Olympics 2024

WADA stripping things from LA sounds on trend. 😉

Peaty's in with a good shout, but Qin, last year's World Champ went faster last year than Peaty has since Tokyo.

I think the men's 4*2 freestyle relay is the only "nailed on" gold for, barring illness, injury and false starts.

Hodgkinson is almost nailed on, but as they don't run in lanes, there's far more that can go wrong than for the swimmers to disrupt tactics e.g. getting boxed in.

Kerr in with a good shout in the 1500m, but Ingebritzen has run a lot faster (3:26.7 this seasons vs Kerr's PB of 3:29.0 in Tokyo final) so it's Ingerbritsen's to lose. I hope it's Kerr, as I can spell his name.

Doubtless there will be mutiple track cycling and rowing golds, just on the law of averages, but I wouldn't want to pin them down to specific events.

That just makes it more meaningless

In terms of professional squash, it is massively dominated by Egyptian players, both mens and womens game. Twenty years ago it was a much broader range of nations represented.

In terms of general participation, I would guess it has dwindled, certainly in the UK. I don't play anymore as there are literallyno courts near me. A decade ago there were at least 4 venues with courts within 20mins. I guess that tells its own story.

As I said above thread, I have a gut feeling Ingerbritsen won't mess up tactically a third time. He reminds me a bit of the 400m runner Sanya Richards. She was far faster than Christine Ohuruogu but kept getting the tactics wrong in major finals. When she finally got it right, she won Olympic gold. I have the feeling Ingerbritsen may do the same in the 1500m. I hope not though.

If you're a 7s or football player and you get knocked out now. Do you stay for the rest of the games?

Cos...that could be an epic fortnight...

All being well and they both make the final Ingerbrigtsen’s only chance is taking the race out hard and ramping the pace up from the front. If Kerr is still there in the last 200m (think he will be) he’ll take him.

Good point, I know Ingerbritsen has no real sprint, so as you say, if Kerr is within sight at the final bend he should have the kick. It could be one of the best events on the track.

That's a bit harsh on SRR. She only really underperformed in 2008 and there's a quite sad medical story behind that.

I think it's more that CO had the ability to get it right when any notionally faster athlete got it wrong in a final, as was the case in 2007 and 2013 when she won the World gold.

I used to play squash, but gave it up when I had chronic lower back pain, not caused by the game, but probably aggravated by it.

I think I'm on top of it now, so could probably play again, but I'm not sure I know that many people who would consider playing, plus it's VERY difficult to play someone of a vastly different level if that makes sense, it becomes a bit of a farce.

It's such a good workout though, and if you've had a tough day you can really take it out on that squash ball.

Love all the variations of the angles, and spin of the walls you can achieve, drop shots, and lobs etc, highly enjoyable game imho, but does take some getting used to.

We still have local courts, but I think the only thing they sometimes re-purpose them for is table tennis, where as mentioned further up, badminton courts can be re-purposed for many other sports, and in theory don't actually need any walls, versus the 4 walls the squash court clearly requires.

I didn't realise the game was in such decline, that's quite a shame if so.

I used to play also, before breaking my ankle (not playing squash). I seem to remember it being relatively expensive, but the main issue is that in a world where sport is fuelled by TV coverage, it's not easy to televise. I think it is for this reason that it has been relegated to being amongst a plethora of minority sports.

Didn't squash acquire one of the highest death rates in sport at one time?

Amongst amateurs it was top of the pile at one point, it even acquired the rather unflattering moniker of 'heart attack alley'. I suspect a lot of cases were probably people with undiagnosed heart conditions. Squash is largely anaerobic with big spikes in effort, so not a good combo with underlying heart conditions.

Fair point, unflattering of me to critique a multiple world and Olympic champion. Also, should have acknowledged that CO got her races spot on when she beat SRR, as you say.