What I Learned From Watching Every Sport At The Tokyo Olympics

August 14, 2021 6:35 AM

[H]ere's the problem and the shocking discovery: Each of these sports is the best sport in the Olympics. Some are the most beautiful, some are the most surprising, some have the most tremendous life lessons lurking just under the surface, and some are simply stunning examples of people who do extraordinarily hard things almost unimaginably well. I cried at some, I smiled at most, and I learned a lot. So here they are, from Archery to Wrestling: all the best sports in the Olympics. [Mefi's own Linda Holmes on All Things Considered]
posted by ellieBOA (31 comments total)

There is a 3 minute podcast version link in the article.
posted by ellieBOA at 6:36 AM on August 14, 2021

The account of fencing is utterly delightful, which is unusual (I am a seriously competitive fencer and everyone gets everything wrong always when they write about it). I loved that she liked the mask lights and that she watched women's sabre.
posted by Peach at 6:52 AM on August 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

Had me at “Monster Energy (the drink, not the quality)”
posted by q*ben at 8:12 AM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have very little interest in any sports, and have seen such a small amount of Olympic footage in my lifetime... this was a surprising read. It was fun, but also felt earnest; I felt like she believed what she was saying and it made me actually want to watch the events.
Thanks for sharing this.
posted by Laura in Canada at 8:30 AM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

The possibility of seeing a weightlifting injury is exactly why I refuse to watch weightlifting.
posted by emmling at 8:32 AM on August 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

I have always found the idea of being an air pistol athlete attractive despite never having fired an air pistol. Something about the quixoticism and lack of cardio just seems ideal, also not very loud.
posted by Pembquist at 9:04 AM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

It was an Olympian effort to find a way to enjoy shooting, but she did it.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:22 AM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

The possibility of seeing a weightlifting injury is exactly why I refuse to watch weightlifting.

Even when there is no injury you occasionally get to see blood shooting out of someone’s nostrils.
posted by slkinsey at 9:24 AM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

Even when there is no injury you occasionally get to see blood shooting out of someone’s nostrils.

Not sure if weightlifting or me coping with the NPR style that requires inherently interesting things at the fore of dramatic human endeavor and international culture to be framed thusly:

"Each of these sports is the best sport in the Olympics."

looks like the gold medal for inanity is still a lock.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:36 AM on August 14, 2021 [4 favorites]

Skateboarding: ...How can a sport where you wipe out and still excel not be the best sport? How is that not like life?

Skateboarding veers into Werner Herzog territory once again.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:40 AM on August 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

This was great, and encapsulates a lot of what I love about the Olympics - watching people be unbelievably great at something incredibly difficult that they've worked really, really hard at is brilliant.

Also "mid-century modern quadrathlon" is an A+ fantastic gag.
posted by parm at 9:59 AM on August 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

When I tried to watch sabre fencing, I wound up spending about half an hour on Wikipedia trying to understand "right of way."

This is a good reason to watch épée. Rules? The target is anywhere on your opponent's body. Who cares about right of way, attack however and whenever you like. Hit them with the pointy end.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:48 AM on August 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

I like Saber for the "Just hit them with your sword" aspect. And the men's foil I think, might have been epee, was all just one lunging twisty stab. Very little actual parrying or anything but twitch.
posted by Windopaene at 12:24 PM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

It was an Olympian effort to find a way to enjoy shooting, but she did it.

I shoot clays (occasionally trap, more often sporting clays or five stand) and the skeet and trap competitions were so exciting to watch. These are competitions where, even at the amateur level, missing a shot is such a huge deal. I've done a couple sporting clays competitions and thought I did pretty well with a score of 65/100... Only to find the top half of the pack all did 95 or above. It's brutal!

If you want to get an idea of what kind of skills you need, take your heaviest cast iron pan and hold it straight out at arms length for twenty minutes. Then try to write your name in the neatest block lettering you can.
posted by backseatpilot at 2:33 PM on August 14, 2021 [8 favorites]

I only saw the finals in table tennis, and I agree about the pep talks, but not because of "...the most intense energy I've ever seen focused on a small flat area...", but because here are two (or 4) people, the best in the world, and they still lose about half of the points. The mental toughness required in all these sports is the most amazing part of this.
posted by MtDewd at 3:50 PM on August 14, 2021

looks like the gold medal for inanity is still a lock.

Ha! I thought it would be clear that this was entirely tongue in cheek. Apparently not. But you shouldn’t blame NPR; I am literally the only person there who would write this.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 5:01 PM on August 14, 2021 [44 favorites]

Sport climbing is so much fun to watch, particularly the bouldering discipline, as a combination of problem solving, patience, and persistence as much as sheer athleticism.

