I dont get the problem.Olympics are awesome, why not just try to enjoy something that’s only every four years. I wish they’d show more than just swimming and gymnastics on TV though.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_new_sport_might_be_introduced_at_London_2012 The 2012 Summer Olympic programme features 26 sports and a total of 39 disciplines. London’s bid featured 28 sports, in line with other recent Summer Olympics, but the IOC voted to drop baseball and softball. The IOC considered new sports of karate, squash, golf, roller sports and rugby sevens, but none received enough votes to reach the required two-thirds majority. [Golf and Rugby sevens will be added in 2016.]
^ What Plantir said.
Anyhow, so with 100M, in running it’s a straight sprint, you train for your top end, but so much of it is often decided off the blocks. At the end, you’re all out but you’re not feeling the strain of burning out. With the 200M in running, it’s more of a top end race. At the olympic level they may not be feeling the burn as much, but at my level, you were definitely fighting to hold your form and your general sh*t together over the last 40 meters. 400M in running is a completely different race. It’s weird because it’s not quite a sprint, but not a distance event either. We always considered it the hardest of the events because if you came out with a 100M sprint you’d be falling apart by the end getting passed by half the field, but if you were much less than 99.5% off the start you’d never win. So you’d train like a mad man and then walk this delicate balance the entire way and sooo much of it was a mental war with yourself and those you were running against whereas 100M feels like it’s all just you and the gun, not much mind games or strategy involved. I always did 100M & 200M. I was competitive in 100M but only ran 200M because my coaches wanted me to, knowing I’d never place well. Totally different training regimine too. With swimming, I feel like these distances and the differences would be accented and multiplied as you’re burning many more calories to go through the water resistance and the races take much longer despite putting in equal effort. So the difference between a 100M and 200M would be magnified to more like that between 100M and 400M in track. Kind of like how the marathon exists in running but not swimming. I’m not going to list gold medalists. Don’t see how it accomplishes anything. I like watching the events.
Cool to hear, I’d still like if they had guest events that were a one off though.
Definitely unsportsmanlike, but what does it tell you about the system if players are doing what they’re doing? Seems like the system is as much to blame as the players themselves. This is pretty stupid, as is the other rule where only the top two athletes from a single country can make it to the individual all-around competition in gymnastics even if a single country has multiple of the world’s top athletes.
So again at the professional level one probably would or wouldn’t feel a difference between 100m and 200m? My guess is wouldn’t. Olympics aren’t for people like you and me, those guys have been training all their lives.
My point is Olympians would not notice a difference between 100m and 200m (swimming or track) which suggests that these events don’t truly test two vastly different skills/abilities and hence don’t need to be separated. Heck just make it 150M and call it a day.
I personally have no problems with the different distances, but the different strokes are ridiculous in my opinion. Just like how nobody wants to see 100m of backwards running, skipping, or power walking, I don’t want to see inferior forms of swimming in a “race”. I think the medal count in swimming is greatly inflated and the same few people seem to keep winning across multiple categories. It takes an absolute freak of nature for a track runner to even compete in more than 4 events (2 relays and 2 individuals), much less getting gold in all of them.
Well, if the same people keep winning different swimming events, that would seem to imply that the categories are similar. The point of different events is to test different “skills” of athletes. If the same person wins everything, it might be because the skills to win each event are all the same.
Yeah, I agree though, swimming medals are inflated because of the different strokes…
And until Phelps, this was unheard of, so it def tests different skills.
It’s only recently with say Phelps and a few others where this has been happening.
^Agree with this. You don’t have a different events for different forms of running, you don’t have a separate high jump for scissors and the flop, so why should different strokes have different events?
Anna Kournikova is the greatest Olympian in my book
have you ever tried to swim the butterfly?!?! lol I’m killer at freestyle, but can’t swim a length doing butterfly
Right, so in 2004, there was no medal overlap (100M and 200M track), in some years like 1992 and 2000 there was only 1 medalist overlap and in years in between there was never more than two. However in those cases, there were freaks like Usain Bolt. I wouldn’t think this indicates there’s “no difference” especially years with no overlap.
Anyhow, like I said, with swimming, it’s even more pronounced.
I have an idea Zero Bonus… How about we let the olympic organizers decide the format for the swimming and their games in general and what constitutes a “different event” and people who’ve admitted to nearly drowning in a 6 ft deep pool because they don’t know how to swim defintely shouldn’t run their mouths like they deserve to have an opinion on the subject shut up and watch something else. Or better yet, get off the couch and learn to swim better than a 6 year old.
People can’t understand what they’ve never attempted. In the era of widgets it’s impossible for people who grow up mezmerized by mass produced carbon copy widgets to appreciate beauty or achievement for the sake of the art. The killer to me is when all these next gen couch potatoes start opining on subjects they’ve no experience with.
Sorry that everyone is not as good and interesting as you, BS.
Someone is getting a little too sensitive…
Since you want to be a jackass, let me explain this to you in simple terms. A PROFESSIONAL (emphasis on professional) swimmer should NOT have an issue swimming 100m vs 200m and hence they should NOT be judged as separate events.
So I guess you have to be a competitive swimmer to opine about swimming? Good to know. This pretty much means 99% of the ‘analysts’ in the world should shut up (including YOU)
Me too, Ohai. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to this horse crap and useless b*tching about shows they don’t have to watch that’re on every 4 years.
Seriously. I don’t air opinions on freaking gymnastics or programming tv remotes, sitting on coaches, or being lame, or whatever it is these people do, because A) it doesn’t effect me and B) I have no knowledge in these areas.
But when the olympics are on, you’d think life would be pretty simple. Elite athletes around the world gave four years of their lives to prepare to perform their disciplines on the world stage. You get tune in and watch it on tv if you’d like for free. If not, you can do whatever else you choose with your time. For two weeks horrible sh*t like that guy in Colorado are replaced on the news by interesting tales of people dedicating their lives to achievement and higher pursuits as well as generally healthy lifestyles. We get to see athletes from many different countries come together. But yet somehow, some people manage to f*ck that seemingly simple concept up and use their bloated overfed mouths to blast off opinions on the structure and athleticism of sports they’ve never attempted or have no background in. Good job.