Olympics All Format Spoiler Thread

pblakeney

No_Ta_Doctor said:

That's Teahupo'o, Tahiti, where the Paris Olympics will be holding their event. It's pretty close to Calais, if you're a cabinet minister in charge of red listing Covid countries...

Nazare would be a touch closer. 😉

m.r.m.

Lanterne_Rogue said:

I might not be in luck - I'm about to go and sit in a soggy tent with the family for the next fortnight... Am packing an inflatable SUP though, so at least I can paddle to safety if it gets really out of hand.

"Leave the gun, take the cannoli" "Leave the SUP, take the bike..." 😉

m.r.m.

RichN95. said:

m.r.m. said:

I think the only mixed event that might work in cycling is the team pursuit. That could be rather entertaining to watch with more lead changes and tactics on who takes over at what point.
By and large though, I'm not sure mixed events don't just do the women a disservice on the whole. They are as talented and as professional and yet are put at a disadvantage by their lack of testosterone and muscle mass. The tactics are then essentially planning around the weak links of the team.
The swimming mixed relay was a lot of fun to watch though!

The best tactic for a mixed team pursuit would be for the second best woman to sit up immediately and then the two men do 2000m on the front each and the winner would be the one with the best female pursuiter. I think a mixed madison would end up as a men's points race,

Generally mixed events have a slight feel of someone thinking the way to make women's sport more interesting is to add men, which is wrong. I enjoyed the swimming and triathlon relays though. I'm not sure the mixed TTT in Harrogate worked that well, but that's probably down to everyone knowing the Dutch would win by miles at the start.

You could change the rule, that all 4 must finish (time taken of the fourth rider instead of currently the third).

ddraver

Apologies to the speed climbers and boulderers, but the best bit about climbing by far is the lead wall and... actually the other two can fall by the wayside.

Not so good for our Shauna but...it's the truth....

tailwindhome

kingstongraham said:

pblakeney said:

kingstongraham said:

Skateboarding is like dressage - I can tell it's very skillful and takes a huge amount of dedication and practice. But it's just not spectacular enough to get to the levels of bmx or gymnastics for me to go from uninterested for 3 years to suddenly excited.

The park is a bit more interesting than whatever the thing was with the stairs and bannisters though.

Men's tomorrow morning might be more to your taste.
Women's skating has always been a bit meh.

You're not wrong.

I'd highly recommend watching the whole of the men's park skateboarding final. Was on bbc2 at 9pm.

Incredible stuff. You need to see it in slo mo to appreciate what they are doing before they come back to earth.

The skateboarding has been an absolute joy to watch.

webboo

jimmyjams said:

ddraver said:

I kinda assumed everyone had gone to the US system post Free Solo

webboo said:

The only people who use the UIAA grading system are the Germans, the rest of Europe including the UK use French grades for sport climbing.

I think a lot of central Europe still uses the UIAA grading system, not just German-speaking areas (Germany, Austria, over half of Switzerland, northern Italy) but also places like Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro.
And when I wrote “I've never understood why there isn't a universal system“, I wasn't referring to sport climbing, where I know the French system prevails, rather to mountain/rock-climbing in general.


The UIAA system was once much the same, but nowadays a second grading is often given for a route, based on a scale which considers the length of the route, how secured it is, the quality of the rock and various other factors, like hazards, ease of finding the route, escape options, and the average difficulty of the climb (as opposed to the hardest pitch). So a bit like the British system (addressed above in a post by Lanterne_R yesterday) which with its two gradings tries to indicate both the technical difficulty of the hardest pitch, and also the average difficulty of the whole climb and its degree of exposure.

