OT: Olympics.

[Penrose Warrior]

I actually feel sorry for Raygun, people are saying she killed breaking as an Olympic sport when that decision was actually made well before the games kicked off.

That wouldn't be true, but she's certainly done nothing for breaking as a sport in general. Sponsors won't be as keen to get involved in a sport that was a laughing stock across the world.

Eric the Eel, I reckon, would be received well. They give exemption spots to minor nations in a number of sports, where it doesn't ruin the spectacle of the other people in the race. This was the case in the 100m, one women's athlete ran a 16sec (?) 100m (or 14, I forget) because her nation got a spot, she was a marathon runner but they entered her in the 100m instead. Eric was nothing like Ray Gun, who was from a major nation, an absolute disgrace, and they had to have hundreds of people better than her who could've done the event some service.

Our canoe kayak team or whatever they were, that was a joke, too. You can get it away with it when your Equatorial Guinea and it's a big thing to have people at the Olympics, but us sending two guys who got smoked by 100s of metres in a 500m race, is painful and a waste of money.

 

[Beavers Headgear]

That wouldn't be true, but she's certainly done nothing for breaking as a sport in general. Sponsors won't be as keen to get involved in a sport that was a laughing stock across the world.

Eric the Eel, I reckon, would be received well. They give exemption spots to minor nations in a number of sports, where it doesn't ruin the spectacle of the other people in the race. This was the case in the 100m, one women's athlete ran a 16sec (?) 100m (or 14, I forget) because her nation got a spot, she was a marathon runner but they entered her in the 100m instead. Eric was nothing like Ray Gun, who was from a major nation, an absolute disgrace, and they had to have hundreds of people better than her who could've done the event some service.

Our canoe kayak team or whatever they were, that was a joke, too. You can get it away with it when your Equatorial Guinea and it's a big thing to have people at the Olympics, but us sending two guys who got smoked by 100s of metres in a 500m race, is painful and a waste of money.

Apparently in some weird rule, those 2 guys had to participate in that race so we could have a K4 team

 

[Penrose Warrior]

Apparently in some weird rule, those 2 guys had to participate in that race so we could have a K4 team

Yeah, I did hear that. To me, if you don't qualify under your own steam, don't go. The K4 500 team that qualified came 8th and last in the final - Canoe Racing NZ can argue that's a positive given they made a final, but when you consider we also bank-rolled that S storm in the C2, it doesn't strike me as a win.

 

[Big Marn]

Shout out to Lydia who has followed up her Olympic Gold by winning her 3rd major at the British Open this morning. Legend.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

That wouldn't be true, but she's certainly done nothing for breaking as a sport in general. Sponsors won't be as keen to get involved in a sport that was a laughing stock across the world.

Eric the Eel, I reckon, would be received well. They give exemption spots to minor nations in a number of sports, where it doesn't ruin the spectacle of the other people in the race. This was the case in the 100m, one women's athlete ran a 16sec (?) 100m (or 14, I forget) because her nation got a spot, she was a marathon runner but they entered her in the 100m instead. Eric was nothing like Ray Gun, who was from a major nation, an absolute disgrace, and they had to have hundreds of people better than her who could've done the event some service.

Our canoe kayak team or whatever they were, that was a joke, too. You can get it away with it when your Equatorial Guinea and it's a big thing to have people at the Olympics, but us sending two guys who got smoked by 100s of metres in a 500m race, is painful and a waste of money.

Agree on Eric the Eel. Re Raygun and our canoe duo, rather than blame the athletes, I blame flawed selection processes for both of those situations. Raygun won her place by winning a single competition with something like 25 entrants. That’s an absurdly low bar for Olympic qualification. If the state of competition in Australasian breaking was so low then an international qualifying result should’ve been necessary to get an Olympic place.
Eddie the Eagle was a different situation again- large hill ski jumping as a discipline had a pretty high entry bar to be able to do it at all without killing yourself, so outside of the countries where it’s practiced competitively I think it’s essentially the case that if you can safely stick the landing you’re in. That said I’m not really a fan of what he did either, it overshadowed the guys who were actually good at it.

 

[Meth]

Agree on Eric the Eel. Re Raygun and our canoe duo, rather than blame the athletes, I blame flawed selection processes for both of those situations. Raygun won her place by winning a single competition with something like 25 entrants. That’s an absurdly low bar for Olympic qualification.

I blame the Olympics for admitting an absurd "sport" into the games.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

I blame the Olympics for admitting an absurd "sport" into the games.

Yeah that too. It was a misguided and lame play for youth appeal.