but I saw on twitter that the US men's epee team (well all but one of them) wore pink face masks in support of victims of sexual abuse (and as a protest of their accused team member).

 

[overedge]

Sorry if this is posted somewhere else, I've been swamped this week and still haven't gotten the knack of when events are happening vs, when they're on tv, but I saw on twitter that the US men's epee team (well all but one of them) wore pink face masks in support of victims of sexual abuse (and as a protest of their accused team member).

I'm guessing that the black-masked dude is the harasser/rapist. Is he competing? I thought he was only there as an alternate.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I'm guessing that the black-masked dude is the harasser/rapist. Is he competing? I thought he was only there as an alternate.

I also thought he was only there as an alternate.

 

[overedge]

I also thought he was only there as an alternate.

I did a bit of digging online, and I couldn't find a clear answer. But it looks like each team is three fencers and an alternate, and each of the three fencers do a series of round-robin individual matches. The alternate attends the tournament in case one of the fencers gets hurt during the round-robin and can't continue.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I did a bit of digging online, and I couldn't find a clear answer. But it looks like each team is three fencers and an alternate, and each of the three fencers do a series of round-robin individual matches. The alternate attends the tournament in case one of the fencers gets hurt during the round-robin and can't continue.

Weird. So I guess they can make substitutions after the event starts, unlike in gymnastics?

 

[skatingguy]

Finally caught up on day one of athletics - women's 100m semis & finals are going to be amazing if the preliminaries were anything to go off - some amazing times & the top athletes looked like they had so much left in the tank as they crossed the line.

 

[overedge]

Weird. So I guess they can make substitutions after the event starts, unlike in gymnastics?

It looks like they can. I came across something (can't find it now, of course) that said the opponents have to be notified at least one round in advance that a substitution is being made. So that sounds like substitutions can be made during the tournament. Also once a fencer is subbed in, they have to complete the entire round-robin - I guess that is to discourage alternates from being subbed in and out for strategic reasons.

 

[Karen-W]

It was fun to watch, even with bad commentators. For the sake of time, I did only watch the finals, so perhaps they did explain it all in the prelims, but even if they had, I feel like they should assume I'm dumb.

(Although we skating fans hate it when they talk like we are dumb, so.)

I watched about half the preliminary round and learned not much more than you. Oh, they basically jump up and down to attain height and "feel" their center on the trampoline and can start their routine any time but if they stop bouncing and re-start then they get a minor penalty.