Predicting the Summer Olympics (sort of)

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Except that it wasn't an easy prediction. The race between Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Femke Bol was one of the most anticipated moments of Paris 2024. Bol having a complete off day (and actually still earning bronze) and McLaughlin shattering the world record was neither a given.

Sydney has run three times faster than Bol's personal best. Bol did have an off day, but even her best day would've left her well short of Sydney. The race was hyped because both were famous, legendary athletes, but it would've been a pretty big upset if Bol won.

[sovereignstar v2]

I just randomly found out that the Dutch allowed a convicted child rapist to participate in their beach volleyball team. He was 22, she was 12. Fucking disgusting

Van de Velde, who is now 29, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to raping the British girl. He had flown to England to meet her in 2014 with full knowledge of her age, having met her on Facebook.

When he was sentenced Judge Sheridan told him: “Prior to coming to this country you were training as a potential Olympian. Your hopes of representing your country now lie as a shattered dream.” The court heard that his victim had self-harmed and taken an overdose.

Van de Velde served 12 months in a British prison, before being transferred to his home country where he was released after a further month. He has since gone on to play internationally for the Netherlands.

Dutch beach volleyball player who raped child breaks silence over Olympics | Paris Olympic Games 2024 | The Guardian

[MIJB#19]

Impressive, Sov, you're like only 4 weeks behind on the hypemedia who were in turn only 8 years late on the news. Do better research on the matter, with a source that did check the facts, and when you have some time on your hands, go back to school to learn math.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

Sydney has run three times faster than Bol's personal best. Bol did have an off day, but even her best day would've left her well short of Sydney. The race was hyped because both were famous, legendary athletes, but it would've been a pretty big upset if Bol won.

I'm not disputing that McLaughlin was the favorite. I am disputing that shattering the world record that shortly after having been out of competition for 20 months is by no means something that should be considered as an easy prediction. That's disrespectful to her, or any athlete who ever breaks a world record, especially after such a long time away.

Similarly, Bol had been undefeated at the world level in the 400m hurdles during McLaughlin's absence. This race had the right amount of hype and fell flat on McLaughlin's amazing start where McLaughlin made Bol blow herself up and McLaughlin herself set new boundaries of her own abilities, running 1.76 seconds faster than she did 2 days earlier and taking 0.28 seconds off her previously set record.

[sovereignstar v2]

There he is.

[sovereignstar v2]

He was *only* 19 everyone when he raped that 12-year old three times

Get with it, sov!

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

I'm not disputing that McLaughlin was the favorite. I am disputing that shattering the world record that shortly after having been out of competition for 20 months is by no means something that should be considered as an easy prediction. That's disrespectful to her, or any athlete who ever breaks a world record, especially after such a long time away.

Similarly, Bol had been undefeated at the world level in the 400m hurdles during McLaughlin's absence. This race had the right amount of hype and fell flat on McLaughlin's amazing start where McLaughlin made Bol blow herself up and McLaughlin herself set new boundaries of her own abilities, running 1.76 seconds faster than she did 2 days earlier and taking 0.28 seconds off her previously set record.

I never said it was an easy prediction for her to shatter the world record. I said it was easy to predict she would bear Bol. She didn't have to break the world record to do that.

Sydney wasn't out of competition for 20 months. She had just broken her own WR in the 400 hurdles less than 40 days earlier at the Olympic trials.

In June, she won a flat 400m race at the USATF NYC Grand Prix with a time that was then the 2nd fastest of the year, and the 3rd fastest ever for an American.

In May, she decided to run a 200m and beat Gabby Thomas head to head.

I have nothing against the media hyping it up because of the star power of the two people involved, but they definitely made it seem like a much closer matchup than it really was given all of the available evidence.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

He was *only* 19 everyone when he raped that 12-year old three times

Get with it, sov!

Look, I'm not going to defend whatever he did. I'm even calling it a bad decision by the Dutch legal system they trimmed down the sentence from 4 years to 1 year because of different laws between the UK and the Netherlands. By the letter of the law, he did the time in jail. Then he picked up his life like we demand from people after they do their time. For 8 years the hype media didn't jump on it, they all waited for the 2024 Olympics to crawl from under their rocks and dig up old stories just to sell news papers or whatever reasons they have. Even their opponents were attacked by those media for being willing to compete against him, as if they should act like Iranian judoka who calls in sick when he has to battle an Israeli. What's the point of bringing up old stuff and not letting the victim and convict try to go on with their lives 10 years after the fact?

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

I never said it was an easy prediction for her to shatter the world record. I said it was easy to predict she would bear Bol. She didn't have to break the world record to do that.

Sydney wasn't out of competition for 20 months. She had just broken her own WR in the 400 hurdles less than 40 days earlier at the Olympic trials.

In June, she won a flat 400m race at the USATF NYC Grand Prix with a time that was then the 2nd fastest of the year, and the 3rd fastest ever for an American.

In May, she decided to run a 200m and beat Gabby Thomas head to head.

I have nothing against the media hyping it up because of the star power of the two people involved, but they definitely made it seem like a much closer matchup than it really was given all of the available evidence.

McLaughlin didn't run a 400m hurdles for 20 months until the Olympic trials. My point continues to be: we're selling her or any other athlete short when we see them return and immediately perform at their highest level ever in their lifetime and act like it was as expected. It requires hard work and dedication to get there, especially in athletics.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Extraordinary. Mondo Duplantis breaks the world record. Amazing.

He's done it again! The record is now 6.26m or 20.53806 feet. The funny part is he won the competition by "only" jumping 6.00 meters (19.685 feet). He then immediately had the bar raised to the new world record height and making it on his second attempt.

Watching Jakob Ingebrigtsen break the world record in the 3000 meters brought me to what may be a controversial opinion. Times that are accomplished in races with rabbits should be viewed in the same way wind aided times are viewed in the sprint races, long jump and triple jumps and should not be registered as a record.

[JPhillips]

Seems like unless the rules change and the pole gets longer that we're pretty close to the human max in pole vault.

[CrimsonFox]

[miami_fan]

I can't say I thought about it too deeply but I would have thought it would have been harder to swim without legs compared to swimming without arms. The swimming events at the Paralympics seem to indicate that is not the case.

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I can't say I thought about it too deeply but I would have thought it would have been harder to swim without legs compared to swimming without arms. The swimming events at the Paralympics seem to indicate that is not the case.

I watched a backstroke event yesterday where a Brazilian who had neither just absolutely crushed his competition. It was pretty impressive!

[Ghost Econ]

I assume I'm going to hell because my first thought was, how does he get out of the pool?

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Ghost Econ

I assume I'm going to hell because my first thought was, how does he get out of the pool?

Fair question. Who encouraged the armless/legless kid to swim in the first place?

He got INTO the pool by leaning backwards with a towel clenched in his teeth, releasing it on the starting signal. I have no idea how I also ended up watching that yesterday, but it was super impressive.