Wrestling Out Of The Olympics - The Gods Must Be Crazy Mad
The whole lucrative sham of it all was exposed once again this week when the executive board of the IOC — Informal Motto: "Me Some Too, Yes?" — recommended that wrestling be dropped as an Olympic sport in the 2020 Summer Games, which are supposed to be held in Istanbul, Tokyo, or Madrid, depending on whose checks clear first, I believe. According to the board, wrestling is no longer a "core sport" in the Olympics and it will have to petition for inclusion in 2020 along with, and I am not making this up, sport climbing and wakeboarding. This is terrific. Why don't we just hold the Olympics in an REI outlet store somewhere?
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posted by the man of twists and turns
on Mar 19, 2013 -
94 comments
Ronda Rousey - the first American woman to medal in
judo at the Summer Olympics - is widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound female MMA fighter in the world. She has won all six of her professional fights - all but one of them in less than a minute - using a trademark armbar that is usually described as
"devastating".
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posted by Egg Shen
on Nov 10, 2012 -
110 comments
A Yarn of Olympic Proportions "Residents of Saltburn, in North Yorkshire, are scratching their heads today after a mysterious 'yarnbomber' wrapped the town's pier with a 50-yard scarf stretching out along the railings.
The impressive garment features woollen athletes competing in various Olympic events, from synchronised swimmers to rowers and cyclists, and has delighted young and old alike as the town discusses the good yarn."
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posted by zizzle
on Aug 13, 2012 -
40 comments
Team Ireland is celebrating its first gold medal at London 2012, thanks to boxer Katie Taylor,
but the Irish also had an unlikely part to play in another, very special Olympic victory on Thursday. Kenyan middle-distance runner
David Rudisha joins
notable alumni from
Saint Patrick's High School, a 500-student boy's school started by Irish missionaries in 1963, in
Iten, a town in Kenya.
Brother Colm O'Connell, though no longer teaching at the school, is still a highly regarded coach in one of the world’s great running capitals. The school
plants a tree in honor of record-making alumni, though some of the more recent alumni are getting shrubs, to save space.
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posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 11, 2012 -
7 comments
Curious about the colored tape athletes[
1,
2,
3] are wearing in the Olympics? Its
Kinesio tape, developed by a Japanese chiropractor and acupuncturist. Practice seems to be running ahead of science:
1 2.
posted by shothotbot
on Aug 10, 2012 -
68 comments
So what has become of the Athens Olympic venue, which cost nearly nine billion Euros?
Most of it is abandoned and covered with weeds and graffiti. And the same thing is happening
in Beijing.
posted by Chocolate Pickle
on Aug 4, 2012 -
67 comments
London Mayor and favourite for next Tory leader Boris Johnson has thrown himself into the Olympic spirit. This doesn't always go
entirely to plan, leaving the blond mop-head hanging around for a while this afternoon. Fortunately, the Internet knows exactly
what to do. From standing start to a country laughing its socks off - there's a #dangleboris hashtag - mere hours have passed.
Will it damage Boris' chances of taking over from the gaffe-prone David Cameron? Probably quite the opposite.
posted by Devonian
on Aug 1, 2012 -
72 comments
The Olympics are never without controversy and 2012 is no different. South Korea's Shin A Lam was held in the throes of perhaps the longest second ever of épée sudden death, as the clock was improperly reset with one full second remaining allowing her opponent to register a hit and
knock her out of gold medal contention. Now the Badminton World Federation has accused four pairs of Olympic doubles players with "
not using one's best efforts to win a match": essentially throwing their games to secure a better draw.
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posted by disillusioned
on Aug 1, 2012 -
156 comments
Here's a nifty realtime Olympic medal tracker that allows you to sort by rank, country, total, gold, silver, and bronze medals. Too obvious for you? There are plenty of alternatives: medals
per capita ; medals by
GDP per capita; number of athletes and billions of dollars GDP
per medal (2008); and a discussion of alternative rankings with a sortable rankings
table. There is also a booming business in predictions that take into account GDP per capita, population size, and other factors:
FT;
BBC.
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posted by googly
on Jul 31, 2012 -
23 comments
NBC is being
heavily criticized for its handling so far of the 2012 Summer Olympics. From delaying the broadcast of the opening ceremonies by four hours (and then having to endure
terrible commentary) while the rest of world watched live, to cutting out a tribute to terror victims everywhere to
not showing Michael Phelps' first medal attempt live (and then spoiling it on a news broadcast before the race actually aired). This is in addition to online viewers
not being able to access live video online unless they have a cable subscription as well as
problems with the actual stream.
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posted by triggerfinger
on Jul 29, 2012 -
301 comments
Finding it hard to get excited about the Olympics? Feel like the broadcasters aren't giving you enough back-story or form guides to the sports you want to watch but haven't seen for 3 years and 51 weeks? You need the
Olympics Prospectus.
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posted by The Ultimate Olympian
on Jul 26, 2012 -
30 comments
There's been a lot of talk about the snarls and snafus preceding this year's games. But even as the training is winding down and the athletes are pouring into the Village, there's still plenty of interesting stuff going at this year's Olympics.
Like, have you heard about
the Olympian without a country? (
He's not the first independent athlete to compete.)
Or that
almost all the US swim team gets themselves ritually tattooed with the Olympic rings?
Or that
a California girl is one of Saudi Arabia's two female competitors?
Or that Caster Semenya (previously
1,
2)
will be South Africa's flag bearer?
Or that Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi
may be the first Olympic athlete to have to worry that a kick from her unborn child may put her out of the medal running?
The Christian Science Monitor has been
highlighting athletes who's struggled to get to the games, including
Behdad Salimi, who'll have to prove he's the strongest man in the world to bear Iran's lone medal hopes,
Hiroshi Hoketsu, who's competing in his third Olympics this go round --- second since he retired from his desk job, and
Gladys Tejeda, who grew up in a family of subsistence farmers in an Andean village so remote she hadn't even heard of the Olympics until her family got a TV --- in 2007. London will be her third marathon.
Of course, there's another class of competitors whose fight to get to the games was a little more literal: This is the first year for women's boxing....
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posted by Diablevert
on Jul 24, 2012 -
66 comments
On Friday, Baron
Sebastian Coe, the conservative politician, former athlete, and Nike board member who
is chair of LOCOG (the London Organizing Committee) for the 2012 games,
ignited a furor
when he said anyone wearing a Pepsi T-shirt is likely to be "booted out" because it would
upset Coca-Cola, who is an official sponsor.
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posted by CheeseDigestsAll
on Jul 21, 2012 -
79 comments
The Advocate
has compiled a list of all of the openly LGBT athletes who will be competing in the 2012 Olympics. Considering that 10,500 competitors will be traveling to London this summer, it's a very short list.
(Warning: gratuitous pagination)
posted by schmod
on Jul 16, 2012 -
32 comments
