Olympics Tokyo 2021 - sport | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
  • IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.

Olympics Tokyo 2021 - sport

Ridley

Tiger Legend
Jul 21, 2003
17,755
15,433
What a fantastic effort by Nicola McDermott. Silver medal and breaks the Australian record jumping 2.02. Desperately unlucky not to clear 2.04 with last jump as well..

Great stuff Nicola.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users

22nd Man

Tiger Legend
Aug 29, 2011
9,185
3,597
Essex Heights
Aussie Matisse ha ha.
Bit of distant linkage but at least he got the passport before he was any good at BB.
In one sense the team was very much a reflection of the nation, full indigenous, a born kiwi, Sudanese refugee, dual citizens, country kids , city ones.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users

Ridley

Tiger Legend
Jul 21, 2003
17,755
15,433
What about the Boomers! That is true grit. They were devastated after that USA game so to come back and beat a very good Slovenia, who has one of the best players in the world, is a sensational effort. Not too mention dealing with the demons of the 2019 World Championships and Rio 2016. This is a great team in the true sense of he word. I don’t know if Ben Simmons would get what these blokes have.

We should probably give more credit to this achievement. Basketball is probably the second biggest global team sport, only behind soccer. And we are consistently in the top 5 or 6 teams in the world. Not bad for our little land down under.

Patty Mills. What a star. What a humble champion. In my time watching this sport he is up there with Andrew Gaze as our greatest Boomers player. The emotion he showed in that interview was amazing. And just on Gazey, he may be a bit of a clown and a doofus but I like him. The emotion he displayed reminded me of Richo in 2017. Gazey was a champion of Australian basketball and gave his all; to see him so emotional was fantastic. Not to mention his dad is also a huge part of the reason Australian basketball punches above it’s weight.

And to top it off Aussie Matisse had a magnificent put back jam to give us our final points of the game. Great stuff.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 6 users

spook

Kick the f*ckin' goal
Jun 18, 2007
21,912
26,417
Melbourne
Fantastic Boomers! Mills, what a star. Ingles was huge. Thybulle, Exum, the whole team.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4 users

MD Jazz

Don't understand football? Talk to the hand.
Feb 3, 2017
13,329
13,709
Lindsay Gaze probably the happiest man in the country. Not many individuals have contributed as much as he has to one sport. Maybe none.
You know at 86 or 87 he still runs Monday night basketball at MSAC? He rings you when your fees are late! And the number you call to advise of a forfeit etc is his home number? What a legend.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: 1 users

tigerman

It's Tiger Time
Mar 17, 2003
24,150
19,618
What a fantastic Australian Dylan Alcott is. It was inspiring to him talking to Gazey and Maher on Shinya. He spoke beautifully, and gave great encouragement to all disabled people who might be struggling with their disability.

I dips me lid Dylan.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users

Redford

Tiger Legend
Dec 18, 2002
34,360
26,207
Tel Aviv
Fantastic run by Kipchoge running that time in those conditions. Thought Cherono looked good for a long time but just withered. You know it’s tough when guys like Desisa and Kipruto DNF and Stephen Kiprotich pulls out after 12klms.

**** channel 7. Fancy switching from Mate to 7 halfway through. Geez they’re a *smile* broadcaster.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users

Ridley

Tiger Legend
Jul 21, 2003
17,755
15,433
Just on Nicola McDermott, she has genuine claims to a gold medal. It is an absolute joke that Russian athletes are allowed to compete at these games, clean or not.

The IOC is farcical.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users

CarnTheTiges

This is a REAL tiger
Mar 8, 2004
25,348
11,173
Victoria
Just on Nicola McDermott, she has genuine claims to a gold medal. It is an absolute joke that Russian athletes are allowed to compete at these games, clean or not.

The IOC is farcical.
They can compete, but it should be as individuals, not as part of a team, and even then only when it has been proved that they receive no assistance from Russia.
 

Panthera Tigris

Tiger Champion
Apr 27, 2010
3,705
1,729
I enjoyed this reply and all your expert knowledge on Aths. Have always appreciated your thoughtful AFL football posts for that matter too. But getting back to Stewie. Yes, to win a medal, let alone a gold in a key Olympic track event, is incredibly difficult, especially in this era of drug 'temptation'. (And the Kenyans certainly aren't exempt from that. When you can make a fortune in terms of a poor country. Interesting to hear Cheruiyot not qualifying at home due to a hamstring issue recently but headed to Europe and made a remarkable recovery then selected!}

I wonder whether Stewie's incredible high pace over great distance would have made him more potent in the 5000?
Cheers for the cudos Leon. Not an expert, but a keen observer and student of the running game :). I think once my children are all grown up and I am an old lonely empty nester, I'll probably get back into coaching more heavily, as I was in my pre-children years. And hopefully take some athletes through to higher levels. But for now I coach 2-3 young blokes just to keep my hand in it and keep my interest and my knowledge current.

I think you are absolutely right from a purely physiological perspective, Stewy perhaps may find his peak distance develops at 5000m. Or maybe he is one of these unfortunate blokes who finds his absolute peak is 3000m. I say unfortunate, because while 3000m is a very popular distance for juniors and at European grand prix meets, unfortunately it's not a championship distance unless you want to go over the steeples. He did qualify for the Olympics in every distance from 1500m to 10000m. So shows you they type of versatile talent he is. But he chose to race the 1500m in Tokyo though, because his ranking was the highest in that event.

