Put me in the camp that isn't sold on Phelps being the greatest olympian of all time.
My problem with the claim is that there are so many medals awarded in swimming, for numerous strokes and distances. Call him the best Olympic swimmer of all time. It is apples and oranges to call him the greatest Olympic athlete.
My problem with the claim is that there are so many medals awarded in swimming, for numerous strokes and distances. Call him the best Olympic swimmer of all time. It is apples and oranges to call him the greatest Olympic athlete.
No kidding. The only reason why Phelps could have been close to Insane Bolt as the story of the Beijing olympics is because of American propaganda.
No kidding. The only reason why Phelps could have been close to Insane Bolt as the story of the Beijing olympics is because of American propaganda.
Uh I don't think it's just propaganda. Other sprinters have won the 100, 200, and 4x100 in the past, but no one has ever gone perfect (8 for 8) in any sport. And it's not like Phelps barely won his races either, he absolutely decimated the field in most of those events. If anything those two were 1/1a in 2008, but to say Phelps wasn't even close is ludicris.
While track is obviously the biggest individual event at the games, swimming is not that far behind even with the enormous amount of different disciplines in the sport.
Also let's see what Bolt does in London before we put him on the level of the all-time greats.
Last edited by trackercowe; 08-01-2012 at 11:52 AM.
Sorry, having played both sports (amature) and watching the performances of others at high level matches, there is no comparison. Beach volleyball does not come even close to the level of competition as hardcourt volleyball.
Fair enough. I am biased as Martin Reader is a good friend of mine and is competing for Canada at these London Games and I know how much time, energy, work, and personal sacrifice he has spent in the 10 years I have known him in trying to make the Olympics.
But fair enough, you've played both at the "amature" level, so you would know right.
The Following User Says Thank You to flames_fan_down_under For This Useful Post:
South Korean fencer A Lam Shin has been offered “a special medal” after a controversial last-second defeat in the women’s individual epee semi-final on Monday.
The International Fencing Federation announced on Tuesday that the medal will be for “aspiration to win and respect for the rules.”
Korean Olympic Committee president Park Yung-sung confirmed on Tuesday that Shin has been offered a consolation prize, but Shin reportedly refuses to accept it.
“It does not make me feel better because it's not an Olympic medal,” Shin told The Guardian. “I don't accept the result because I believe it was a mistake.”
Good for her.
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Uh I don't think it's just propaganda. Other sprinters have won the 100, 200, and 4x100 in the past, but no one has ever gone perfect (8 for 8) in any sport. And it's not like Phelps barely won his races either, he absolutely decimated the field in most of those events. If anything those two were 1/1a in 2008, but to say Phelps wasn't even close is ludicris.
While track is obviously the biggest individual event at the games, swimming is not that far behind even with the enormous amount of different disciplines in the sport.
Also let's see what Bolt does in London before we put him on the level of the all-time greats.
It wasn't that Bolt just won the 100 and 200 but it was how he won it and with those times! that was mind boggling!
I had this argument before. but the world records in the pool were falling left and right due to the new technologies in the pool, but the there were barely any world records on the track. Bolt's times were insane! Insane Bolt!
I know we were talking about this in yesterdays GDT, but CBC is officially in for 2014 and 2016, and they're flying solo...
Quote:
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has been awarded the broadcast rights to the next two Olympic Games, weeks after rival private network and lead broadcaster for the London Games, Bell Media, backed out of a partnership between the two.
In a release, the International Olympic Committee confirmed that the country’s public broadcaster will bring to viewers the Winter Games from Sochi, Russia two years from now and again during the Rio 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Brazil.
Bell Media (then CTVglobemedia Inc.) paired with Rogers Communications Inc. to pay $153-million for rights to the 2010 event in Vancouver and the London Summer Games. But with an unprofitable Games in 2010 and London expected to again generate a loss, Rogers backed out of the bidding for 2014 and 2016 last year.
Bell partnered with the CBC shortly after the consortium was ended. But with two separate bids rejected by the IOC, Bell said in June it was not proceeding with another offer.
