Field Theory: Long Weekend
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Swimming at the Olympics needs a serious scythe taken to it. A ridiculous number of medals, and a ridiculous number of relays.
If Phelps was from NZ he would only win 5 Golds.
BTW RB; you’re encouraging Stephen Jones by reading his articles again. You know he likes that. -
michael phelps? meh.
who was the african distance runner who won gold for 4 olympics straight?
It's usually hard to be better than someone non-existent :-)
Well, I suppose Carl Lewis is African in some sense. And the long jump involves distance, and you have to run too. Close enough!
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One of the most impressive bits so far was the Romanian marathon runner who went miles in front halfway through. 'Cos she'd done all that work on her own I really wanted her to win - the pictures as she ran toward the stadium made it seem like she was about to be ran down any minute. Plus she had a running style that made it look like she'd be faster sideways than in a straight line.
But yeah, Saturday night was rilly exciting. Mahe looked like he'd just done one of those O-week jugskull / eat a pie races, didn't he? And stalking fans - here's me with the Evers-Swindells who I 'met' through work (embarrassing poster has been pixelated, that doesn't mean I photoshopped myself in). The chaps among you might be interested to know they are *gorgeous*, along with being really nice and good at rowing and that.
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BTW RB; you’re encouraging Stephen Jones by reading his articles again. You know he likes that.
I still haven't worked out whether the Stephen Jones who wanted to friend me on Facebook was for real ...
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So how did we all cope with the early-morning schedule clashes?
I watched the All Blacks and had Valerie streaming live on the laptop. The frame-rate dropped markedly when the shot-put started, but it was viable, which is quite cool.
Although I've found the most reliable way to view TVNZ's streams is to not do it in a web browser. I tend to grab the .asx URL for the stream out of the page source, then open that in QuickTime (with the Flip4Mac components installed). I assume Windows Media Player would do it just as well.
Then later on I flicked over for the 100m in HD and then had to rewind the PVR to see Carter's try after switching back to Sky.
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Swimming at the Olympics needs a serious scythe taken to it. A ridiculous number of medals, and a ridiculous number of relays.
Yes, and what's with all the different styles? I'm sure that Bolt would probably win the 100 metres starjumping too, but he's not given that option.
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The chaps among you might be interested to know they are *gorgeous*, along with being really nice and good at rowing and that.
They seem to glow with healthy young womanhood. I remember a British backpacker once holding forth to me on New Zealand girls on the trail, to the effect of:
"You drag yourself up some historic mountain in the blazing sunshine and you get up the top and you're absolutely shattered -- and there are two New Zealand girls there relaxing and having a beer!"
Like that.
Looking at the Herald's front page with them, Valerie and Hayden Roulston, I was struck with the way they all looked like good sorts. Valerie is a dude (in a strictly non-gendered sense of the word) and Roulston looks like a naughty boy.
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michael phelps? meh.
who was the african distance runner who won gold for 4 olympics straight? in a field where you could probably only win two medals in a games?
*that's* a great athlete.
Mr Tibby, Ladies and Gentlemen, for your pleasure and amazement, allow me to present to you, Sir Steven Redgrave.
Five golds in five consecutive olympiads.
Now, that's a great athlete.
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Five golds in five consecutive olympiads.
Now, that's a great athlete.
Aw yeah, but he had help ;-)
Lasse Viren's 5k-10k double at two successive Olympics is another prodigious achievement.
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Swimming at the Olympics needs a serious scythe taken to it. A ridiculous number of medals, and a ridiculous number of relays.
If Phelps was from NZ he would only win 5 Golds.
I do find it slightly ridiculous that _sixteen_ other people were involved in helping Phelps win three of those medals, and yet you won't hear any of them mentioned. Now, if you want a real Olympian, I vote for the female cyclist who went from a silver medal in rowing in the last Olympics to a gold in cycling at this one. That's real diversity of talent.
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I suppose Carl Lewis is African in some sense.
nah, i meant one of those kenyan or ethiopian blokes. the name has completely escaped me, but i'm suspicious it was selasse?
but yes. mr redgrave is also a top athlete. mr phelps is a great athlete who needs to keep it together for at least another 12(?) years...
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I reckon Bolt would be pretty useful at the running backwards race, the 50 metre sprint and be next to unbeatable in the running sideways-while-bashing-chest races.
RB, you didn’t reply to Stephen Jones’s Facebook invitation then?