In bouldering, as in the other sport climbing disciplines, all the athletes collaborate for a few minutes before the event begins, gazing up at the walls and analyzing the various problems they will soon attempt to solve individually. In some cases this collaboration may reinforce a sort of groupthink during the competition, causing the majority to fail on a particular problem because there’s a move they’ve misjudged. During the event, as each takes their turn while the others remain in isolation backstage, perhaps only one or two will be able to figure out what they’ve been doing wrong.

In most cases, though, it’s more a matter of who can fail the fewest times before ultimately reaching the top. Occasionally there’s a climber who seems to just preternaturally be able to read a route and do it in one attempt (‘flashing’). This is a thrilling thing to witness.

It’s also fascinating to see how a diverse group of people can bring differing skillsets and abilities to bear on a problem and each achieve good results. Even though the route-setters may envision a ‘correct’ way to solve a problem, there’s ultimately no one right way to do it.
posted by theory at 5:30 PM on August 14, 2021 [7 favorites]

Even when there is no injury you occasionally get to see blood shooting out of someone’s nostrils.

I like watching the weightlifting, for no particular reason. It's interesting to see the women in the lightest weight class, these fairly petite women with intense, outsized neck and shoulder muscles.

After a lift, the coach always greets the athlete with a pat and a towel to wipe their forehead and put around their shoulders. At first I was like, they were only competing for 30 seconds! Why do they need a towel around their shoulders? And then I remembered, oh, right, weightlifting.
posted by Melismata at 5:42 PM on August 14, 2021

I was expecting something completely different....but this was hilarious. And yet it was also respectful and all kinds of uplifting. Best piece I've read on the Olympics.
posted by storybored at 7:24 PM on August 14, 2021

I’m still not quite sure why this was the year people enjoyed dressage, but I’m really happy that people are enjoying dressage.
posted by sepviva at 8:12 PM on August 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

I did not know a thing like Marathon Swimming even existed until I happened to stumble across it a week or so ago. Constant swimming in a lake for almost two hours straight. It was oddly compelling stuff.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:04 PM on August 14, 2021 [4 favorites]

I’m still not quite sure why this was the year people enjoyed dressage, but I’m really happy that people are enjoying dressage.

Dressage was the punch line in a commercial running during the olympics. I can’t recall what the product being sold was. They called it “horse dancing” and “magnificent.”
posted by Thorzdad at 9:10 PM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I think this article captures the totally different way it has been possible to interact with the olympics since the raw event streams went up on broadcaster websites. You can watch pretty much every event with either no commentary or some very laid back English language commentary from someone in the Commonwealth.

If you combine watching these raw event feeds with stalking a few athletes who are good at social media to see the unhinged reactions their fans leave on Tiktok you get a really nice sweet and sour combo.
posted by zymil at 9:48 PM on August 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I admit to watching the diving in the secret hope one of the competitors does a deliberate belly flop, drenching everyone close to the poolside, just as we did at school.
posted by Wordshore at 10:14 PM on August 14, 2021

But you shouldn’t blame NPR

Bless you for this (and a thousand apologies) but it did strike me as extremely NPR.

(Said as someone entirely ready for a longboat thread on the semiotics of ATC and TAL as reified cultural forms.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:13 AM on August 15, 2021

Edited the post to add mefi’s own, hi Linda!
posted by ellieBOA at 1:53 AM on August 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

I do find it odd how a sport I wouldn't cross the road to watch can captivate me at the olympics. I watched a fair amount of random stuff this year, though not as much as I watched in the 1992 games when I had the luxury of being on the dole throughout. Highlights this year were both BMX disciplines, the bouldering and whatever the third climbing discipline is, less so on the speed climbing, I think because they make it look too easy so it's less intriguing. I missed the skate park but the skate street discipline I found a bit meh, just not able to see the tricks well on tv. Also the Dutch rider who led after the two free runs seemed to totally disappear for the trick section.

I have to say some of the camera choices at Tokyo were crap. I watched the men's triathlon for 2 hours only for them to switch to a shot of a feeding station just as the eventual winner made his break. There were quite a few similar incidences on the road, track and in the velodrome.

Thing I learned: "technical elements" of the triathlon means going round corners on the bike.
posted by biffa at 2:37 AM on August 15, 2021

This was a fun article and brightened my day!
posted by Harald74 at 3:36 AM on August 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Ok, in the spirit of this article on the mystifying aspects of some of the sports: I don't understand the cycling pursuit event. They have two riders go REALLY slowly, one looking over the shoulder at the other, and then at some point they take off. What up with that?
posted by storybored at 8:21 AM on August 15, 2021

@storyboard: The event you've described is the sprint. The pursuit is when they start on opposite sides of the track and try to beat the other team to a specified distance.

They go really slowly at the start of the sprint as there's a significant advantage to being second, both tactically and mechanically, when the time comes to do the really fast bit. By going super slowly, they're trying to force their opponent to come to the front.
posted by Faff at 11:40 PM on August 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: the quixoticism and lack of cardio just seems ideal
posted by eckeric at 8:42 AM on August 16, 2021