2016 Rio Olympics: August 4th - 21st

Not daft for certain TV markets though...

Funnily enough Americans have to put up with delayed coverage from NBC, who apparently don't understand the innate appeal of live sport.

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Not that mad, when you look at the populations and the regimes. Imagine, say, how powerful India would be if they were a wealthy capitalist power on the level of the US or had a history of totalitarian government like Russia/China.

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Pretty impressive sport, the men's shot weighs over seven kilos and the record is over 23 metres. Women's record isn't far behind (albeit the list has a bit of an iron curtain theme) but their shot is a few kilos lighter.

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Lol. I meant 1984.


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It's probably the only thing at the Olympics where an ordinary person off the street could train for it and become good though.

Like the womens world record for it is 22.6m and Jessica Ennis who is 9 stone and 5ft 5 managed to throw it 14.8m as her record best.

The technique is probably easier than the vast majority of other sports and then it just comes down to strength.

If you look at the people who compete in it too, it's mostly all people whos parents were athletes or who actually did the shot put too. Not a sport that many people seem to try, wonder how the likes of Brock Lesnar or that big guy off Game of Thrones strongest in the world type would do at it with a few weeks training, they've probably never attempted it before but with the strength of them should be good.

The woman who won the gold medal for it the other day has a normal job as a hair stylist I think it was and she didnt look especially strong or anything. There must be bigger stronger women out there who could train for it and beat her.

 

But I did go to a tiny school not known for athletics, and I said that in my post. My school is less than 1/3 the size of St. Andrews. That most athletes coming from the American university system doesn't negate how impressive it is that this girl won a medal. We don't exactly groom world class athletes like Ohio State and Michigan. So * up and take your worthless opinion elsewhere.

 

Someone said that if female medals didn't count then GB would beat the USA at almost all Olympic games, wonder if it's true or not.

 

She may have a day job out of competition but when they're in a competition cycle they devote themselves fully to training and spend months upon months away from home. Valerie Adams for example trains full-time in Switzerland. It's not purely strength either, a lot comes down to solid technique, the angle the shot leaves at plays a huge part in determining how far it will go. I'd argue it's a tougher sport than say discus or the hammer throw, which have less of an athletic component to them.

It would take years to mould some average person off the street with the right natural physique into a competitive shot putter. I've seen footage of Tom Walsh training, that guy is a beast in the gym.

Do certain body types naturally succeed in it? Sure, but that's not unique in track and field. If you're white, for example, you're never going to be an Olympic 100m champion unless you're Christophe Lemaitre and all of your rivals go down with a gastro bug on the night before the final.

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If swimming were taken out of the Olympics they'd be *.

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Calm down.

Rowing isn't athletics, presumably she trained in a rowing programme of some description.

I wasn't trying to downplay it or anything, it would just be more impressive if it were a single sculler like Gevvie Stone.



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Rowing is most certainly part of athletics at American schools, there aren't special programs unless it's Ivy League typically. Not sure how you can speak from a high horse when you evidently know * all

 

Did she train in a rowing program there, yes or no? She would've had to have trained somewhere to get into the national team.

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She was on the rowing team, as a part of the university athletics system. Our athletics system is pathetic because we are such a small school that nobody goes to for athletics, and the rowing team was nothing special within that either. That's why her accomplishment is so impressive. It's not at all negated just because she went to an American school, like you first suggested.

 

So did you pump her or not?

 

Naw, she left before I got there. What could have been... (this is all lies, I'm happily engaged :icon_mrgreen

 

Indeed, she wouldn't have achieved this anyway, what with you dragging her away from training to look at the stars from Lookout Point :icon_mrgreen:

 

I'll call her up and tell her she owes it all to me :smiley-laughing002:

 

The definition of athletics must be pretty different in your country, here it relates solely to track, field and road running. Rowing is seen as a water sport.

Perhaps the word is more a catchall substitute for 'sports' overall.

When you said small university I still thought of a school bigger than most in this part of the world, everything bigger in America and all that. Plus the US has a large intercollegiate rowing system, with title ix mandating equal opportunities, scholarships etc, so even smaller colleges can still have solid enough programs. I read that the schools have tried to balance out the number of football scholarships with rowing being a big beneficiary.

I presume you're talking about the Colgate girl? The rest come from the likes of Brown, Stanford and Purdue.

Still, the NCAA system will always be the envy of the rest of the world, it produces athletes at a rate other countries could only dream of, with the exception perhaps of China and their Spartan approach.