With more than 5,550 hours of programming dedicated to the London Games, which are being streamed live online, on television and made available to some wireless customers, Bell Media and Rogers are setting the bar high for the CBC, which said in a release it will build on the 2012 experience.
“We’ve promised Canadians signature events on all our platforms that create opportunities to connect with each other and the country,” Hubert Lacroix, president of CBC/Radio-Canada said
The CBC has the longest running history with the Games among Canadian broadcasters, having delivered the sports spectacle on 19 previous occasions, the last being the 2008 Games from Beijing. Bell, which has formed its new media unit around the CTV network which was bought last year, partnered with Rogers in 2005 to outbid the public broadcaster for the 2010 and 2012 Games.
My problem with the claim is that there are so many medals awarded in swimming, for numerous strokes and distances. Call him the best Olympic swimmer of all time. It is apples and oranges to call him the greatest Olympic athlete.
in fact how can you legitimately declare anybody the greatest Olympic athelete at all, no matter how good they are at their sport. There's 400 events in 35 sports and they're all so insanely different, how can you make the argument that one individual is better than everyone else who ever participated in the history of the Games.
how much work goes into being a decathlete, all for one measly medal every 4 years. I can easily call Phelps the greatest human to ever jump into water and wave his limbs around, but no way am I going to try to measure that against all the other sports on land.
Not sure if this has been discussed, but 8 badminton players were kicked out of the Olympics for trying to lose their matches. Good on them. CTV has the last few minutes of the match, and you can hear an official telling both teams that they are at the Olympics to play hard, and that both teams will be disqualified.
Canada women doubles team advanced to the playoff round because of the disqualifications. The played Australia (who also advanced because of the disqualifications) in the quarterfinals and won! Now they play the Japanese in the semi-finals. The odds of winning a medal is probably 1 in a 100, but if they did, it would be like Miracle on Ice x 100
Not watching too much of the Olympics but what I've been hearing so far is a lot of negativity from low attendance to doping allegations to throwing matches. ie. typical Olympics????
Not watching too much of the Olympics but what I've been hearing so far is a lot of negativity from low attendance to doping allegations to throwing matches. ie. typical Olympics????
I don't know. All the events I have seen on TV the stands have been packed. Granted I have been watching beach volleyball, rowing, swimming, and diving, and those are all premier olympic events.
I figured I would post this here as opposed to the daily thread, but synchro diving (well synchro anything to be honest) should be removed from the games. The normal diving was fine and to me there were/are enough medals awarded there. Do we really need to see whether the divers can mirror each other though? Seems so pointless.
Anyway, glad that Canada picked up a couple of medals I suppose...even if it is a pretty lame and unnecessary event.
I kind of think that getting rid of unsynchronized diving might be better. Synchronization kind of adds a degree of difficulty.
Having said that, the whole sport seems like a bit of a sham to me due to the judging system. One of the dives this morning got both a 4.0 and an 8.0 for execution... and those were the scores that were kept! If it's that subjective, what's the point?
Not watching too much of the Olympics but what I've been hearing so far is a lot of negativity from low attendance to doping allegations to throwing matches. ie. typical Olympics????
Pretty hard to evaluate this early. It's always a matter of sort of evaluating the great moments against the negativity, and this Olympics certainly hasn't had its defining moments yet.
As far as the controversies, good on officials stepping up and tossing all of the match-throwing badminton players, but the failure to act reasonably with the timing error in fencing was pretty bad.
Is CBC gonna add 2 HD channels in the regular cable tiers in two years? Rent airtime from other channels? Because otherwise I don't see how they can match Bell's coverage alone, nevermind Bell/Rogers/CBC coverage.
Which is worse-cheating with using steriods or throwing games?
There was a debate on the team 1260 on which is worse of the two scenarios? I personally think the steriod use is worse because it is universally unlawful. Throwing games is a poor choice of a strategy. Especially in the Olympics, fair play and playing to your potential is essential to the integrity of the game.
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Is CBC gonna add 2 HD channels in the regular cable tiers in two years? Rent airtime from other channels? Because otherwise I don't see how they can match Bell's coverage alone, nevermind Bell/Rogers/CBC coverage.
If they could provide amazing online coverage, at least to me it won't matter how many channels they have.