The reason there isn’t a universal grading system in climbing is because climbers can never agree about grades. Go on any climbing forum and there will be several threads about grades, ideas for new grading systems. I climb with someone who is over 6 foot, I’m 5ft 7” so my 6B moves are different to my mates. Hence the difficulty in getting agreement.
The problem with British system is the technical grade doesn’t work at the top end I.e. above 6C.
That’s why people often use a French grade to describe how sustained something and font grade for how hard the moves are.

poweredbyidris

Not sure I'm ready for the CK - Hangover - Madison mix...

carbonclem

Carlton vs. Rowsell - perfect example of knowledge/professionalism contrast.

neonriver

Total domination by Kenny and Archibald amazing so far

Dorset_Boy

Kenny & Archibald have taken 9 of the 10 sprints so far in the Madison according to the Beeb!

Lanterne_Rogue

Appropriately for the track it's been one way traffic.

Dorset_Boy

33 point lead with just the final sprint to go. Just need to finish for gold!

JimD666

Blimey. That was quite good from the ladies.

Dorset_Boy

Absolutely destroyed the field. 10 or 12 sprints won including the last.
Laura K's 5th gold.

78 points vs Danes in second with 35 points.

ddraver

Awesome. Really happy for both of them.

Didn't get to see a lot but... 🙄

Especially for Katie, don't think she gets the recognition she is due

daniel_b

Stunning performance, not sure I have ever seen such a dominant performance in the madison for men or women, I kept thinking they were going to back off, and save a bit of energy.

pblakeney

daniel_b said:

Stunning performance, not sure I have ever seen such a dominant performance in the madison for men or women, I kept thinking they were going to back off, and save a bit of energy.

Good training run. 😉

Dorset_Boy

Just seen the crash caused by the Aussie girl. seems she was competing for the white stick award along with the TP Dane.

gweeds

They made that look so easy, despite it being anything but.

gweeds

Ha - Laura Kenny saying she'd barely touched the pedals by lap 16 and that they rode really conservatively.

Lanterne_Rogue

gweeds said:

Ha - Laura Kenny saying she'd barely touched the pedals by lap 16 and that they rode really conservatively.

Also adds a big thank you to the U23 lads - apparently they'd been running their tactics against them in training. Certainly seemed to pay off.

TheBigBean

What has happened to baby Kenny? Is he in the Olympic bubble or with someone else? Would imagine it is tough either way.

daniel_b

gweeds said:

Ha - Laura Kenny saying she'd barely touched the pedals by lap 16 and that they rode really conservatively.

Ah I thought she said lap 60 - maybe I misheard?

Love how narrow Kenny's handlebars are :-)

TheBigBean said:

What has happened to baby Kenny? Is he in the Olympic bubble or with someone else? Would imagine it is tough either way.

At home with grandparents I think.

JimD666

TheBigBean said:

What has happened to baby Kenny? Is he in the Olympic bubble or with someone else? Would imagine it is tough either way.

I think he's at an British Cycling training camp.

Or he's with the one of the sets of parents.

No_Ta_Doctor

That was utterly dominant. Incredible. Great silver for the Danes as well, best of the rest is pretty much a gold imo

hamish_mctavish

BBC commentators completely missed that GB gained a lap!

JimD666

Just restarted the Womens Sport Climbing, can't but help have one of the scenes from Men in Black in mind while watching the speed climbing...

Lanterne_Rogue

hamish_mctavish said:

BBC commentators completely missed that GB gained a lap!

What happened to the French with that? I had to pop upstairs and the BBC never mentioned it, so I only knew the Brits (plus others) had done it once the final points table went up.

bobmcstuff

I love the Madison. Watched it at the track champions league thing live, I can only imagine what it's like at a 6 Day. That and the sprint are my favourite bits - obviously the pursuit is good too but it's not quite got the same drama as the madison with the handslings etc.

gweeds

daniel_b said:

gweeds said:

Ha - Laura Kenny saying she'd barely touched the pedals by lap 16 and that they rode really conservatively.

Ah I thought she said lap 60 - maybe I misheard?

Love how narrow Kenny's handlebars are :-)

TheBigBean said:

What has happened to baby Kenny? Is he in the Olympic bubble or with someone else? Would imagine it is tough either way.

At home with grandparents I think.

Actually you are most likely right, I was on the phone at the time and lap 60 would make more sense.