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Now, if you want a real Olympian, I vote for the female cyclist who went from a silver medal in rowing in the last Olympics to a gold in cycling at this one. That's real diversity of talent.
Diversity?
How about Christa Luding-Rothenburger - medallist in cycling and speed-skating.
Or Edward Eagan 1920 light heavyweight boxing gold medalist, who also won the four-man blobsled in 1932 (the only Summer/Winter dual *gold* medallist).
Or anyone who finishes the decathlon? Or the Modern Pentathlon? Now that requires a generallist!
And in New Zealand, but not for completely Olympian endeavours, you can't go past Yvette Williams/Corlett. There was the Olympic gold (and world record), but also gold at the Empire Games two years later - in the shot put and discus as well. And a silver in the javelin. And made the final of the 80m(?) hurdles. And represented New Zealand at basketball...
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Great Olympians ?
Try these:
But my favourite remains Daley Thompson 10 events, one gold, he managed it twice.....
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__I suppose Carl Lewis is African in some sense.__
nah, i meant one of those kenyan or ethiopian blokes. the name has completely escaped me, but i'm suspicious it was selasse?
And I meant that no such person existed :-)
Haile Gebrselassie won the 10,000m at the 1996 and 2000 games.
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Now, that's a great athlete.
Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia, won the marathon at the 1960 olympics with no shoes.
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Lasse Viren's 5k-10k double at two successive Olympics is another prodigious achievement.
The accusation of 'blood doping' always hung over Viren.
Blood doping is believed to have entered sport in the 1970s but was not made illegal until 1986. Before then it was in vogue among middle-and long-distance runners, notably the Finn Lasse Viren, winner of the 5,000m and 10,000m in the Munich and Montreal Olympics, and was also used by the US cycling team in the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Blood doping was made redundant in the late 1980s with the arrival on the market of a synthetic version of the hormone erythropoietin, the infamous EPO, which stimulates the bone marrow to produce red cells.
Still Arthur Lydiard's methods were adopted by the Finns so perhaps we can take some remotely reflected glory there? But then again Lydiard was forced offshore by an obdurate administration here so I guess that's cancelled out.
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They seem to glow with healthy young womanhood.
And even their commercial pimpage for red meat is done with a little more grace and dignity that your average sports endorsement. Still, I wonder how much disappointment there was in the press pack that Maehe Drysdale's chest didn't explode Alien-style... Seriously, folks, back the fuck up...
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Or anyone who finishes the decathlon? Or the Modern Pentathlon? Now that requires a generallist!
You are entirely right. (I'm not sure that "modern" is still the right epithet for an event designed to mimick the skills required of a cavalry soldier, though.)
Also, I now know that one-hit epee is practiced at international levels (in the modern pentathlon.) That is frickin' awesome.
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I'm not sure that "modern" is still the right epithet for an event designed to mimick the skills required of a cavalry soldier, though.
If I was more of a nerd (or less) I'd be making some sort of joke about post-modernism here.
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perhaps we can take some remotely reflected glory there?
my favourite bit of reflected glory recently must be the snippet of report on radio nzl this morning.
apparently we as the most glorious sporting nation on earth have a link to phelps.
he visited here once.
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apparently we as the most glorious sporting nation on earth have a link to phelps.
he visited here once.
Hey, twice. Clearly, he owes it all to us:
Phelps, who yesterday won his eighth gold medal at the Olympic pool, visited Dunedin last year to test the LZR Racer, the full body Speedo swimsuit, he used to win many of his medals in Beijing, at Otago University's water flume.
The flume, one of only six in the world, allows scientists to see how the movement of water past a swimmer is affected by the suit he or she is wearing.Phelps also visited Dunedin in 2003 to train with Duncan Laing, the coach who guided New Zealand's greatest swimmer Danyon Loader, to two Olympic gold and one Olympic silver medal.
"We were there doing some suit testing at one of the flumes," Phelps said when asked at a press conference, about last year' s visit which was shrouded in secrecy.
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Phelps also visited Dunedin in 2003 to train with Duncan Laing
"train".
be he actually just went on the shotover jet and jumped the bungy.
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Nooooooo... they're recyicling the cycling pursuit commentator for the triathlon.
Cue drinking game: you take a little sip every time the guy says protocol or physiology; the prize is a guaranteed trip to A&E.
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So if Phelps was here in 2003, the year before he managed the reasonably useful tally of 6 Golds at Athens, why have the likes of Saville (“So Michael, when are you coming to NZ next?”) only just cottoned onto this now?
But hey; we’re making up for lost time...
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