An inconvenient truth, that people try not to acknowledge, which goes against him in those longer races. The longer the events get on the track, the larger the apparent genetic comparative advantage the East Africans seem to have. So while he may outperform the rest of the world more over 5000m than 1500m. There will always be that group of East Africans that prove too good for the rest over 5000m+.

And it's not that all East Africans can run, that is complete misconception. It's that select ethnic groups have unique, random genetic variance that shows up prominently among them. The Kalenjin people are an ethic/tribal group of people that produce pretty much all of Kenya's runners, it's not like they come from across the entire population. And the Ugandans who have only recently risen to prominence are all from a small sub-tribe of the same people, but that sub-tribe is an even smaller portion of the Ugandan population than their cousins are in Kenya. It's not so much the folklore that these people all ran miles to school, live at altitude etc (some do, some don't). These things help, but there are plenty of people around the world living in similar circumstances. Recent studies come down to the unique structure and bio-mechanics of their legs and how efficiently they work. Efficiency obviously then becomes a greater advantage the more steps being taken in a race. This of course doesn't explain the prominence of the Ethiopians (and their Eritrean cousins over the border), but there is something tangible going on that isn't just lifestyle related.

And this of course brings us back to the middle distance races like the 1500m. There is no dominant group of people in this event group. Probably the most diverse, evenly matched of any of the track events, with people from every corner of the earth all dueling it out when you watched the fields being introduced over the past two nights. The Men's 1500m in Rio was won by an American of Polish background. Last night a Norwegian won in one of the fastest times seen for many years, with Britain making a big resurgence in this event that they have such a proud history in. So while the super East African athletes will always be in the mix, the comparative advantage of their unique bio-mechanics is not as great in this event group.

I think the race played out fairly similarly to how I predicted it in that last reply. However one major piece I got wrong - Jakob Ingebrigtsen. He did front run alongside Stewy and won from the front. Remember I said that only happens when you have an athlete clearly better than everyone else at the peak of their powers? Perhaps a world record holder several seconds better than everyone else. Sure we don't quite have anyone in that category yet, but perhaps that is the path Ingebrigtsen is on. He ran one of the fastest times in years, front running in an Olympic final at the age of 21. I knew he was among the favourites to win it, but didn't think he'd quite dominate it like that. So I slightly underestimated him. If Stewy was ever going to win an Olympic medal, that race was set up perfectly from him. Which is why at the function I was at last night, there seemed some disappointment for him as he crossed the line. Someone pointed out that it was a bizarre mood in the room that we were disappointed for him finishing 7th in an Olympic final, in an event Australia hasn't even had a finalist in for many years - an incredible result that no one dreamed of until the last year. And a race he was really competitive in, too, not just making up the numbers. But I think it came down the fact that it was a very rare chance of the stars aligning - him in the form he was in and a championship race playing out exactly to his strengths, meaning a very rare chance had slipped out of his hands in the last 200m.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users

eZyT

Tiger Legend
Jun 28, 2019
21,434
25,772
did anyone see the footage of

'the German coach punching the horse'. that triggered global outrage and had her immediately kicked out of the olympics?

you could hit a baby mosquito that hard, and it would fly off happy.

she tapped the rump of a 600kg animal twice.

I'm no dressage fan, or advocate. its just give rich people a chance to call themselves Olympians.

its broadly crap.

But the outrage over that is a joke.

I clicked on the video after reading the story, even with warnings of 'contains cruelty to animals' warning,

expecting to see someone slugging a horse in the nose repeatedly.

I thought it was a spoof or a joke???
 

Ridley

Tiger Legend
Jul 21, 2003
17,755
15,433
Good job Tokyo. Thumbs up.
Yep it has been a great games. Wasn’t that fussed about it beforehand but must say I can’t recall enjoying an Olympics so much.

I guess it helps that the Aussies did so well and we always seem to be in lockdown with *smile* all else to do.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users

Baloo

Delisted Free Agent
Nov 8, 2005
44,113
18,923
Yep it has been a great games. Wasn’t that fussed about it beforehand but must say I can’t recall enjoying an Olympics so much.

I guess it helps that the Aussies did so well and we always seem to be in lockdown with *smile* all else to do.

Yeah, spot on. Couldn't have summed it up betetr.
 

artball

labels are for canned food
Jul 30, 2013
6,889
6,302
Eliud Kipchoge is an all time great. There's not many of them.
He is one. You must put him alongside the greats of all sport.
Mind-blowing form and shape in that run today.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users

22nd Man

Tiger Legend
Aug 29, 2011
9,185
3,597
Essex Heights
You know at 86 or 87 he still runs Monday night basketball at MSAC? He rings you when your fees are late! And the number you call to advise of a forfeit etc is his home number? What a legend.
I didn't. Cannot imagine him using Team Ap! Amazing, staying involved with grassroots when he could have put his feet up twenTy years ago, legend.
Early 80s had to walk past Lindsay at 45 playing in the A grade comp with some of his Melb Tigers he coached in state league as I wandered down to my lowly court at the back. I peaked inB grade so never played against him.
When I played under age, Often saw his son shooting around on the practice rings, little did we know the boy would become a legend too.